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

[tomc22591187]

The bug is still with us. Reload footage doesnt work, and sometimes neither the clear cache. Extremely annoying that i have to do these steps all the time before rendering, after 15 years as well!!! ADOBE DO SOMETHING!!! At least give us the reason why this is happening so we can avoid it!!

[SebABF]

I'm getting a lot of bugs today with the latest update with MP4s that are in my comps - odd frames in various MP4s are appearing black, that didn't happen before in previous versions. Please see that this is fixed asap!

Title edited by Mod.

[nishu_kush]

Hi SebABF,

That's not ideal. Could you tell us your system specifications (CPU, GPU, RAM, OS version)? Also, a screenshot or a screen recording would be helpful for us to understand the issue better.

We're here to help.

I've branched your comment into a new post.

Thanks,

Nishu

[JohnColombo]

Hi @jamiemcgee,

Thank you for reporting this issue. Do you see the black frames with specific footage formats, or with any format?

Thank you for any additional information,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team  

[jamiemcgee]

Thanks for the reply. So far it has occured with MP4, MXF and ProRes Movs. It might be occuring with frame rate mismatch, so 30fps footage in a 25fps Render comp, 25fps Precomp in a 50fps render comp etc. I will try to recreate the issue without a frame mismatch to confirm.

[Kindhearted_mentors9502]

I don't think it's fps mismatch -- I'm getting it in 25fps comps w 25fps ProRes 4444 source footage. (Mac Studio M1 Ultra, macOS Sequoia 15.5)

[jamiemcgee]

Y its a tough one to recreate, I am setting up some comps and throwing in all FPS variants but struggling to reproduce the error.

[DWalla]

Can confirm. Having the identical problem with AE 25.3 (and 25.2) on our Macs as well as PC's. Definitely an issue with MP4's. We can scrub through the MP4's just fine on the timeline, but when we render a file it has all kinds of glitching and freezing occurring. Where sometimes it hardly advances any frames at all through the MP4, and other times it will randomly put in a frame from somewhere within the MP4 video. It's become a bit of a crapshoot as to whether a file will render correctly or not as it all seems so random. Reproduced on Intel Macs running MacOS 14.7, M1 Macs running 14.7.6, PC's running Windows 10 and Windows 11.

[Kindhearted_mentors9502]

Unfortunately this is happening to me as well in the Beta (Version 25.4.0 (Build 50))

[bakafish]

I just updated to 25.3 using Mac M3 MAX, AE non stop glitching and I need to keep on purging to eliminate the glitch but it just wont fix the problem! 

Title edited by Mod.

[vobrazovka]

AE 25.3 (windows 10, geforce 4070) has serious troubles with rendering various footages. It seems to me like cache problem. In compositions with prores or mp4 missing frames sometimes... Those frames missing just in compositing, not only export. Purge sometimes helps, but not for long. I saw this behavior in different types of footage. First was time remaped and make stretch 1% longer helped, but the second footage was just prores with alpha 100% speed. 
I attached sample rendered video (it is not from particle system, it is prerendered mov prores.) There is missing frame 63.
The same behavior was with different footages, includes mp4, so I need to roll back to previous AE version (there is no problem, also beta seems to be OK)
And, important thing, software rendering does not fix it. 

[MarekMularczyk]

A friend of mine is having problems with AE flickering in the Composition panel since updating to 2025... 😞

[bakafish]

Yes, exactly what happened to my comp. And another bug is the output module, whenever I chose H264 or any other setting, the output module still stay the same setting and default at quicktime prores. This version is super buggy!

[vobrazovka]

I can provide footages where I met this behavior. Just tell me how (it is too big to upload here)

[Sven Brencher]

I have the same issue on two MacBooks Pro with M1 Max and M2 Pro. Turning off Hardware acceleration for the Composition and Layer window fixes it on the M1 Max but not on the M2 Pro (I had to delete my Disc Cache after deactivation of the hardware acceleration). 

[Kindhearted_mentors9502]

Exact same here on Mac Sequoia 15.5. Also happening in the Beta (25.4.0 (Build 50)).

[Ishan Y]

Hi there,

I'm sorry for the poor experience. Could you let me know what type of media files are in your project? Please go to the menu at the top and click Effect > Effect Manager. Disable all third-party plugins and restart the app. If you still see the issue, would it be possible for you to share your project and media file through a personal message so that I can replicate this problem? That will help us a lot. 

Thanks,

Ishan

Please tag me (@) in your replies so that it notifies me and helps me respond promptly.

[nishu_kush]

HI there,

Sorry to hear about the issue. Could you let us know your system specifications (CPU, GPU, RAM, OS version)? Is your GPU driver updated to the latest version? Try this - go to After Effects Preferences > Display > disable Hardware Accelerated Composition, Layer, and Footage Panels. Also, feel free to DM me a download link of the files that you can share to help us reproduce the issue on our end.

Let me know.

Thanks,
Nishu

[Ishan Y]

Hi,

I can understand your frustration. If you're still seeing this issue, please share your current After Effects version and system specifications. If you're using a laptop, please mention the manufacturer and variant.

Thanks,

Ishan

Please tag me (@) in your replies so that it notifies me and helps me respond promptly.

[default26932212xb5r4k]

I'm having the same issue with quicktime ProRes 4444 media on a MacStudio M1 Ultra, macOS 14.7.6. I reverted to AE 25.2.2. 

[deanp78121107]

I got exactly the same issue after updating. I re-installed the previous version and went to Settings/Display and turned off 'Hardware Acceleration Composition, Layer and Footage Panels, restarted and After Effects is running perfect.

Not sure if turning that prefereence off in the laatest version would resolve it, but I'm not installing. Just another useless Adobe Update that creates problems that were not there before.

It has nothing to do with missmatched frame rates etc. I went through all that beofre finding the tip to just turn off hardware acceleration pref

[kiddiuk]

This is the nastiest AE bug I've seen in my career that spans 28 years with AfterEffects. The flickering frames, not only black frames but also inverted-color frames and what not, happens with every type of video media. I've tried disabling/enabling GPU acceleration, Multiframe rendering, Disk-Cache on/off, nothing works. Purging cache (even 0 byte cache) resolves the issue at the previously broken frames but makes new problems elsewhere. The only solution is restarting AE which gives me a fresh working time window for a little while. The only correlation I've seen is that this happens only when there is VIDEO MEDIA on the timeline, if the timeline is purely made out of still graphics there are no problems so far. I'm running a Macbook Pro M4 Pro with 48GB RAM and MacOs Sequoia 15.5 latest version.

[dh91]

I also had a similar issue on Windows. Flicking footage, black frames, literal upside down frames. This is with Arri Alexa footage that had been converted to Prores for comp.

Literally unusable. I was hoping this version would fix the flickering highlights while working in aces bug (when using GPU acceleration). Instead it added more flickering bugs. Shame. 

[kiddiuk]

By disabling the Hardware acceleration of layout/panels, the bug gets a little bit better, a bit more time to work before everything starts flickering, but it doesn't solve it completely for me 😞 

[nishu_kush]

Hi all,

We have filed a ticket for further investigation on this issue.

Changing the thread status.

Best,

Nishu