Severe performance degradation & memory issues in AE 2025 & 2026

Hi everyone,

I’m writing to bring attention to ongoing, severe performance issues in After Effects starting from the 2025 releases. As a paying Creative Cloud subscriber, the current state of the software has severely impacted my workflow and daily productivity. I cannot work anymore smoothly with the latest AE versions.

The Key Issues:

• Memory & Resource Spikes: Rapid, unexplained RAM/disk usage leading to lag and full app freezes.

• Preview & Timeline Lag: Severe slowdowns during simple composition playback and UI interaction compared to previous versions (e.g., AE 2024).

• System Instability: Frequent crashes and memory leak behaviors even when standard troubleshooting steps are taken (purging media cache, resetting preferences, allocation adjustments).

• Sudden File Incompatibility (MP4 & MOV): Files that worked fine previously—especially standard .mp4 and .mov containers—are suddenly throwing errors, failing to import, or displaying as unsupported/corrupted media without any logic.

I have reached a point where paying for a software subscription that requires rolling back to older versions just to remain functional is completely unreasonable. We are paying full price for tools that should be production-ready.

Questions for the Community & Adobe Team:

1. Are other users facing these exact file import errors and performance bottlenecks on recent builds? Please upvote or reply with your specs so Adobe sees the scale of this.

2. Is there a known fix or timeline for the MP4/MOV codec/importer bug?

3. How can paying users request a billing credit or partial refund for the months this software has been unviable for professional work?

I hope we can get clear answers and actual fixes from the development team soon.

I appreciate each reply from other ADOBE users facing the same problems.

ADOBE WHAT IS GOING ON?

Thanks in advance

Alba