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colinbrain
Participating Frequently
December 14, 2023
Question

After Effects is completely broken for me

  • December 14, 2023
  • 8 replies
  • 565 views

Hi there, I'm having a tough time completing a project because After Effects is completely broken for me. The footage I'm using keeps going black, jumping around to random frames, changing the orientation of the footage, and muting the audio.

 

I've restarted the computer, cleared my cache, turned off hardware acceleration decoding, and done a fresh install of the latest After Effects. I've tried transcoding my footage file to a different format to make sure that it's not to blame. I've tried proxies, I've converted the video to just audio to try to get around the muting issues and it nothing helps. The preview of the audio track on the timeline has huge random gaps in it for absolutely no reason.

After Effects 2024 v24.1.0 (Build 78)

Windows 10

It's a super simple project with background footage + a layed comp on top of it. The comp doesn't seem to be affected by these issues, just the video footage. I've tried mp4, mov and AVI.

 

This is very frustrating because I literally can't do my work like this. Any ideas?

Also, I can't share my project file because it's sensitive/confidential, unfortunately.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    8 replies

    nishu_kush
    Community Manager
    nishu_kushCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    April 3, 2024

    I'll move your post to the Discussions board while we await your information.

     

    Thanks,
    Nishu

    Nishu
    P
    Community Manager
    Paul UuCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    December 15, 2023

    You can just copy/paste the log file text into a reply.

      M
      markoconnell
      Known Participant
      December 15, 2023

      Maybe a hardware problem. Maybe corrupt files.

        C
        colinbrainAuthor
        Participating Frequently
        December 14, 2023

        I just loaded the file on my other older, less powerful computer and I had no issues at all. Could there be a problem with my CPU/GPU not playing nice with AE? I don't understand why the other one wouldn't have any issues, I accessed the exact same files over my NAS.

        C
        colinbrainAuthor
        Participating Frequently
        December 14, 2023

        Unfortunately I was able to overcome the visual issues with the PNG Sequence but the audio is still unreliable and displaying with many gaps, and inconsistencies.

        Also, I did the logging file, but I'm not sure how to attach it to my message here...

         

        I've had various issues with unstable footage over the years.
        My cache is not in the default location.

        I disabled multi-frame rendering and it persists.

        Any audio I drag in displays and plays back with random gaps. I've tried WAVs and MP3s, and I've tried different, random files.
        I have 3rd party effects but none are applied on this footage, and I disabled them to test if they were responsible... no difference.

        No scripts or extensions are being used in this project.

         

        Pretty frustrating...

          M
          markoconnell
          Known Participant
          December 14, 2023

          What happens if you begin again with a new project?

            C
            colinbrainAuthor
            Participating Frequently
            December 14, 2023

            Hi Paul, thanks for the response.

             

            I converted the video into a PNG Sequence and that seemed to fix the issues I was having. I'm not sure exactly what was wrong with that footage, but it seemed to throw AE completely out of whack when used in a timeline. I think it was encoded with H264. I'll report back if I have the same issues I had after rendering (muting audio).

              P
              Community Manager
              Paul UuCommunity Manager
              Community Manager
              December 14, 2023

              First off, it would be helpful for us to get a logging file from you that might perhaps give us a clue as to what's occuring on your system:

              You can enable the logging via Help > Enable Logging. Once you've completed the necessary restart, peform all the tasks that seem to be causing you the issue. Then quit and relaunch AE. Go back to Help, this time select Reveal Logging File.

              Send us the .txt files found in the "logs" folder of the After Effects preferences. They should be named "After Effects Log.txt" and "After Effects Log-last.txt".

              Also:
              Is this an issue new to 24.1 or is it occurring across versions?
              Is your Cache in the default location or somewhere else?
              Do these issues occur if you disable the "Enable multi-frame rendering" preference?
              Is it specific to just this particular footage, or is it occuring with any footage file you place in an AE Comp?
              Are any 3rd party effects applied?
              Are you running any 3rd party scripts or extensions?

              Thx!

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