2025.2.0 build 131 locks up old comps

[John Karner]

-Loaded up an older scene from AE 2016? some exrs, mov's amd png's (Some plugins from RG were missing, removed them and saved over, scene loads without warnings.)

-Scrub back and forth in the timeline updates as expected. Looks okay.

-Press spacebar to generate preview, begins to generate around 20-30 frames, then freezes AE, have to end task in task manager every time.

Using brand new Windows 11, Ryzen 9 machine ,64MB ram

Rebuilt the same comp from scratch  (2025.2.0 build 131) Works fine!

[David.Arbor]

Hi there @John Karner,

Are you able to share the project with us? Given that it might be large with all the assets, it might be easiest to start diagnosing the problem on your end by reducing the comp until playback starts working. So a few questions:

1. If you set preview to start at different point in the comp, does the freeze still happen, or does it only happen from the beginnign of the comp? If so...
2. Can you start by deleting all layers that don't appear under the Current Time Indicator and seeing if the freeze occurs? 
3. You can then start to delete larger chunks to see if playback works properly, and then eventually indentify if a specific asset, layer, effect, expression etc. is the problem.

Thanks,

- David, After Effects Engineering Team

[John Karner]

I've removed every effect on every layer. and the footage plays fine.

Starting to remove effects one at a time, CC-composte (obsolete) I thought
was it, but removing every instance still locks up. I've also removed
timewarp, also locking up.

Using ramp, Curves, glow, levels, tint, hue/saturation, mesh warp and fast
box blur. Trying those now.

[John Karner · Accepted solution]

Discovered that it was Reduce Noise on two layers!  Problem solved.

[David.Arbor]

Thanks for reporting back, and I'm glad you got it solved!

Yeah, if the "Reduce Noise" plug-ing you're referring to happens to be Neat Video, then yeah, it's heavy but produces incredible results. Sometimes it's best to pre-render clips with your noise reduction (in an intermediate format like ProRes), then import them back in to your comp. This can drastically improve performance and reduce render times since you won't constantly be recalculating noise reduction.

Thanks,
- David, After Effects Engineering Team