Inspiring

Question

Massive memory leak in After Effects 2022 causes system instability & lockups

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
January 30, 2022
25 replies
29246 views

Latest versions of After Effects 2022 and 2021 are causing system instability, using up 58GB of RAM and then freezing the entire computer even when the software is just idling in the background. There is a huge memory leak that no one is able to discover and "turning off multi frame rendering" does nothing to help the issue.

But I found a fix! I reverted to 2020 and now everything is working perfectly again. It's the exact same old after effects experience: slow, laggy, no real-time playback, except its 100 times better because it doesnt crash my entire system after 2 minutes of use.

Just a quick note, you have to directly contact Adobe using the support "Chat" to ask them to give you an installer file for AdobeAfterEffects17AllTrial and AdobeMediaEncoder14AllTrial and youll need AdobePremierePro14AllTrial if you want to be able to use dynamic link between Premiere still.

Have fun everyone! Maybe Adobe will one day fix the software we pay hundreds of pounds for yearly... I doubt it but who knows. Until then, ill just run software written two years ago.

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BluegiantArt

Participating Frequently

I have 2023 and I am getting this issue everytime I try to work. Even testing with one, 30s mp4 and no adjustments. I have 64GB, I have purged caches, I have cache frames when idle off, I have started in safe mode and have no third party plugins running, I have no other apps running, my cache points to an HDD drive with more space than my cache allocation of 200GB - YET, I watch my RAM usage climb to over 50Gb till suddenly AE gives me an error that says it could not allocate some tiny bit of mem like 5mb and then it crashes. I have looked in CC for the old 2020 version but seems they only offer back to 2022 now? Though I don't know that I want that old of a version in the first place. What the heck is happening!?

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Ulysses Oliveira

Inspiring

I'm also dealing with the same problem as you. After so long time without solving this issue, Adobe should allow AE users to download previous versions (e.g., 2021). Also, this problem has at least two threads. The other one is here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-discussions/low-memory-warning-in-after-effects-23-0-2023/m-p/13970606/page/13#M233719.

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Kenneth249355342b7l

Participant

I still have this issue, also tried the beta version, same problem, when i open a project itll for example use up 12gb of ram when previewing it, then i open another project, that one will add 20gb ram on top of it, i do this until it maxes out my 64gb ram and then it just crashes.. this used to not be like this, esp in simple projects, in the CC app where it lets u choose other versions i cannot go lower than cc 22, so i guess ill hit up support about an older version?
This does not happen on my laptop which runs the same up to date version, my laptop is intel, my new pc ryzen..

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M Yudha

Participant

I don't know why most people do not notice this. first, you can just clear the cache from the purge menu, but in this case, you had to do it all the time :(. and the main problem for all of the people in this thread problem is the " Cache frame when idle " feature, this feature is in AE since the 2022 version, and in the 2023 version, we don't have the button to just fkin disable it! if only we had that button we will all be saved, it is a small feature issue but causing a big ram leak problem, as long as the frame caching it will eat up all our ram, as big as we have!

we need After Effects competitors!

Warren Heaton

Community Expert

Cache Frames When Idle isn't a RAM leak. It's using RAM.

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Ulysses Oliveira

Inspiring

Sorry pal, but if AE doesn't have a serious problem of memory leak, the concept of "memory leak" needs to be redefined. I have been monitoring the behavior of EA through Windows 10 Task Manager and I can see that it's using a huge amount of RAM even with the simplest tasks (like rendering a composition containing only text and some animation presets). I've been struggling to keep AE running for more than a year and had tried every suggestion I found on the internet to no avail. Seriously, the last time I saw a bug that crashed other applications, caused a huge flickering over the displays and almost crashed the OS altogether was when I was learning to program in C about 30 years ago. At that time I learned that dangling pointers caused that as they could access any area of memory. Today OSs have memory protection, but maybe their designers were not told about what Adobe programmers would be capable of doing… By the way, I tried the suggestion of disabling "Cache Frames When Idles" and this seems to work as far as crashes are concerned, but AE still uses a huge amount of memory.

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Scott.C.

Inspiring

Getting a horrendous memory leak on render. It crashes the render after about 30 seconds. Its not that complicated of a project (AFAIK) Just a bunch of shape layers and a few video elements for panasche. Up late just trying to meet a deadline. Guess I'm going to try and render out to PSDs just to save my sanity.

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Scott.C.

