After Effects slows down complete system until restart

[Planet_Motion]

Hi. For some time now I have had the problem that After Effects slows down my whole system. I always clean up the cache files and this I also have on separate SSD's so that the system drive stays nice and free.

But the strangest thing is that even when I close AE, the system remains slow. The mouse jerks, programmes take forever to load, etc. Only after a restart does the system run normally again.
However, there are no unusual loads to be seen in the task manager. Neither in the RAM nor the CPU.

Does anyone know this problem? Would really appreciate any tips. Thanks.

My system:
AMD 5900x
Asus Creator X570
128GB Ram
2x Geforce 3090

[Warren Heaton]

Do you have any third party plugins installed?

[JohnColombo]

Hi @Planet_Motion,

Thank you for reporting this issue. This doesn't sound like any issues that we're currently aware of. Do the system slowdowns start to occur before you close After Effects or afterward? When the slowdown occurs and you've closed After Effects, does After Effect remain in the list of running applications in the Task Manager?

Thanks for reporting this issue and for any further information you can provide, 

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

[Planet_Motion]

Hi. The slowdowns occur while I am running After Effects. After a few minutes with AE, the whole system slows down. Updating to Ver.2023 makes it worse. AE itself is super slow. 4K videos, even without filters, play very slowly and with a very long delay after pressing the space bar. I have more than 100GB free on my work disk (Samsung 980pro). Windwos and all drivers incl. Bios are updated to the latest versions.

[JohnColombo]

Thanks, @Planet_Motion, and thanks as well for your patience with my response. Since your post, we've released a 23.1 update to After Effects that includes several memory management fixes, so please try that version and let us know if you see any improvement.

I would second @Warren Heaton's question about whether any third-party plug-ins or extensions are installed. We've recently worked with Maxon to fix some memory leaks in their products, and we're continuing to work with them and other third-party vendors on issues with memory management. Knowing if you're running any panels, like Motion 4, would be helpful as well.

An application log might also help us to identify what is causing such a dramatic slowdown. If possible, please follow these instructions and share the resulting "After Effects Log.txt" file either here or via a private message.

To enable logging:

1.  In After Effects, go to Help > Enable Logging, then close After Effects when prompted.
2. Re-open AE, open a project, and attempt playback.
3. Go to Edit > Preferences > General > Reveal Preferences in Explorer
   4. In the folder that is revealed, please share the "After Effects Log.txt" that should exist in the "logs" folder.

Thanks again,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team