Participant

Question

Persistent black frame problem in After Effects

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
October 25, 2017
20 replies
36824 views

For many videos now I have had a black frame problem in After Effects. Random black frames appearing in the preview window and export. As well as random frames from a different part of the video, although that is less frequent.

It seems like it would be a frame rate problem, but it still happens when frame rates are all matched. As I edit in Premiere and then export, which is then brought into After Effects. I also bring in separate videos in the an After Effects comp for B roll that will have the black frame problem, and the frame rate of those videos is not something I have control over. That is unless I exported a copy of the video from Premiere and changed the frame rate settings before export. This would be tedious to do, and there is no guarantee it would work.

But if this problem does not happen in Premiere it seems like it is a problem that can be fixed in After Effects. Regardless it seems like something that should be possible to fix.

Can Adobe fix this problem for future updates?

[Edit] I don't remember this problem until a fairly recent update, so it's a possible glitch of some change that happened. Which affirms this problem is unnecessary.

black frames

C

corfinez

Participant

2025 still there, and cach clearing cach doesn't hepl as well as reloading media, Mercury CPU only was chosen from the get go ... I've spend 7 full days on this edit. I'm done, by adobe, goes to find other software, or just drop montage if won't find anything special, but I will, trust me.

nishu_kush

Community Manager

Hi corfinez,

A similar issue has been fixed in the 25.3.1 version released recently. Let me know if you experience the issue in 25.3.1 as well.

Thanks,
Nishu

L

Lazman305

Participant

It still isn't fixed and it's 2025 after that update.

ColbyFulton

Known Participant

This is still an issue in 2025. I think it is related to graphics card issues with some plugins like optical effects from video copilot, but for days I thought it was my SSD breaking down or something.

J

joshuap19271487

Participant

Did this just start recently for you? Mine started about a week ago. I thought it was my hard drive so I transferred to an ssd. Disk cache clearing only works sometimes. I'm using a 3090, Ryzen 9 5950x, 128gb Ram. Can't believe this is an issue in 2025. I've already switched to Davinci for editing- time to force myself to learn fusion

I

Itay38265922ozfo

Participant

@joshuap19271487 Same here, it first only started to happen about a week ago...
Nothing changed in my hardware, using MacBook Pro OS Sequoia 15.5
Problem persists after uninstallation and installation, restart, still happens.
Doesn't even matter if video footage is MP4, Prores Mov, or something else, it only happens to the video footages

So far from this thread only reload footage and purge all cache works if done together and sometimes that requires to do several times, but is good option to do this right before trying to export.

It also seems the trigger for this is adding another layer or mask other than the video footage to the composition,

Otherwise the video will not bug out with any frame.

REALLY HOPE ADOBE FIX THIS.

CaptiveScope

Participant

THIS WORKED FOR ME : Reload Footage
(Find Clip/RightClick/ReloadFootage)

Hope it helps some on you ❤️
----------------------------------------------07April2025 AEV25.2

P

pyrotechNick

Participant

I had this exact problem after importing a Premiere Pro project file into After Effects. I ended up finding the problem inside the imported sequence composition, the individual clips inside the comp were somehow magically off by a frame. Perhaps it was an error from the import job bc there were no mismatching framerate issues and the same file in Premiere played just fine. Anyway I hope this helps anyone with a similar problem. Once my timelines started getting more complicated with three separate sequence layers this problem started happening.

A

Aaronz0r

Participant

Almost 2025 and this problem still persists.

Reloading media seems to be the only fix for me, annoying that this has just been ignored by Adobe.

S

spacerex1

Participant

It's 2024 and I'm having this problem with a Windows 10 machine. Random black frames or black bands on otherwise good frames. The bands can be fixed by doing various things mentioned here, but I cannot get the black frames to render as anything but black. The files size of the black frames (EXR images) is 5 KB so clearly it's just no data. Frames on either side of it are 2000KB. I've tried all these solutions and still no love.

A

Annasdecade

Participant

Hello, the problem has been fixed, all you've got to do is :

- Project window

- Right clic on the media

- Refresh the media

And it's done ❤️

T

The295245739fub

Participant

All i did (worked for me atleast) was to clear my cache, when my cache in after effects reaches close to 100 GB everything starts to glitch out therefore i go into edit, purge and then all memory and disk cache.

Hope this helped!

C

C.Carlson

Participant

Try Reloading your footage. That worked for me.

A

Ana Rita5C0D

Participant

Also having the same problems which is weird because it started happening in the last 2023 version and to me it's only happening in the exported version, so in the timeline I can't see any black frames so they only appear in the exported file (I'm exporting in H264). Does someone has the same issue? I tried to clean cache and change to Mercury Software Only and the export is still the same :'(

Kartika Rawat

Community Manager

Hi Ana Rita5C0D!

Sorry to hear that. Can you share your system details (OS, CPU, RAM, GPU)? What type of effects do you have in your project?

Let us know.

Thanks,

KR

A

Ana Rita5C0D

Participant

Hello Kartika,

Thank you for answering!
So I'm using Macbook M1 Pro, 32 GB RAM with MacOs Ventura 13.5.1. and I'm using Mercury GPU Acceleration Metal. I don't have major effects, mostly typography and graphics transitions - basic motion design - and then photos and videos (several formats coming from cameras, phones etc). It's the second time it happens to me when doing a project with many kinds of content. So when I'm working with just graphics, at least last week, this didn't happen. But the previous versions (2022) I could work perfectly on After Effects with all the type of content.

Also, the frames appear mostly between the videos and photos, not graphics.

Hope this helps to figure it out the solution.

K

Katarina23315812q3tp

Participant

So i have a black frame issue as well. I opened the video with after effects from premiere pro. There is no issue with the video before i open it with after effects, when i scroll trough the video in AE random 2 black frames appear. When i then view the video in premiere pro the black frames have now appeared there aswell because the videos are now linked. It also shows some weird distortion on the video with the effects in AE, but that distorsion didnt appear in premiere pro at all when viewing it normally? Dont know what to do. I renedered the clip, still an issue.

Show more replies

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded