After Effects 25.3 will no longer open projects/allow me to create new ones.

Report · Jun 19, 2025

After installing the 25.3 update After Effects will crash on trying to open projects. I have tried creating new projects, saving them and opening those also causes After Effects to crash. I have tried rolling back to 25.22 and the problem still persists. I have also tried completely reinstalling the entire Creative Suite and it didn't resolve the issue. In event Viewer the General Application Hang summary states "The program AfterFX.exe version 25.3.0.71 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Security and Maintenance control panel."

The details state -

APPName AfterFX.exe

AppVersion 25.3.0.71

ProcessID 0x70e4

StartTime 0x1dbe166abcb23d6

TerminationTime 269

ExeFileName C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2025\Support Files\AfterFX.exe

ReportId 3fed1eaf-b201-bc7d-028b477b5791

HangType Unknown

I am running Windows 11 Pro - Version 10.0.26100 Build 26100

My machine is a Dell Latitude 5550 Laptop with 32GB of RAM, 500 GB HD

The IT dept is trying their best to help me but they are stumped as well. Any help would be amazing. Thanks in advance.

Report · Jun 24, 2025

Sorry that you're experiencing crash, Benj_Braman.

Are there any crash reports? Can you try running After Effects in Safe Mode with third-party plug-ins disabled?

Let me know how it goes. Moving this thread from Bugs to Discussions for troubleshooting.

Thanks,
Nishu

Report · Jun 24, 2025

I'm having the same issue. All my existing project files won't open and it causes After Effects to hang over and over again. I've done EVERY SINGLE recommended step from the forums and every person who has had ANY idea on how to fix this. I don't know what they did in version 25.3 but it has absolutely broken my system and I can't open client project files that I've been working on for months. This is incredibly frustrating and there is no path to a solution. This is absolutely a bug. Something is legit wrong.

Report · Jun 24, 2025

I found a semi-solution. After uninstalling the entire creative suite, I started by installing each app one at a time - starting with After Effects. With After Effects installed solo it worked, once I installed the newest version of Premiere however it stopped working. I uninstalled premiere, and then rolled back the install of Premiere to 25.2.3 and now it's working ok. Projects still take an absurd amount of time to open though.

Report · Jun 24, 2025

I've also had this issue. It seems to be particular to larger AE project files for me, but smaller ones might only have worked after I did troubleshooting steps (disabling all plugins, resetting preferences); before I began troubleshooting, After Effects would hang just trying to open the program's preferences window. The critical point of it persisting even after After Effects was reverted to a version that had been working is present. There was also a substantial amount of processor activity, which could go for hours if I didn't Force Quit the program.

@Benj_Braman's solution of downgrading Premiere back a version also worked for me, so I'm able to continue working on the file in question.

Report · Jun 27, 2025

Yep, Ben's right. It's Premiere causing the issue. Almost stopped me dead in my tracks on a huge project.

Report · Jun 27, 2025

The problem still persists in the latest update 23.1 to AE as well.

Report · Jun 27, 2025

I followed some of the suggestions here and I have resolved the issue for myself. I had to fully uninstall After Effects, Premiere, and Media Encoder. Reboot. Then install After Effects version 25.2.2, Premiere version 25.2.1, and Media Encoder version 25.2. Reboot again. I can now open existing AE project files and everything is working normal. I also confirmed that auto-update on these apps is turned off. This is the ONLY way I could get my project files to open. This is a real problem and Adobe really blew it with these latest updates.

Report · Jun 30, 2025

same here! (windows 11 i7 13700K 64ram ddr5 rtx 3080)

in AE 25.3 the projects do not open, it freezes at 99% - if you click crashes the app

the solution (remove, reboot, install older versions - reboot) worked for me.. wait for new versions to come out and keep testing...

Report · Aug 13, 2025

About half of my older projects open, some hang around 99%. It's been doing this for me for a few versions. If Premiere is the root, I'll just uninstall it. I only ever use it to make templates for other people. Personally I use Resolve as it's a billion times better.

That said, a quick fix that has always worked in AE is to import the project into a blank project vs opening it. It's a total PITA though, but it'll get you out of a bind.

Also, I'm on macOS, so this is a universal issue.

Edit: Deleted Premiere. Still does it. Updated to 25.3.2. Still does it. I would like, for just one time in my career, to not have to deal with some super annoying bug in After Effects.

