AE depletes 128GB RAM, MacPro hangs, game over...

[duaneconder]

Starting with the 2021 update, After Effects maxes out my 128GB RAM to the point of total MacPro process hang... I’ve been compositing in AE since 1994- I certainly know how to allocate RAM. THIS problem is something I have never seen. AE uses all memory, slowly gobbling it up even if the machine is sitting idle. No matter what memory allocation I set, this happens, the machine is useless after about 20 mins., and I need to manually turn it off. I use Cleaner One for mac, so can see in real time as the RAM depletes—again, even when AE is open in the background with no compositing happening. Any clue to why this is happening (other than "your computer is too old") would be greatly appreciated. 

MacPro late 2013;10.14.6; 2.7 GHz 12-core Intel Xenon E5; 128GB 1066 MHz DDR3

//dc

[simhoff@aol.com]

This happens to me and I have a 2019 MacPro so it's not the age of your machine.  I have 256Mb of RAM.

[duaneconder]

Do you have any work-arounds? I can use Cleaner One to refresh the memory, but if I don't catch it in time the system will hang. I have tried everything in the book with the exception of wiping the drive and starting over. 

[simhoff@aol.com]

I really don't know what is causing it. Right after I upgraded this started. I kept getting errors that I ran out of Application Memory and then it would crash. The error message said that AE was using 434.43Gb of RAM which of course is impossible. I've been trying to guess what is happening by looking at Activity Monitor and seeing what else is gobbling up memory. Suitcase Fusion was using quite a bit of memory but I have lots of fonts and DropBox was also using more than a Gig and a half of RAM. Oh, and just like you in the Activity Monitor, my RAM usage for AE would go up even if I wasn't doing anything. 

When I upgraded to AE, I got a message that I had to upgrade Suitcase Fusion and that it wouldn't work with this version of AE. I did upgrade it. I still got a message that I needed to upgrade it, so I did it again and that seemed to work. The machine was a lot better. Oh, and I upgraded Photoshop too at the same time that I did the AE upgrade and I was crashing out of Photoshop also. Photoshop has been working normally since the Suitcase Fusion upgrade.

I'm still getting crashes. I think that DropBox is the problem. It's using an incredible amount of memory. I've been trying to remove DropBox from my drive without much success. Their tech support is terrible and just about nonexistent. Right now I am working in AE and I got a message that I am almost out of RAM! 

I also have been working in AE for a long time, since Version 2, and know-how to allocate RAM. I've never seen anything like this before either.

[duaneconder]

Thanks for your response! Interesting about DropBox...  I have it on my macpro as well. The fact that it can't easily be removed from the system tells me the coding (dropbox's) may be acting like a malware, and if so, would definately affect how or systems preform—especially with RAM-hungry applications like AE. I am going to try and remove dropbox and will update here with the results. (if any). 

[duaneconder]

UPDATE: Today when I launched AE, for some random reason it routed my audio through the default source. I wasn't doing any syncing, so just left it. Low and behold, the memory ran up to 98% usage, BUT it would clear out randomly and go down to ~90%. I've been working for a couple of hours with no system hang. Maybe the 2021 update doesn't like certain audio outputs. My prefered choice is Firewire through a card in the expansion box to an Apogee DAC.  simhoff@aol.com have you tried switching audio outputs? I am almost hoping this is NOT the way. I love my audio setup. More later...

[duaneconder]

Well, after I typed that, the MacPro system hung (not this one I'm typing on) and I'm restarting. Two hours of work is a recent record, though!

[simhoff@aol.com]

sorry that your machine crashed again.

[simhoff@aol.com]

I tried changing my audio outputs. It didn't seem to make much of a difference but the amount of RAM that it was using when the machine was idle was changing. It was using a reasonable amount of RAM though. 

[simhoff@aol.com]

Last weekend when I was trying anything to get rid of DropBox, I disabled a bunch of DropBox system preferences and I also renamed two different files that were on my machine to SlopBox. After Effects wouldn't start up. Not only 2021 but 2020. I thought that changing the filename wasn't part of the AE opening problem but when I changed the file's name back to DropBox I was able to open AE again. 

[duaneconder]

WOW... well I can say it looks like it's definately dropbox. I deleted it completly from my system and AE has been running at ~70% RAM like old times. It took some doing. Once I signed out, I deleted the app. Cleaner One popped up and asked if I wanted to deeply uninstall that crap. I clicked yes, and it's done. I also still have the audio running to the default output. That'll change and I hope AE and my machine continue to play well. Hopefully this helps others out- your help was immense, I never would have thought dropbox! 

[simhoff@aol.com]

That's great to know that my strong suspicion was right! I haven't been able to sign out despite some terrible email tech support from them. That's why I was furiously manually deleting stuff and changing file names etc over the weekend. Now that I know that deleting it completely  works for you, that's what I'll do. And if this isn't the problem let me know. THANKS! 

[duaneconder]

I finished up a comp and it was running 20% memory with the Apogee FW card pumping out audio, hit render and it shot up to 90%. That's normal operating proceedure around here! Will keep you posted if things change, and please keep your updates going on this thread, I'll be curious and it may help others out that have this same crazy issue. Later! 

[PitcherGiffer]

This sort of thing is happening to me, too. Its absolutely infruiating when updates come out that degrade performance. I've been told previously that there is some issue allocating memory with MacBooks that is like pulling teeth to get Apple to collaborate on to create a permanent fix. 

For PP, it takes so much longer, now, to process even a 10 second video (10-15 second render to 2-ish minutes usually).

But After Effects...holy SH*T. The rendering situation is terrible; half the time, when I play back my video, it won't even render all the way. When I render manually (scrolling myself) it works but then other parts of the timeline break down and have to be rendered again. Never mind it takes forever to render a clip that's even a few seconds long. 

What the hell is going on, Adobe...?

AE version 17.7.0, version 45

OS Version- Big Sur 11.3.1
2019 MB Pro
2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9
16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 4 GB

[duaneconder]

Hey man... deleting Dropbox totally fixed my problem, thanks to simhoff@aol.com. If you have dropbox, sign out and deep clean it from your system. I think dropbox has tentacles in the code that reach deep into everything. My 7 year old macpro works almost like new after purging dropbox. //dc