After Effects locked up in rainbow spinning wheel when I open it

I installed the new After Effects update. Now every time I open the software, After Effects is locked up with that rainbow spinning wheel for over 5 minutes or so, then it goes away. But it takes a really long time for that spinning wheel to go away. This isn't normal. So I tried uninstalling and reinstalling from scratch (and i chose to NOT migrate settings from 18.2) and the issue persists.  Real quick I want to note the system I'm on: macOS Big Sur Version 11.4 (iMac Retina 5k, 27-inch, 2020), Memory 64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4.

I tried getting help from a chat agent (Ismrati). They had me try a myriad of things and nothing worked. Here's what they had me try:

• They had me uninstall and reinstall from the Adobe Creative Cloud App. Then I quit out of AE, came back in. The issue persisted.
• They had me go to /library/applicationsupport/Adobe/common/Plug-ins/7.0/MediaCore and drag the 7.0 folder to the desktop (and then delete it from the path I just listed). Then I quit out of AE, came back in. The issue persisted.
• They had me go to /Library/Application Support/Adobe/After Effects and rename the After Effects folder "After Effects old". Then I quit out of AE, came back in. The issue persisted.

When they couldnt find a solution I asked for this case to be escalated to a senior engineer. They said they would call me in 24-48 hours but refused to give me a case number on the spot. They claim I would receive an email with the case number so I sat and waited for a while and it didnt come. I asked them to stay on the chat with me until I received the email but they refused to.

Is anyone else having this problem?