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defaultyrs80uzkvunk
New Participant
February 13, 2023

Unable to import FLA files into Ae

  • February 13, 2023
  • 26 replies
  • 7934 views

Hi, I'm using Ae version 23.2 and Animate version 23.0.1 (which I believe are the latest versions) however I am unable to import .FLA files into Ae. This appears to be a known issue in previous versions going back to threads in 2020 - surprised it's still an issue with the latest versions. In any case, can anyone help? 

 

I have restarted my machine and also uninstalled / reinstalled both apps. Same error which reads as follows 

 

'An error occured while importing this file. Please try again.'

 

Ae tries to import the .FLA file for around 30 seconds before bringing up a box with this error message every time. (I've attached a screen shot).

 

Please help 😉 

    26 replies

    Show previous replies
    JohnColombo17100380
    Community Manager
    JohnColombo17100380Community Manager
    Community Manager
    February 24, 2023

    Hi all, 

    Thank you for reporting this issue. We have opened a ticket to investigate this breakage in the .FLA import workflow. Once a fix is available to try in the Beta builds, we will update this thread.

     

    Thanks again,

    - John, After Effects Engineering Team 

    P
    Peter0909
    New Participant
    February 28, 2023

    When i try to import my Animate 2023 file on to After Effects 2023 it just says 'An error ocurred'... It used to work before. What happened? What can I do?

    JohnColombo17100380
    Community Manager
    JohnColombo17100380Community Manager
    Community Manager
    February 28, 2023

    Hi @Peter0909,

    Thank you for reporting this issue. Our team is aware of this breakage and we are investigating a fix. I'll be merging your reporting into the existing thread we have tracking this issue.

     

    Thanks again,

    - John, After Effects Engineering Team 

    A
    Audun28569451c2k7
    New Participant
    February 24, 2023

    Hi!

    I work in my own animation studio and we are currently developing a shortfilm. We are very dependant on the feature which allows us to import an animate file into After Effects with all it's layers seperated.

    When we import the FLA. file into AE, it first shows a 'Not Responding' message, before giving the error message. We've tried going to older versions and they either give the same error or say we don't have an updated version of animate (Which we do, but this project was fixable before with updating to the newest version of after effects).

     

    We need help on this immidietly. We pay alot for these progams and expect them to work, especially when it depends on our produciton flow inside our studio. Anyone know how to fix this?

      J
      JQizzle
      Participating Frequently
      February 20, 2023

      If helpful for anyone else who runs into this issue - I found this utility called Timelord that helped me get around it. Frankly, I'm always a little leery adding third party tools to my process - but in this case it actually offers a bit more flexibility than the .fla import Adobe is (supposedly) offering out of the box: https://www.battleaxe.co/timelord

      It's not free, but was well worth it for me to not have to expot swfs one piece at a time for my needs.

      esresrs
      esresrs
      New Participant
      February 20, 2023

      ..and in 23.2 I now get this error instead 'Animate is required to import a .fla file' when I have two versions of Animate installed. Amazing, thanks Adobe.. as if the first error wasn't enough to have to work around.

      J
      JQizzle
      Participating Frequently
      February 18, 2023

      No, sorry. I have many projects where I've imported Adobe Animate source  (.fla) directly into After Effects to do additional animation. As of the last version of AE v22 and Animate v22 - this worked. But now, even when I attempt to roll back to previous versions - it won't. 

      In the most recent version of AE and Animate the error message is:
      An error occurred while importing this file. Please try again.

      After attempting to install the former version of AE and Animate, the error message is:
      Adobe Animate is required to import a .fla file. To download it, go to https://creative.adobe.com/apps 

      This despite the fact that Animate is of course installed. I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling both apps. Didn't work. Plus I'm having the same issue on two different machines. While I did all my trouble shooting on a 2019 Intel Mac Book Pro running Monterey 12.5.1 I've just confirmed the same issue (with the most up to date Adobe software) on another machine - a 2021 M1Max running Ventura 13.1.

      Obviously this is a huge time sensitive problem for me or I wouldn't be here. I'm chasing my tail trying to find a workaround.

        R
        Community Expert
        Rick GerardCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        February 13, 2023

        Flash is past the end of life. It was December 2020. I don't believe FLA files were ever supported. You should still be able to import SWF, FLV, and F4V files. Check the Supported File Types Help page.

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