after effect preview not work

[hilaly07]

Hi

yesterday this problem happen when press play bottom the review not work

also timeline not moving

i use AE cc 2018

Windows 10 64 bit

Ram 8 GB

you can see the play bottom is square shape and no motion appear

[_Maido_]

Back from lunch and again no playback, sadly.

[Roland Kahlenberg]

I've said previously, it's best that you contact support, to have someone take a closer, hands-on look at your system and this includes taking a look at your OS settings and AE settings.

Meanwhile, when you say "no playback", exactly what happens when you initiate a Preview?

What happens in the Timeline, does the Preview Time Indicator (vertical red line) move across the timeline?

What happens in the Comp Panel?

Please take a screen grab of your Comp and Timeline Panels.

[_Maido_ · Accepted solution]

When I leave AE open and take a break, a lunch (or leave it open overnight ), when I come back and hit the spacebar, it will play it once without sound and when I stop it and try to play it again, it does nothing. I can scroll the timeline and it composition updates, but can't play it back anymore. When I purge all the cache and memory it cleans it up and it also caches/renders it internally (green bar fills up) but it won't play it. When I check "cache before playback" on Preview panel then it time cursor will follow the caching process, but no way to really play it back in realtime with sound.

Restart always repairs it. My fellow animator next to me has the same issue.

Not really the dealbreaker type of thing, but kind of interrupts the flow every time it happens.

But, I figured it out

It seems to be an issue with audio hardware (and monitors connected with audio-supported cables). When I (1) removed external devices from windows audio settings and (2) changed audio hardware (File > Preferences > Audio Hardware) back to Speakers it started to playback my preview (AE needs restart to get the audio back though). (3) If you have headphones connected to the monitor audio output, then

This kind of explains the issue (and my situation after leaving AE open):

"When an audio-supported video cable is being used such as a DisplayPort or HDMI cable, Windows may change the default audio device to the audio-supported cable thinking another audio device is being used. The issue may be seen to occur when a portable is coming out of sleep as the system is detecting the audio-capable cable first."

[Roland Kahlenberg]

Thanks for sharing.

[aaronhelton]

I've been having this issue for a while now and Adobe can't do anything about it. I've had tons of customer service reps screen share and try and solve it but it never worked, just more and more unrelated invasive computer exploration. Adobe's customer service has a tendency to focus on the customer's tech and prowess over the actual defects of the software.  

[THE MAGBO]

I can't believe this is was actually the problem. Thank you Maido.

[Dallin J.5F8A]

I faced the same problem, but for me I had to solve it a little bit differently. I went to the sync settings button in the top right hand corner, it has a gear and two arrows in it. Right click the icon and then select clear settings. Then just restart After Affects. 

[editsdenuggetonig]

I created an account just to say this - thank you so much Dallin!

[defaultirf7uvs0cyj1]

Best solution ever! Thank You a lot!!!

[Soham0101]

Yo shiiiie , thanks a lot i was gonna throw my laptop away thinking some hardware issue is there 
this helped!

[andrewh95463792]

I unplugged my 2nd and 3rd monitors and now the preview is working after restarting after effects. Thanks so much 🙂 

[HartSharon]

I may have spent all day on this issue as I'm doing a work project and have to get it done. Just logged in to say thanks for the quick solution. 

[K.Arthur]

You are such a genius!

Thanks alot @_Maido_ 

[monsterrain]

Post #18 & #31 #14 are exact useful solution for me.

I have same issue . After purge whole caches and switch audio hardware , it works perfectly.

My AE version is CC2019. The issue is continuously be reserved until 2019.

However, thanks to crewdev &_Maido_ & khadarshameer

Love u guys!

[justThai]

I tried this :
Composition -> Preview -> Uncheck "Play Current Preview" 
It worked. Hope this can help u guy.

[Ravens Of Mars]

Here's a ridiculous thing to try. Make sure the stoopid eyeball is clicked in the preview window. See the yellow arrow.

[MindGems]

Where do I find that fukin thing? After effects is sooooo frustrating. Why can't they have a normal timeline with cut and play functions. I can't find the window you showed?

[onyxh42445751]

Thanks this fixed it for me i just changed the audio hardware and it worked fine right after 🙂

[dgclearcover]

Thank you! This sorted the issue for me immediately. Thinking I'll switch from HDMI to DisplayPort to avoid the issue. Cheers!

[johnm95126004]

Thankyou from 2020

[scottg55490461]

Switching sudio output to speakers fixes it.

[poppinkittoo]

thank you so much ! worked on my PC

[zeta_8308]

Thank you so much you saved my life

[willsilakkia]

I had a similar problem, i was not able to preview anything after i left running AE for few hours. I tried many thing including restart, finally came to this post and just turned off my bluetooth audio connection and vola it renders in a flash, WOW . btw i am using AE on MAC.

[ozonas luis]

It works! I was connecting headphones to the monitor out minijack. But, disabled sound device (in this case the Benq Monitor) AND reboot Windows. The in AE go to prefs/ Audio Hardware and Audio Mapping. Now with headphones connected directly to the CPU the previews are OK with usual key 0 numpad. Thanks!!