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JG-Anim8
JG-Anim8
Participant
February 20, 2026
Question

The video player keeps freezing while everything else is still active, how do I fix it?

  • February 20, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 25 views

I recently got a new laptop that’s specifically designed for modeling and editing software. I’ve been working on a project for the past week in the newest version of After Effects, but the program has been bugging out when I’m in the middle of working on it. The footage and all the tools freeze in the player so I can’t see what I’m doing. I’ve reached out to Adobe to ask for help, but the best they can do is connect me with a sloppy AI chatbot that can’t answer my questions or put me in contact with an actual person. Let me know what I should do.

    2 replies

    OussK
    Community Expert
    OussKCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 23, 2026

    This is a pretty common issue and usually comes down to a few things worth trying:

    First, purge your disk cache — go to Edit → Purge → All Memory & Disk Cache. After Effects hoards cache aggressively and on a new machine it may not be configured for your drive yet. Also check your cache folder location in Preferences → Media & Disk Cache and make sure it's pointing to your fastest drive with plenty of free space.

    Second, check your preview settings — lower the resolution in the preview panel to Half or Third while working, and make sure your RAM preview is set to a reasonable frame limit. New laptops sometimes have fast CPUs but the RAM allocation in AE defaults aren't optimized out of the box.

    Third, go to Preferences → Display and make sure GPU acceleration (Fast Draft) isn't causing conflicts with your specific GPU — some newer laptop GPUs have driver quirks with AE's OpenGL preview.

    Finally, check if your footage format is the issue — highly compressed formats like H.264/HEVC are brutal on the preview engine. Transcoding your working footage to ProRes or DNxHD proxy files usually eliminates freezing entirely.

    Sorry you're getting the runaround from Adobe support — unfortunately that's a common experience. The community here tends to be more useful for hands-on troubleshooting like this.

    R
    Community Expert
    RobShultzCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 22, 2026

    I’d try doing these; I hope that they help: go to Edit > Purge > All Memory & Disk Cache to instantly free up space and improve performance. Alternatively, navigate to Preferences > Media & Disk Cache

     

    • Close After Effects.Hold Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Cmd+Option+Shift (Mac) and click to open the app. A dialog box will appear asking to delete your preferences file

      1. . Click OK.

     

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