32 bit EXR img sequences still max out memory and crash.

[dermot_faloon]

All versions of the new AE are unable to deal with longer sequences of EXRs (DWAB). Tested on 22.1.1 beta too and still broken. Fails on all of our teams Windows 10 machines (20H2) 64Gb memory. Very disapointed as this is the format used by most 3D artists doing serious colour work and post. Oddly the same AE file brought into premiere to render to Proress4444 handles it just fine. Using this inside AE is impossible as it fills the RAM in the backround till the machine struggles to function. It ignores the memory prefs, dropping to half (32Gb for remaining OS) it still uses 99% memory and falls over. EXR files created in C4D with alpha. Can supply link to test project if you wish. Please fix this issue as it has caused many days of problems in our company. We have resorted back to older AE to render the job but this is poor.

[JustinYounger]

Having the same issue here. Mine has happened on 2021 and 2022, I actually was hoping 2022 would help fix it...but no.

[dermot_faloon]

I will contine to try each Beta when they drop, its not good enough tho when Premier can handle it fine (the same AE file), then again Premier has Pro written beside it, maybe we need After Effects Pro. Seriously tho, this is a big issue for my workflow and glad to hear somebody else is having the same problems.

[JustinYounger]

Its really bad, all of our 32bit EXRs on all of our comptuer systems just fill up 128gb of ram in minutes and it stutters the system or crashes them. But it renders perfectly no issue out of AME...This bug has been extremely stressful. 

[dermot_faloon]

Can I ask that you send me your hardware setup from hwinfo or similar? I am keen to try and troubleshoot this as its causing me great issues at the minute and I only have the same type of workstations to try. See if its the type of memory, board, or some other thing. 

[JohnColombo]

Hi @dermot_faloon,

Thank you for reporting this issue, and our apologies for the frustration. If you could send a us a link to a test project with the EXR assets, that would be ideal so that we can see and debug the problem in action. Feel free to either DM it to me here via the forum messaging or send the link to aebugs@adobe.com. Please let us know here if you send it to that email as we need to check the inbox manually.

Do you find that this issue is worse in 22.0/22.1 than in previous releases? If you disable "Cache Frame When Idle" in the Composition menu under "Preview", does your RAM continue to fill?

Thanks very much for any additional information,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

[dermot_faloon]

Hi John, here is link containing a small test project - didnt include the large one I have but its some random bits on a timeline that take down the PC just the same. https://streetmonkey.wetransfer.com/downloads/6e192ef26c7eeb96833d4c526d3e4b0920211123120659/bcc63db...

I have resorted to going back to versions of AE still installed without the multriframe, but this isnt ideal either. This zip also includes my harware and a video of the issue happening (although its a earlier build of AE than whats running now). Tried the latest Beta this morning 22.1.1 and still no ability to work with EXRs without the memory issue.

[dermot_faloon]

Hi John, just a follow up - did you get my project ok? Doing some futher testing I agree with Justin above that both 2021/22 have considerable memory issues on my PC and all the others in my studio (same hardware). I notice that taking some projects over to my mac laptop I use to Parsec in, (a 2012 Macbook pro 8Gb memory) I find the performance to be suprprisingly similar to my work PC, I can rely on my old mac laptop to finish the renders too. So something is very very  wrong with the windows build of AE, I assume its AE as I can drag into Premiere and the issue doesnt happen, but thats not good enough when I need to work inside AE. I have also tried a fresh install of windows 10 and Adobe suite, same memory issues and general sluggishness. I have used AE since 94/95 and used all versions, these last two I feel push this PC in some very weird ways. This may be some hardware conflict, I will see if Justin could give a breakdown of his setup to see if anything is similar.

[JustinYounger]

Break down:
Windows 10 - 128gb ram (which it fills entirely in seconds but claims to only fill less until the system stutters.)
This happens with both 2022 and 2021. Auto cach or not.
Definitely seems related to EXRs, not just 32bit. I just tested it with 16bit. And tested it working in all 3 modes (8, 16, 32)
AE seems to show that its doing nothing wrong, but my ram continues to fill till it hits a wall and stutters my machine. Happens on 4 other computers in the office.

[marioc69533727]

It's 2024 and this is still an issue. Radio silence from Adobe in multiple threads. This shouldn't be a difficult fix since, as mentioned by other people, Premiere handles EXR just fine. Please do something about it. 

[JustinYounger]

I believe a friend of mine found the solution, or at least it has completely solved it for both of us. 
Rename the openexr.aex file in (...Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2022\Support Files\Plug-ins\Format) to "openexr.old" and download the proexr plugin https://fnordware.com/ProEXR/ here to replace it.

I am completely steady now.
No clue whats different between the two, but if you need to get work done like I do right now, give it a shot!

