Preview crash and glitchy renders

Question

I have been working on an animation for the past 4 months mostly using high-res images some 3D objects using Video Copilot's ELEMENT 3D as well as various plug-ins from RED GIANT COMPLETE. Originally I began working on the 2020 version of After Effects but after a few big updates not only to AE but also my OS, things started to crash or glitch out.

Some comps crash within 2 mins of being opened and idled or after trying to preview it, nothing appears to trigger it most of the time, not a specific section of that comp either. The two things these comps have in common it’s that non of them use Element 3D and there is a greater number of pre-comps in these particular scenes. Most pre-comps are using about 3 to 5 simple effects…curves, lights sweep, drop shadow and some have fractal noise and/or the puppet effect for some movement. These comps will sometimes render out once I send them over to media encoder but not always.

My second issue is Element 3D functions fine while working on it in the project and previewing it however when it’s time to render these scenes I get a mess of flashing images. It seems to cycle through images within the comps, it is totally insane.

The only thing I can think of is that I recently updated my OS on my 2015 iMac from Mojave to Big Sur as well as I began working on my animation project using the 2022 version of After Effects. I done some of the obvious stuff like empty out my cache but no change. Anyway below is my system and comp settings. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

COMP SETTINGS:

UHD 4K 23.976

iMac Retina 5k, 27-inch, late 2014

Quad-core intel core i7

Memory 32GB

Processor Speed 4GHz

Processors 1

Cores 4

Mylenium · Answer

Not meaning to pee on you, but just review the facts: A ton of hardware accelerated functions on plug-ins in a 4k project on an old Mac is always going to be problematic. That plus the fact that E3D hasn't been updated properly in ages and there indeed appear to be genuine compatibility issues with the latest OS X. so yes, if there is even the slightest chance to go back to older versions, it may be an easier way of saving your sanity rather than trying to figure out things in your current environment. Of course you can still try to do that and set whatever you can to software-only rendering modes to prevent concurrent resource usage from too many effects and functions just like you can try to find a better graphics driver, though likely chances on that are slim on a Mac.

Mylenium

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