Inspiring

It actually rendered out of Media Encoder without crashing, a rare AME win! Not sure why FG AE (Both Beta and "Stable" are crashing) with the FG Render. Maybe AME uses a less aggresive version of the Multi-Frame render feature. Anyways best of luck. Sad we are still using a multi-frame render instead of an acual multi-theaded app.

andyr26577162

Participant

For real, multithread would be way more inclusive and diverse. All the major issues are still present in AE, even lagging interface with 2 high end video cards and with 256 gb ram

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v1953175

Participating Frequently

Same here. Amazing software that can crash every device without any problems.

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iaa1

Known Participant

I have same issue on late 2010 iMac. / 128G ram, i9 3.6 Core x 10, AMD Radeon Pro 5700 8G

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iaa1

Known Participant

i also have system instability running NUKE 13. I believe the issue is perhaps in a library rather than primary code.

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Azeez A

Participating Frequently

Just an update. Adobe 2023 still poses the same issue. It reaches a staggering 52 GB of RAM usage for me after around 20mins of usage and simple RAM previews. Its nothing to do with the composition exceeding the workstation capability.

I have to constantly keep my task manager on display so that once RAM usage reaches full capacity - I quit After Effects and load it again to have memory usage go down and enjoy 20more mins of non-laggy usage time, before it increases and I repeat the cycle again.

For reference here are my specs:

12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900K 3.20 GHz

64.0 GB RAM

Nvidia RTX A4000 16gb dedicated memory

Windows 11 Pro

I'm on the "Creative Coud All Apps" plan...

Warren Heaton

Community Expert

What third party plugins are you running?

A

Azeez A

Participating Frequently

Sorry for the late reply Warren. No 3rd party plugin, to check AE 2023, I got a new PC and just used it fresh. Basic compositions also started resulting in massive memory usage.

This also causes Media Encoder to freeze halfway through export

Warren Heaton

Community Expert

Sorry to hear you've had trouble updating your software.

If After Effects 2020 works as expected while 2021 or 2022 do not, the most likely cause is third-party plugins that need to be updated.

If After Effects is stable, but "slow, laggy", no real-time playback", the current Composition settings likely exceed what the workstation configuration supports. Reduce the Composition Resolution (Full to Half, Half to Quarter, or Quarter to Custom) and use of the Preview options that skip frames to work more quickly. After Effects is only as fast as the workstation we run it on, but even on a very powerful workstation it's possible to ask After Effects to do more than what the workstation is capable of.

While After Effects, Media Encoder, or Premiere Pro can be used independently, they of course need to be installed together to be used together. Yes, Adobe Support is available if we have issues with installing software. If subscribed to the All Apps Creative Cloud plan, there is no need to reach out to Adobe support to install Premiere Pro. Just click the "Install" button next to Premiere Pro in Creative Cloud Desktop. If not subscribed, the button should show as "Try" instead of "Install" and reaching out to Adobe support should only be requried if that does not work as expected.

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James30319533nte7

Participant

Adobe, you have to acknowledge that there is a huge problem with RAM. I had someone from Adobe kindly drive my machine and we uninstalled all plugins and ran a simple scene. Within about 30 seconds or so - my 64gb memory was full and it crashed.

I run at quarter res, and press shift '0' to skip frame when ram previewing. But the ram fills up so quickly - I am having to race to purge every 5 mins or so - if I dont - it freezes.

Guy this ois a fundamental flaw. Ae is the bottle neck in everyones workflow.

I render 4k square huge smoke sims from 3d software faster than it takes to pre render the same sim in Ae. Itsgot to the point where we (as in EVERYINE in the professional industry) are looking desperately for alternatives. I love AE - been using it for 20 years. But its becoming seriously unusable.

I hope there is an update that forcuses purely on performance.

Thanks

A

Azeez A

Participating Frequently

Thanks Kathygraphy for your suggestion to turn off "Cache frames when idle". However, this problem goes deeper because even after turning the setting off, and just RAM preview-ing a simple 1080p video with zero effects added, the memory usage jumps to a staggering 45 GB.

J

JerRS16

Known Participant

I'm at wits end with these problems. Are you seriously saying I have to resort back to 2020 software? How will that effect updated plugins like video copilot and trapcode? I can't render more than a single frame and if I shift anything, the program becomes unrespsonsive. If I purge memory, it becomes unresponsive. This is a BIG problem; I can't get anything done.

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