[victorj78833825]

yes, this!! thank you very much!! can confirm this works!! AE 2022, Win10

[victorj78833825]

sorry, spoke too soon. while it does seem like an improvement, AE can still hang the entire system when using large .exr sequences even without filling all 64gb of ram on the system. after a minute or so, the system recovers but all windows appear empty until a refresh or a restart of the program. task bar is transparent until I move or resize it, desktop shows no icons until I toggle the "show desktop icons" option on and off.
have not had it happen to me while rendering, only previewing...

[fnordware]

Note that the EXR plug-in posted on fnordware.com has been included with AE for some time now, so unless you're using an older version, replacing the plug-in should do nothing.

If your RAM isn't filling up, there are plenty of other things that could happen when working with working with large comps, especially if you're using the GPU to render or preview. Do you get the issues if you replace the EXR footage with large solids? Adobe needs projects and possibly footage to chase down bugs.

[-stev=o]

Hey folks! Brendan, it's been a long time! I hope you've been doing great. 🙂   I've seen lags with this too, and I can't explain it. It's been over numerous projects, with multichannel EXRs coming out of Maya/VRay. I've hit situations where AE seems to become unresponsive, or unable to draw anything in the comp window. I wish I could say I came up with a fix, but for now, my workaround has been to switch over to 16bpc EXRs instead of full float. For what I'm doing, the extra color fidelity isn't absolutely necessary/negligable in visual difference and I get the performance back. 

[fnordware]

16-bit vs. 32-bit EXRs shouldn't make a difference in AE because the result is a 32-bit float butter in AE either way. A 32-bit EXR will be 2-3 times as big, so there might be a halt while it gets read, but should be negligible from an SSD.

Generally you only need full 32-bit channels in an EXR for data channels like Z, so you'll often have a 32-bit Z with the rest of the channels 16-bit. Usually the only reason you need 32-bit RGBA is if you have very bright pixel values over 65504.0.

[-stev=o]

Thanks Brendan. I like how the "shouldn't" is in italics. The proof is in the pudding though. I have SSDs, so that's not the problem and a super fast rig to boot. No problems with much more complex computational stuff in other software packages. There seems to be a bottleneck wiht the 32bpc EXRs. Not sure where it's coming from. Good to know about how the data channels are mostly benefitting from the 32bpc scheme, thank you!

[fnordware]

Well, give us some specs (or even footage) and some tests to run (or a project) and maybe we can replicate it.

[-stev=o]

Thanks! My general specs were:

1920x1080 

30fps

32bpc working space in AE

The EXRs were multichannel. I've tried various compression schemes and uncompressed to no difference in result. The EXRs also typically carried the basic RGBA plus cryptomatte and AO channels. When I can, I will try to go back to the projects I've seen this on and collect a sample to post.

[victorj78833825]

can confirm, my workflow sounds identical to this one. 32bit exr sequence, RGB+A and cryptomattes, fullhd.
system is: Ryzen 5800x, 64gb ram, rtx 3080, m.2 storage, windows 10

as an aside: I distinctly remember seeing different file sizes when replacing the plugins (I took that as a confirmation that it should change something). now, recollecting, I realise nothing really changed. the issue is just intermittent, or I haven't found the trigger

[Kzilla]

 Download the ProExr plugin from www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/ and replace the OpenExr plugins in the "Support Files\Plug-ins\Effects" folder with the ones downloaded. There are 3 files. EXtractoR.aex, IDentifier.aex and OpenEXR.aex.

This fixed it for me. Best of luck,
Krzys

[jenkmeister]

There should be an updated version of EXR starting in 22.1.1x70 and now in the 22.2 builds. Hopefully that resolves the issue and you don't have to copy in the ProEXR ones by hand. Please let us know if you still see the issues though!

[dermot_faloon]

Downloaded 22.2 Beta today (30/11/21 UK) and opened my test file above - opened task manager and watched it simply fill up and melt down windows when hitting 99% of my 64Gb memory. I have yet to try hand installing etc as I wanted to keep this vanilla and ensure it was all AE without tinkering. At this point I think I may have to try the advice above - I will be avoiding the newer AE builds for a while yet it seems. Maybe someone advised you this was going to be changed but not yet? I will continue to try each Beta and see. By chance I am working on a non 3D job at the moment but will try the PROEXR workaround later this week and post my thoughts while I wait for this essential element of AE to be fixed.

[jenkmeister]

That's super helpful to know. We will chat with the ProEXR developer and see what we are missing with the latest integration to get this fixed asap. 

[fnordware]

Thanks for the project, @dermot_faloon. I rendered it out the Render Queue and sure enough, my RAM filled up.

But then I went into the memory preferences and turned up the amount of RAM reserved for other applications. I have 64 GB total, so I set it to 48 GB. Rendering now, and sure enough AE isn't using up more than 16 GB.

So maybe everything's working as designed and you just have to turn up your reserved RAM?