After Effects 2025 crashing when importing video

@Kevin-Monahan 

I just sent you the project, video and a picture with the error.

After freezes on the save screen and the UI becomes unusable.

Just adding to this and that I'm having the same experience. I'm on Mac as well. Macbook Pro M3. Happens when any kind of footage is imported. Stock in ProRes 422, MP4s and everything alike.

Many Thanks @Kevin-Monahan I have just sent you an example project and logs. I noticed hangs and the video stuck on a single frame despite scrubbing taking place after I ram previewed. Before that everything seemed to be working fine.  I'm on a 2022 Apple M1 Max. In the example I sent I ended the session by Force Quitting as the hangs etc.. make the UI pretty much unusable. Thanks and let me know if there's anything else you need.

Hi @lucasvasconcelos, @AM-S, and @StudioMNKY,

I spoke with the product team and there is not enough information here in order to reproduce the bug.

• Are you all on macOS? We can't tell.
• Can you isolate it down to one project with one piece of footage and send me the link after uploading to Drobox or similar?
• There are no internal crash reports associated with their emails. Did you crash or were you hanging?
• If it's a hang, check your logs. Can we get an After Effects Log.txt from any of you for a session where you were hanging?"

I hope we can assist you.

Thanks,
Kevin

@Kevin-MonahanAny news about this error? I just opened another project and unfortunately it is impossible to use After 25

I'm also having the exact same issue with videos in AE 2025 (25.1.0 and prior version). I've so far used H264 .mp4s and ProRes 422 .movs. For me, it'll randomly crash either on playback or moving the playhead and will not update the viewport (either hangs on the current visuals in the timeline or turns black) with any interaction, since I am still able to use the UI, i.e click on other layers, move layers around and see that they're moving by having masks and shape paths visible (cmd+shift+h), but nothing updates. I then try and save my work, and just as the others have described, the save pop up appears and either completes or nearly completes, but then stays on screen and I'm unable to interact with it at all. The same goes for opening preferences or emptying the cache when it crashes, the UI stays on screen and is unresponsive.

I've only just got my 128GB M3 Max and have only worked in AE 2025 on Sequoia (15.3.1 currently) so far. Have just swtiched to AE 2024 for the time being and at very first glance the issues aren't apparent.

Glad I'm not alone and it's not a problem with my new machine! 🥵

@Kevin-Monahan 

Unfortunately, I can't say for sure, but I can try to do a test.

I'll come back here after I do the test. But I just uploaded another video and it froze again. The flow is exactly the same as what @AM-S said above, it freezes when saving at 99% and that's why it stays.

I am also having this issue and have experienced across a few projects now - each using video assets (all from different sources). I have tried re-encoding the source video, but no luck. As the OP mentioned working on similar projects in AE 2024 didn't result in these issues. This freezing at 98% on saving is also happening. Sometimes the save window sticks in place but you can carry on working on the project, which isn't normal AE behaviour.

@Kevin-Monahan The files were exported in Premiere Pro and imported into After Effects.

I have a few more questions:

Which codec are the files? You can run them through MediaInfo and show us s screenshot in tree view.

Were the files exported from Premiere Pro and then imported to After Effects or via dynamic link?A little more info about your workflow would be helpful.

What kind of Mac is it?

Thanks,
Kevin