Adobe After Effects preview not working properly on Apple M1

[BP75]

Hello everyone! 

I have just done my first AE project using a apple M1 and I have experienced terrible preview issues. I am using a new Mac mini (M1, 2020) with 16 GB of Memory. The project I was working is quite simple. It is a 30s 1080p retail TVC with 98 layers (including, AE text, AI and PSD layered files) and no effects applied.

The performance to preview frames and doing the animation was flawsless, super fast response for anything. However, when I added the Voice Over audio file (WAV) and tried to preview in order to sync audio and video it did not work at all. It was playing inconsistently, sometimes playing the video slower than the VO, sometimes playing the VO slower with the sleepy voice effect. The preview was so bad that I had to give up and finish the project on a Macbook pro i7 with 32Gb of RAM, which handle the project and previews without any problem. I have attached the fist version of the animation so you can see how simple it is.

I tried everything. Firstly I tried to purge the memory and I was surprised that AE was using less than 500mb. Than I played with different combos on preference/memory & performance. Tried work with different audio formats aif, m4v, mp3... Tried turn the motion blur off, preview in quarter resolution, all those things you only do when you have to preview a mosnter 4K project with lots of havy plugins applied. But this simple sync task on this simple project was too tough for AE on M1.

I am wondering if I missed something. I know AE is not optimized for M1 yet, but being unable to sync audio and video is a serious downside and I would not recommend an M1 for a friend after that.

If anyone experienced similar issues and found a fix, please let me know.

Thanks

[Regine0101]

I am also having the same problem.. and I want someone to help me out

[Leo777]

im in the same boat 
for me it worked great untill today and i tried EVERYTHING 
from updating deleting AE. Purging . deleting everything . making space. 
updating my mac ! getting assitance - and NOTHING.
the Preview is lagging , sloppy unwatchable even on Low Resolution
id like assitance caus im out of ideas 

[FJ5FF1]

Please fix this error. It's unusable. Have to restart my machine for 5 minutes of normal uninterupted work. Just having a few video files is enough to make to previewbar hang on a few frames.

[Warren Heaton]

That's weird, and definable frustrating.

What's is the AE version number and which version of macOS?

i can try to duplicate the issue on my M1 Mac Mini.

-Warren

[Warren Heaton]

Take a closer look at your hardware configuration.   For example, where is the source footage being stored? What other applications are running in the foreground or background?

I downloaded your sample clip, imported it into AE; created a new Comp from it; exported a WAV from the MP4, imported the resulting WAV, and placed it in the Comp; started a Preview and let it run while recreating some of the artwork in Illustrator; imported the AI file as a Comp and started rebuilding the animation.  

The Info Panel indicated that the Preview dropped out of real time a few times, but it was only temporary and AE performed as expected the entire time.

macOS Big Sur 11.6.7 (20G630)

Mac mini (M1, 2020)

16 GB

2TB Flash Storgae

After Effects 22.5.0 (Build 53), 46% Used of 16GB

Illustrator 26.3.1

The attached screen recording doesn't have audio, but the audio track was playing during the AE Preview.

Hopefully, it's easy to troubleshoot whatever is causing the performance issue on your end.

-Warren

[natashaa45151749]

I had been working on my 2018 macbook and switched my AE project to my new M1 and it cannot handle it at all. I've tried everything in the settings related to memory and previews and nothing is working. 

[Joost van der Hoeven]

What version of Ae? How much memory does your M1 system have? What are your project specs?

[markcgrossi@gmail.com]

Likewise. This is an absolute joke.

I upgraded 2 weeks ago to a Macbook Pro M1 16mb Ram from my 2016 Macbook, and it can't preview more than 3 frames of 4 Rubberhose limb animation without it jittering. I need to constantly reset After Effects.

I never had this problem with my 2016 Macbook, and I was previewing even more Rubberhose characters and 3D layers in that. And I wasn't running it from an external harddrive either.

I just opened up my file on my 2016 Macbook (which is on its last legs) and it previews the Rubberhose scene with zero issues.

[Warren Heaton]

I do not think that Battleaxe had updated Rubberhose for M1 yet.

Try running After Effects using Rosetta.

[markcgrossi@gmail.com]

Hey Warren,

Cheers for the reply. 

Ah, that would explain it then. 

I'll give Rosetta a try. Thanks for the advice 🙂

Mark

[markcgrossi@gmail.com]

Turns out it was me being a dumb ass. I updated to AE 23 and now it runs as smooth as butter. I take back  everything I said in my initial post and stand corrected 😅