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MaxAppian
Inspiring
July 16, 2018
Question

AE takes a very long time to open preferences.

  • July 16, 2018
  • 6 replies
  • 4496 views

Hello all,

I am using AE 15.1.1 on a Mac running OS High Sierra 10.13.5.

For some reason when I attempt to open my preferences in any project, I get the spinning wheel of death. If I wait long enough (5-7 minutes or so) it will open up.  Then, when I go to empty my cache it brings up the spinning wheel for about 10 minutes before finally emptying (at the usual rate).  After effects otherwise runs perfectly.  Any ideas why it's doing this?

This topic has been closed for replies.

6 replies

jackthegiantkiller
Inspiring
November 2, 2023

Today it took 50 seconds to open preferences on a fully topped off 16-inch M1 Macbook Pro Max. I am on latest Ventura and AE 24.0.1. Why on earth does it take so freaking long to open preferences??? Why can't you fix this?

Participant
August 30, 2023

What fixed it for me was disabling the Google Drive desktop agent. Im on a Windows 10 system. Perhaps other forms of network drives cause the same issue.

mattl4904321
Participant
May 4, 2021

I kepy getting stuck with this. Opening preferences would take forever. Clearing the cashe would take forever. Strangly what fixed my issue was opening Spotlight. Right after clicking Preferences the spinning wheel popped up, but as soon as I hit command-space (to open Spotlight) it loaded immediatly. When I went to clear my cache, the spinning wheel popped up. Once again, as soon as I hit command-space, it stopped lagging and cleared the cache. Hope that helps anyone. 

Participating Frequently
January 27, 2022

I don't know how you figured this out but this is absolute genius. Saved my day today.

Inspiring
February 24, 2021

I have this same issue, macos 10.15.7, ae 17.7.0.

 

I tried resetting preferences, but it made no difference. Ae also doesn't quit when I 'quit' ... I have to force quit every time.

 

Any other solutions?

jackthegiantkiller
Inspiring
July 15, 2021

There is no solution, they know it's painfully slow to open preferences but are compelled to toss out the usual placebo solutions. It takes a full 33 seconds to open my prefs on a maxed out Retina iMac running latest Catalina. Most everything else is snappy.

Kevin-Monahan
Community Manager
Community Manager
August 3, 2018

Hi MaxAppian,

Check out the steps in this doc and see if it helps: Fixing permissions problem (slow startup)

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio
Mohammad.Harb
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 16, 2018

Have you tries to reset the preferences settings?

1- quit after effects

2- run after effects while holding cmd + opt + shift

you will get a message to reset the preferences setting

“ the message may not show up the first try, so keep trying“

let us know if that helps

MaxAppian
MaxAppianAuthor
Inspiring
July 16, 2018

I was trying to find a way around resetting the preferences completely- is this the only way?

P.M.B
Legend
July 16, 2018

Have you tried shutting down and rebooting the computer?  Most people just log out or sleep their macs but when you reboot system temp, memory, swap, and cache files get cleared out during boot.   I'm not a mac user but on windows when things get inexplicably weird I'll reboot and often things get less weird.

~Gutterfish