After Effects 23.6 and 24.0 Not Starting on MacOS 14/Sonoma
Issue
Users upgrading to MacOS Sonoma (version 14) may find that After Effects will not startup and will report errors such as:
- After Effects can't continue: internal structure inconsistency (g) ( 25 :: 2 )
- After Effects error: globals unborn. ( 21 :: 3 )
- After Effects can't continue: unexpected failure during application startup
- After Effects can't continue: ... check for permissions or other error messages
Users may also find installed plugins are failing to load or exports from the Render Queue are failing in ways they did not before upgrading to Sonoma.
Resolution
The cause of the issue appears to be Sonoma adjusting the permissions and access to folders that After Effects requires to run. These include:
- /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/7.0/MediaCore
- /Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/[Version]
- /Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/[com.Adobe.After Effects.23x-24.plist(s)]
To check for the appropriate permissions:
- Navigate to /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/7.0
- Right-click on the MediaCore folder and choose Get Info from the context menu.
- Open the Sharing & Permissions section and make sure “everyone” has at least Read Only Privilege set.
- If the account you are launching After Effects with is listed in the Name column, make sure it has at least the Read Privilege set as well.
- Navigate to /Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/
- Right-click on the appropriate [Version] folder and choose Get Info from the context menu.
- Ensure Locked is not checked. Uncheck it if necessary.
- Open the Sharing & Permissions section and ensure the account you using to launch After Effects has both the Read & Write Privilege.
If after completing steps 1 & 2 After Effects will still not load, please make a backup of the above folders, then delete the folders at the paths above. Then uninstall and re-install After Effects.
Additional Step, thanks to @Mike Wills Makes
3. Navigate to /Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/
- Find the com.Adobe.After Effects.23*.plist files
- Backup a copy of them to a safe location
- Delete the files.
- Repeat these steps for any com.Adobe.After Effects.24*.plist files
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