Crashing on project open with latest beta (v22.0.0 Build 60) - suspect due to long image sequence

OK my problem is way, way more fundamental - when I make a new project in the AE beta, add any kind of art (NEF sequence, EXR sequence, even a single PNG) then try to view it, it crashes the app.

OK the plot thickens - 

-I did the delete prefs trick of holding down Shift-Option-Command at launch and clicking OK to deleting prefs, then re-setting all my preferences manually

-doing more tests, this time in the Build 60 beta, importing a 341 frame long NEF sequence - CRASHES - it imports, then as soon as it draws a preview frame, it crashes

-so the problem is NOT long sequences, the problem is long NEF sequences - or is it?

-more testing:

-imported an EXR sequence, and it also crashed. I'm going to uninstall, delete prefs, and re-install and see if that fixes anything.

I have done a lot of these kinds of timelapse projects and I always render them in sections. Sounds like you are adding images to existing image sequences or image sequences to esxisting comps to increase their length. I think that is a very bad idea for several reasons. You have to render things you have already rendered before again. Editing, even editing image sequences in Premiere Pro is always faster than trying to edit in After Effects. The only reason to ever have more than one shot in an AE comp is that you need to do a transition between two shots (not two frames but two shots) that cannot be done in an NLE. 

If your final movie going to be one shot that lasts for hours I would still break up the shot into sections, render them, then combine them in Premiere Pro for delivery.

I have another suggestion, which won't help you with the current render. Because your images are RAW files from a Nikon camera they are probably bigger than your AE comp size. They may be bigger by a bunch. Rather than import as a Raw sequence in AE, do your camera raw adjustments on import, resize, then possibly color correct again, try exporting the image sequence from Lightroom after a Preset has been applied to the images and size them to match AE.

Another suggestion. Premiere Pro will import import image sequences and you can use Lightroom or Bridge to convert your RAW images into a PSD or 32bit TIFF file sized appropriately and render your movie out of Premiere Pro. The rendering will be at least twice as fast as using After Effects because of the way AE processes pixels one at a time.

I worked in a year and a half long project in a when AE was a baby. My son, a guide, the director and I packed in on horses laden with motion control gear and a big camera to the back country on the east side of Glacer National Park every two weeks. We shot a motion control timelapse with one frame every 30 seconds following the sun from sunrise to sunset while panning the camera. The camera location was set the previous year and we poured concrete markers with bolts installed so we could position the camera accurately for every trip. Eventually all of the time lapse sequences were combined in a five minute movie that started showing the eastern view as the sun rose and the snow melted, the wild flowers blommed, the aspen trees grew leaves, then by the time the camera was pointing south and the sun whas high in the sky the summer started to fade, the leaves turned and the snow fell as we reached the west view and the sun set. Into that shot final shot we somposited a live action shot of Bart the Bear meandering through a greenscreen stage so the final shot had a bear walking from east to west as the snow melted and the wild flowers blommed to sunset as the winter snow snow fell. Every image sequence was processed and rendered as soon as we got back. The 20 or so rendered movies were combined in a single project so we could dissolve between the season changes. That final rendered movie was used as the background source for the composite with Bart. The project would have been nearly impossible to do if we had tried to combine everything into one composite at one time. 

Yeah, I think the length of the image sequence is the problem - I started a brand new project in the beta (Build 60), imported the super long image sequence, and immediate crash. Bummer. I'm going to split the sequence into 2 pieces and rebuild a bunch of stuff and hope I don't goof it up with all the splits, edits, and motion tracking.

THE LESSON HERE SEEMS TO BE: IMAGE SEQUENCES WITH SIDECAR DATA CAN'T EXCEED 16,384 FRAMES LONG.

Just did a test - I deleted the long, single image sequence from the project, Saved As, launched the beta, opened the project and...same problem - it crashed on opening the project. 

Hmm. So there's now a number of shorter TIFF & EXR sequences in the project, but not one super long image sequence. So that's isn't the (sole) problem.

Hmm. Now I'm stumped, thinking I could work in the shipping version, Save As after deleting the suspected overly long image sequence, open that new version in the beta and render out using multi-frame rendering. But no go.

So I'm back to thinking the problem IS with the new beta, that it is breaking something that worked in prior versions of the beta...that I can't get back to. Sigh - I shoulda tested before I updated both machines. Been so good up to now...