After Effects Flashing black frames

[jamiemcgee]

AE 25.3.0 Build 71

iMAC 3.8ghz 8 Core i7

GFX AMD RADEON Pro 5700 XT 16GB

OS SEQUOIA 15.5

Hi all I am getting random 1 frame black flashed apperaing on previews and renders. Clearing out Cache and switching to draft/full quality doesnt cure it.

If I reload the footage the black frame clears, but randomly appears somewhere else.

Doesnt seem to be happening in the 25.4.0 BUILD 50 BETA

[LCfimls]

I went through the same thing, just went back to the previous version and
it worked.

[DWalla]

The only solution is rolling back to 25.2.2 until they get this problem fixed.

[DWalla]

I think it may be a GPU caching issue.

[JohnColombo]

Hi all,

Thanks again for your reports of this issue. We have been able to reproduce the flash frames and are investigating potential fixes. We will update this thread once a fix is available in the Beta builds.

Thanks again,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

[Rustus Maximus]

Thanks for the update. I'm glad you were able to reproduce this bug so quickly in your recent testing. Looking forward to a solution.

[martinc13962311]

What version do you need to roll back to to stop this? Real amateur hour stuff this is!

[StephaneA_AfterEffects]

Same bug here.

[nishu_kush]

Hi there,

What version did you downgrade to? What are your system specifications (CPU, GPU, RAM, OS version)? Are the glitches present in the exported file as well?

Let us know.

Thanks,
Nishu

[Rustus Maximus]

25.2.2 seems to have been enough for me at the moment, YMMV. And yes the glitches/black frames were present in the final renders, making this a time eater for working professionals and therefore unacceptable. It seems they have now tested 25.3 and found the bug! So hopefully an update will be coming soon.

[Rustus Maximus]

For me, Nishu, 25.2.2 (Build 2)

System specs:

iMac Pro 18 core

128GB RAM

Radeon Pro Vega 64 16 GB

macOS 15.5

Getting long in the tooth but working until 25.3.

[dsol21]

Last week I was doing some clean-up work on some shots for TV. I'd recently upgraded all my Adobe apps to the latest (stable) versions - including After Effects 25.3.   All seemed to work OK, but when I rendered the final files (and even while I was working) I noticed that it would sometimes either render random frames as a corrupt mess of abstract colours (like a GPU error) or just as black frames.  I tried turning off the multiframe rendering, but the issue persisted.
I know version 25.3 introduced the new "Longer playback" feature to the video engine, so maybe that had something to do with it. In the end, I had to save the project backwards AE 24 and do the work in that (which worked fine!)  I'm using After Effects on a 2021 Intel iMac running MacOS 15.5.
Has anyone else had these issues?

[dsol21]

Ah - I've just posted separately. I've had the same problems, though I'm also getting colorful glitchy frames too, not just black ones! It's very random and turning off multi-frame rendering doesn't help.  I had to revert to After Effects 24 to get my project finished last week

[JohnColombo]

Hi @dsol21,

Thank you for reporting this issue. Yes, we are aware of this bug in 25.3 and working on a fix. You shouldn't need to downgrade all the way back to version 24 to avoid the issue—just use 25.2 should be enougy, which still gives you access to the new longer playback feature.

We have an existing Bug thread for this, so I'll be merging this comment into that thread so that notifications about the fix can be more easily sent to everyone affected.

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

[Steve Hill 007]

Update: I've had to revert back to earlier version. I'm trying to render over 100 videos a day, (re-formats of videos I've output before, so I shouldn't have to check every frame of the back plate) but I have no confidence that any of them will be without errors. So frustrating having to check every frame before sending to client. Saved down and opened in earlier version - all perfect.

[martinc13962311]

We are getting this issue across multiple machines and GPUS. Threadripper, Intel, 4090s and 5080s all windows 11 latest Nvidia studio drivers. 3090s seem to be the only stable cards. The 5080 machines we can't go back to an older version of AE as since we bought the machines 7 months ago they have never worked with any stability in AE.

This is now at a point where your inability to provide stable working software is having serious effects on our business. After effects is something we have to work around, not with!

[danp71248174]

Same. Black frames and frame jumping/skipping/flickering on previews. This is happening when a mask is applied to a layer. Let's get that bug fix!!

[jenkmeister]

AE Beta Build 25.4x59 is now available on Creative Cloud Desktop. If you are able to install our Beta builds, a fix for this flasing/missing/black frames is now available in this Beta. We'd appreciate any confirmation of the fix working for you before we make this available in a 25.3.1 hotfix for all customers. Thank you.

[Sven Brencher]

AE Beta Build 25.4x59 works for me. I tested it for about 30 minutes and don't see any black frames or other glitches (MBPro M1 Max). Go for it!

[jamiemcgee]

Testing previous offending projects on Beta  25.4.0Build 59, No issues detected as yet.

[Kindhearted_mentors9502]

Beta working well here too (Mac Studio M1 Ultra, macOS Sequoia 15.5)

[simen_2909]

Beta working well here!

[jenkmeister]

Thank you for your feedback on the Beta build. We have made the fix available to the non-beta build now. If you update to AE 25.3.1x3 in CCD, that contains this fix. Our apologies again for the issue. 

Note: Once you have the build updated, make sure to empty your disk cache to ensure any badly cached frames are cleared out.

[Yanice29671489b74i]

AE v 25.3.1
while export or rendering keep glitching black

[DaveChap]

I see it with ProRes mainly on my end. Had to downgrade back to 25.2.2 to get exports going again.

(I'm on an M4 Max Macbook Pro, Sequoia 15.5)

[jenkmeister]

If you had 25.3.0 installed and had played back any of the footage in that version, please clear your disk cache. 25.3.1 has a fix for the black frames, but if they were cached in 25.3.0, you'll need to clear those out before the fix will be in effect.