Edit 2: As I was suspecting, it has to do with what workspace a project was saved in in some manner. I don't know why or what. I know that in the past if I had a script open while I was developing and then I moved it or something it would cause AE to crash on open if that script had been open. Well, it looks like something like that is still in there because as soon as I opened AE, switched to my older layout, and then closed AE and opened a file that was hanging on open, it opened fine without issue.

Please fix this.

Report · Aug 19, 2025

Hey everyone,

For the folks here that are experiencing this issue, are you getting the Crash Reporter dialog? If so, are you sending it in with your email address? I looked at the emails tied to the forum accounts of each of the folks here, and I don't see any recent crash reports. If you're using different email for your Creative Cloud accounts and you sent the crash reports along, please feel free to DM me and let me know what those are.

Regarding workspaces and crashes. I'm also a long-time user of AE and I've had my fair share of crashes that revolved around workspaces. Unfortunately, it was never the workspace itself, but a third-party panel that was docked. I won't name names, but there have been some consistently problematic scripts or extensions that I finally had to give up on to avoid crashes. If anyone wants to send me a full UI screenshot of their workspace, I can take a look.

We also have a new feature that lets you maintain your current workspace when opening projects. I'd be curious if after enabling this option, if the crashes or hangs stop.

All that said, none of this solves the root of the problem—you're still not able to open some projects without crashes or hangs. If anyone is willing to send me a project that consistently hangs or crashes, we can take a look and find the root cause.

Thanks,
- David, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Aug 20, 2025

Haven't sent with my email in a while since things seem to often go unanswered and I'm usually too busy for the back and forth. I try to provide what info I can when I do until I get frustrated.

You're correct. In the past workspace crashes are often the fault of a script or something—I've run into that while developing. However I have two workspaces, one named YDP and Default that I use. I used to use YDP but then I kept having shared projects switch my workspaces to default (I didn't know they finally added that new feature, I'll have to check it out). So I changed default to be the same as YDP. All of the same scripts, exactly the same layout.

When I open a project after previously having used Default in AE, it crashes (seems to be if the project was saved in my YDP space). If it happens to get past the switching workspaces part before it crashes, I can quit the crashed AE, and open up the file without issue. If I open AE cleanly, switch back to YDP, and then open the file, it opens.

I don't know that sending you a project would crash it for you since my suspicion is that you have to have both workspaces and try to open a project using the one that wasn't saved in the file. But if you'd like I'll crash it, and include my email this time. I'm sure you've probably seen the video I posted yesterday on Workbench at this point, so you can also see it happen there, although I wasn't extremely detailed in how it happens since I wasn't planning on screen recording it when it happened.

Thanks!

Report · Aug 20, 2025

Yup, I hear ya. All I can say is that yes, please do send those crash reports along with your email. If we can reproduce it in-house, we can fix it. If we can look at a crash log with the right details, we can pinpoint the issue. They don't always contain the clues, but they often do, and our engineers can see what's causing the crash.

On a personal note, as workspaces with docked ScriptUI and CEP panels were almost always the source of my crashes, I got in the habit of starting with fresh preferences each major version. I keep a folder with screenshots of my workspaces and prefs pane, so I reset those manually, and then I manually reset my keyboard shortcuts. It takes less than 10 minutes to setup, but obviously, who wants to have to do that?

You or anyone else here are always welcome to DM me or find me on MDA Slack if you want to chat further or troubleshoot problems. We try to respond to as many forum posts as we can, but we also have a great crew of Adobe Community Experts who help out (that's what I was before officially joining the team).

And yeah, I actually came across your video this morning and saw what you were referring to. My only thought is that something non-standard got saved into the Default workspace and messed things up, but again...that shouldn't be your problem to deal with.

Thanks,
- David, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Aug 20, 2025

I appreciate it. And I'd just like to reiterate, my issue isn't with anyone on the DVA team. I'll crash it at some point soon and send a log with email.

Edit: also, my default workspace matches my YDP workspace, so it definitely has non-standard things in it. But this is only an issue with projects that seem to be saved with the opposite workspace. Those were both made versions ago, so it is possible there's an issue there. But if I save a file and open it without changing workspaces, it doesn't have an issue.

Report · Aug 21, 2025

@David.Arbor I had some time to risk a crash, but (un)fortunately, the bug seems to have been fixed in AE/Premiere 25.4, so no crash log from me.

Report · Aug 22, 2025

Understood, @Davidcgc , and glad things are working for you now. If this happens again, try to remember about the new preference (mentioned above) that allows you to maintain your current workspace when importing another project. We're definitely interested in making this experience better, so feel free to respond to this thread at any point if the issue happens again.

Thanks,
- David, After Effects Engineering Team