After Effects preview broken/refusing to play

Question

I just rendered a composition of mine, and going back on the project it now refuses to play, and shows me just a grey screen (see below).

When I move across the timeline it shows a black screen instead

I tried restarting AE, restarting my computer, but those didn't work

I tried previewing other projects and they worked just fine

Also, when I try and close after effects while on this broken composition, after effects freezes and i have to force quit.

I'm on an M1 chip Macbook Pro, 16GB memory, Sequoia 15.6.1

Screenshot 2025-12-31 at 14.59.20.png

^ When scrolling through the timeline

Screenshot 2025-12-31 at 14.59.08.png

^ When idle

nishu_kush · Answer

That's not ideal.

What version of After Effects are you using? Is it happening with all the projects? Can you try clearing media cache (Edit > All Memory & Disk Cache)?

Let me know if that works.

Thanks,
Nishu

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