How to downgrade to AE 2024?

Question

We have some AE licenses in the company. We usually work with raw sequences from Sony and Canon cameras on older versions of AE, but this time we upgraded from AE 24 to 26 (a bad decision). Now, when we import a Raw sequence, Camera raw opens and after we make some adjustements and clic “Save” it crash and AE too. Sometimes it works but if you want to make a new change in Camera raw, both crashes. I have tried all the following steps with several computers and the bug persists:

1. Toggle Hardware Accelerated DecodingA known conflict often occurs when hardware acceleration interacts poorly with raw footage.In After Effects, go to Edit > Preferences > Import (or General on some versions).Uncheck Hardware accelerated decoding.Restart After Effects.

2. Purge the Camera Raw CacheA corrupted or full cache can cause the ACR dialog to freeze or crash.In After Effects, go to Edit > Preferences > Camera Raw (or Media & Disk Cache).Navigate to the Performance tab if prompted.Click Purge Cache (or Empty Disk Cache).

3. Temporarily Disable GPU AccelerationIf ACR crashes when rendering effects, your graphics card or driver may be struggling with stricter ACR GPU requirements.Go to File > Project Settings.Under the Video Rendering and Effects tab, change the renderer from GPU Acceleration to Mercury Playback Engine Software Only.Restart and test if the crash still occurs.

4. Reset Camera Raw PreferencesIf the ACR configuration file itself is corrupted, resetting it can restore stability.Open Photoshop (as Camera Raw settings are shared universally with After Effects).Hold the Ctrl + Alt + Shift keys (Windows) or Command + Option + Shift keys (Mac) while launching Camera Raw preferences.Click Yes in the pop-up dialog that appears to reset the preferences.

Please, contact me if you solve it in a new upgrade. In the meantime, could you advise me on how to downgrade to AE 2024? We had deleted this version on all the computers except one. Now we can only work on this computer.

Warren Heaton · Answer

Hi ​@Inspira_sm:If I were experiencing this on my workstations, I’d start by trying Safe Mode in After Effects 26.x under Settings > Startup & Repair > Start in Safe Mode.CameraRAW still works in Safe Mode as it’s part of interpreting the source footage. If the crashing goes away then you have something else to troubleshoot. The next step would be to try disabling all third-party plugins with Effects Manager.If the crashing persists in Safe Mode or with built-in effects, I’d try updating to Camera RAW 18.3.2 (which I think we released very recently) or rolling back to Camera RAW 14.5. This can be done through Creative Cloud Desktop or here.Something else I would try is to set the Camera RAW settings in Photoshop and then save a layeredPSD for use in After Effects (if embedded, the Camera RAW settings remain editable). Usinglayered PSDsin Ae removes Camera RAW from the Ae side. This of course is not as flexible as importing the files directly into Ae, but may allow you to get work done.I haven’t had any trouble with Camera RAW in Ae 24.x, 25.x, or 26.x. As you’ve noticed, Ae 24.x is no longer available, but Ae 25.x is and it can be installed along side 26.x. So, that’s something else to try.

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