After Effects 23.6 and 24.0 Not Starting on MacOS 14/Sonoma

[jenkmeister]

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:

1. 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.

2. 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 

[orionj85878230]

I'm not able to troubleshoot this. How can I download an older version of AE that will work on Sonoma? 

[Rick Gerard]

Older versions are not going to work with a newer operating system. 

[Bejine33203813r88o]

You're lifesaver! Thank you🙏🏼

Worked👍

[Barbanti]

failure suggestion

[Geert-S]

Encountering the same problem.

I've followed the above steps, but after installing Ae I still get the error message (on and off).

I've tried reinstalling this 3 times, but with the same result.

Running Ae 24.0 on Sonoma 14.0.

iMac 3,6 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9

Radeon Pro Vega 48 8 GB

64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4

Any help would be appriciated.

PS: Not sure why my reply doesn't show? I've tried posted several times

[RAQUEL33285524sirv]

I did everything and it didn't work. My after is crashing again and again

[danielbg]

I also have the same problem. 

I've followed the above steps, but I still get the error message (on and off).

Installed 24.02 and the bug is still present.

Sometimes After effect open but when I try to open a project it crash.

kind of annoying

[jenkmeister]

As far as we can tell this is an issue with MacOS 14. Depending upon the version of AE you have installed (24.0 or 24.0.1 or 24.0.2), you may see different error messages, but the issue still goes back to MacOS enforcing some sort of permissions or security change that is only affecting some users that is affecting AE's ability to run.

The things we've heard have helped users:

• Check permissions on the folders.
• Remove third-party plugins, and upgrade plugins if there updates. There seems to be more enforcement of non-signed plugins that the OS does not like. 
• Wipe the preferences folder completely of older preferences

[Geert-S]

Thanks for all the effort jenkmeister!

I've done all the aformentioned fixes. Although it appears to help at first, the error reoccurs after a couple of uses. 

It seems to appear more often then not, when opening Ae after I've rendered the previous time?

[jenkmeister]

@Geert-S Can you open up the Effect Manager for me (Effects -> Manage Effects...) and screen shot the third-party effect list? There are some thoughts this is related to third-party effects that are not signed officially by Apple and that is causing issues. 

Do you know if you have any other third-party export encoders either?

[Geert-S]

I've no 3rd party plugins installed, but I do use Battleaxe's Anubis often?

I've contacted Adobe Support and they uninstalled Ae using the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool and reinstalling.

This made the freshly installed Ae appear to have no "Write to disk"-permissions (which the previous version had) in the system preferences. After enabling writing permissions it seems to be running again. I hope this will fix it for the foreseeable future.

Strange that it appeared to have the disk permissions ánd read/write permissions before?

[jenkmeister]

@Geert-S "This made the freshly installed Ae appear to have no "Write to disk"-permissions (which the previous version had) in the system preferences. After enabling writing permissions it seems to be running again."

That sounds like the permission issue that we've been trying to sort out. Glad support could help here.

[Mike Wills Makes]

FIXED!
MacOS Sonoma 14.1, AE 24.0.2

None of the steps from @jenkmeister 's post worked for me. However, i noticed a post in the comments from @MaxLuczynski and followed up by more detail from @ch&h 

Fix:

Library/Preferences/ (then delete all) com.Adobe.After Effects.23x-24.plist(s)

[jenkmeister]

@Mike Wills Makes Thanks for posting back your solution! Those plist files are primarily the pre-cached data around plugins. By any chance did you save a copy of your files before you deleted them? I'm wondering if there is some data in there that might tell us more. 

[Mike Wills Makes]

@jenkmeister  I still had them in my trash can. I've just pulled them back out to archive. Happy to send them to you if that helps. Just let me know where.

Also, for some more context; prior to this fix — I also tried opening AE in safe mode (which worked) and i then i cleared all the caches via the preferences tab. Then tried to reopen AE normally but it still wouldn't work. Also, i don't have any third-party plugins installed, and never have.

[jenkmeister]

@Mike Wills Makes if you can zip them up and send me a link to download them (you can DM me here in the forums if you want), that'd be great. Thanks!

[Geert-S]

I'm sad to report that, after working for a full week, the error re-appeared.

Launching in with command + option + shift get's me into After effects, but no preview will load and it crashes on exit.

(Purging didn't help either)

[Geert-S]

I've applied @Mike Wills Makes 's fix, by deleting all “com.Adobe.After Effects.23x-24.plist(s)” files, and After Effects seemed to load the preview again. I'll update when anything changes

[DanPurdie]

SOLUTION - Re download the older After Effects versions that work with Sonoma. 

[Mike Wills Makes]

Just an update here: My whole system just bricked again while using AE and i had to do a force shut down. When i booted back up I'm getting the same old error message again. I went back in to the Preferences folder and noticed AE had spawned 3 new *.plist files. I deleted them and After Effects is opening fine now.... @jenkmeister — I'll send you the 3x .plist files. The bug has to be in one of these, so hopefully this can narrow it down to make it easier to find.

[Donnelly33717755s9by]

I really appreciate for guidance i got my answer.

[Richard24999245cnjt]

Thank you for providing those steps, resolved the issue for both AE 23.X and 24.X. Appreciate you sharing the solution to this bug.

[Dmitry33637198hybv]

Still doesn't work. I use AE 24 on Sonoma and it still crashes after a couple of minutes - only hrad reset can help. It is really annoying, I tryed deleting all plist files, changed all permisions, reinstalled everything I could and it still crashes. 

[jenkmeister]

@Dmitry33637198hybv Crashing after a few minutes doesn't sound like the "not starting up issue". Perhaps you can start a new thread and provide some details on what you're doing before the crash, any other info you have?

[Mike Wills Makes]

@Dmitry33637198hybv Once AE has crashed have you looked in the preference folder to see if any more plist files have respawned? This has happened to me a couple of times now. Everything is fine until the moment new plist files are generated and stored in the preference folder. This results in my system bricking to the point where i need to force shut down. Once i boot back up, all apps i have opened before the crash will reopen, but AE can't relaunch and i get the same error message reported here. Then i need to navigate back to the preferences folder and delete the new plist files and AE will work again... right up until it happens all over again.