AE 2017 Blank Start Screen

[mverta]

I'm trying out AE 2017, cautiously, because my 2014 is my rock-solid workhorse.

Is the very first thing I'm supposed to see a blank dialogue where the buttons highlight on mouse-over but do nothing?  This is a brand-new install.

[Mylenium]

This means that there is some sort of connection issue and it can't display the CC libriaries and all that stuff. Check your system.

Mylenium

[mverta]

Cool.  What kind of connections would those be?  My Creative Cloud app is running and keeping things updated swimmingly in the system tray; internet's obviously cool or I couldn't be posting; all other inbound/outbound connections (ftp, etc.) are running as usual.  Which other system stuff might you recommend I check?

Thanks!

[kirkeric]

What happens if you select open project and select one?  Does it work fine other than what you are seeing there?

Also, I'd probably just give her a reboot too since that resolves many oddball problems.

Eric

[mverta]

As I mentioned in the original post, the buttons highlight on mouse-over but don't do anything.  You can click on New or Open all day long and they don't do anything.  And yes, the system's been rebooted.

[Szalam]

That's odd. Can you close out of that screen and then use AE like normal?

What, exact, version number of CC 2017 are you running?

[mverta]

Yes I can close out the screen and use AE normally.

I am using 14.2.1.34

[Szalam]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. If I were you, I'd go into the preferences and turn off the start screen entirely so you don't even have to mess with it.

For what it's worth, I also have a weird issue where my start screen doesn't show up at all - despite it being set to show up in the preferences. I haven't been concerned enough about it to even troubleshoot anything in the middle of work (but I will troubleshoot a bit and file a bug report on it this weekend if I can remember to do so).

[Szalam]

If you want, try turning that option off in the preferences so that you get no start screen, reboot, open AE. Note what happens - (do you get a start screen or not?) Then, go into the preferences and turn the start screen back on, reboot, open AE. Now see what it does.

I'd be interested to hear. If it fixes it, great! If not, file a bug report (and then go turn it off again )

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi mverta,

Are you still facing this problem? If not, let us know how you solved it. If so, please let us know so we can assist you further.

Thanks,

Kevin

[mverta]

I solved it by returning to my last stable workhorse version, CC 2014.

I have been an After Effects user since it was CoSA After Effects in 1993.  In the last few years it seems to have gotten bloated and buggy beyond what's worth dealing with.  My system is typically rock-solid and dependable, hosting a variety of VFX software programs reliably.  All this new "Start" dialogue crap and sharing to the web which nobody asked for is silly.  So no, it's not working, and yes, I'll continue to check in on After Effects latest releases about twice a year to see if it gets any better.  In the meantime, I have deadlines, and 2014 almost never lets me down.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Mverta,

Sorry for the frustration. Do you happen to have Extensis Font Suitcase installed in your system? This looks like a similar issue.

As you know, the team has been working on rebuilding many of the foundations related to performance for After Effects over the past few years (since CC 2014). This architectural change is due to overwhelming requests by After Effects users for performance enhancements. See this blog post by Steve Forde for reference: Happy New Year! ~ and a question… | Creative Cloud blog by Adobe

Please file bugs related to any issues you may be experiencing here. That would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kevin