Latest AE version (25.1) crashes my iMac

[EditorJohn]

The latest version of After Effects freezes up my intel iMac. I have to switch off and restart the computer as everything - even the mouse - freezes. I've never had any issues at running AE on this machine before nor in the many, many years I've been using it. It's driving me crazy as I can't do any work with AE. 

I don't have any 3rd party plug-ins installed so that's not the issues. I don't have any issues with any other software.

My iMac spec is 3.8Ghz 8-Core i7, with 128GB RAM

I'd be grateful for any solution to this? 

[nishu_kush]

Sorry to hear about the issue. Do you mind sharing the following details:

1. Does it happen on a specific project or all of them?
2. Is there a specific command/action that triggers it or does it happen randomly?
3. What happens if you run After Effects in Safe Mode? Does that help?

Let us know.

Thanks,
Nishu

[EditorJohn]

Hi Nishu
I initially thought it might have been a project / composition that had
been corrupted somehow so I created a new project - for a new job and
built everything from scratch. However, the crash recurred in the same way
- freezing up the iMac.
The first crash, a couple of weeks ago, happened when I imported a video
clip to act as a background layer - as I've done hundreds of times before.
Everything was okay but when I
tried to render out the comp, I got the spinning wheel of death and the
system crashed. I restarted it all and, thinking it may have been a bad
file, imported a still image in place of the video to test it. It rendered
out okay, but when carrying out a subsequent render
using still images, the system crashed/froze up as before. On that
particular project I did eventually manage to render out simple, animated
lower third graphics boxes with text that I needed.

In the project I'm currently working on, I've had several random freezes /
crashes - all of the same nature; I was using simple shapes and text layers
(so not a lot of processing needed), when everything crashed again.
I had not attempted to render anything. Totally random.
I've not run anything in safe mode yet but I have wound back to AE version
25.0 - (the last version I know was running just fine on my machine). I
hope that works. If not, I'll run in safe mode and see.
Of course, I have no way of running a diagnostic on this so even in safe
mode I'm not sure I would be any the wiser.
Hope that gives you enough information.
John

[EditorJohn]

Here's an update on my AE crash situation. Despite running in Safe Mode, AE continues to randomly crash on my iMac. It will work fine for a while and then suddenly freeze up - locking the app and even the mouse. I have to reboot the iMac. The latest freeze up today happened as I was changing the level of Gausian blur on an adjustment layer. Previously, it's crashed while attempting to render out a composition, and also while creating a simple rectangle - i.e. creating really basic stuff. I really don't know what to do other than to start using alternatives to AE. I have no issues running any other app, Adobe or otherwise on my Mac - only AE displays this issue. In addition to the computer spec I gave in my earlier post, I can add that I'm running Sonoma 14.6.1 OS.