After Effects 2015 won't preview in real time after El Capitan update.

[AMAX]

Hello,

Has anyone experienced the following issue and found a solution for it?

Right after Update to El Capitan 10.11 the After Effects 2015 stopped ram previewing in real time.

No matter what i do it won’t work.

I have a latest MAC Pro 2.7 GHz 12-Core with 64GB ram.

The AE 2014 still works though.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hello chillyche,

At the office we're on AE 13.8.0.144, on OSX 10.9.5.

Please update to OS X 10.10.5, or later if you want to use this version of After Effects. Report back after updating and let us know if your issues are resolved.

Can we get some sort of clarity on whether the old functionality can be restored

Sure. The previous functionality won't be restored, however, you can use previous versions of After Effects. Sorry.

Thanks,
Kevin

[cmoney1974]

Having same problems with preview on 5k iMac as others (using latest OS, hardware acceleration on, etc...)

The only way i can get previews to work is full screen option in preview controls + skipping frames and even that has stutter starts and inconsistent playback frame rate (sad coming off solid state drive too).

please help Adobe ( @ Kevin-Monahan?) I've been using AE since it was CoSA After Effects and this is the worst performance yet. the 5k iMac is my home machine,

yet I also work for a major TV network design studio and am trying prepare our teams to migrate to this new build, but can't recommend it if this is how it is.

[Szalam]

chillyche wrote:

At the office we're on AE 13.8.0.144, on OSX 10.9.5.

As Kevin says, you should use a newer OS to use this version of AE. That version of OSX does not work well with CC 2015.3 (despite what the system requirements page might say).

But remember, your CC subscription includes the older versions of AE too. On that version of Mac OSX, I would recommend using CC 2014. It should work nicely once updated to 13.2.x. Here's how to install older versions. And CC 2014 works with files created by CC 2015.3 with no problems (well, it might not recognize the new Gaussian blur effect or one or two other new features, but it works flawlessly in most cases), so you should be able to use CC 2014 without issue.

chillyche wrote:

I don't understand why it can't just use some of those 26GB of RAM to buffer something and then play back.

It does do that. My MacBook and Windows machines all do that just fine. Are you using a preview mode with cache before playback enabled? I mean, it should work a bit better once you update to a newer version of OSX, but it's worth a try before you do that. It would also be worth updating AE to yesterday's bug fix update. 13.8.1 fixed a big chunk of bugs.

[martopiav35451750]

Still having this issue on OS X 10.11.6 and AE 13.8.1. RAM previews will play in real time about half of the time. Only if I dock a panel underneath my timeline. Someone suggested this as a workaround for now. Only works about half the time. Anyone else still having this issue?

[Szalam]

martopiav35451750 wrote:

Still having this issue on OS X 10.11.6 and AE 13.8.1. RAM previews will play in real time about half of the time. Only if I dock a panel underneath my timeline. Someone suggested this as a workaround for now. Only works about half the time. Anyone else still having this issue?

I would be willing to bet a beer that you're working on a 4K or 5K screen. Am I right?

[martopiav35451750]

Actually no, I'm using one of the 2k iMacs.

And yes, I have the same result as you Roei with the Hardware Acceleration check box.

[Szalam]

martopiav35451750 wrote:

Actually no, I'm using one of the 2k iMacs.

Darn! Almost every time it's someone with 4K or greater. Perhaps it's anything above 1080. My old MacBook doesn't have any issues at all and it's less than Full HD screen resolution.

I guess I owe you a beer. Next time you're near Nashville, let me know!

[VPCEdit6]

I have the 5k iMac and the audio issue was working fine until I upgraded to 13.8.1.38.  Now it is back with a vengeance!  To get an accurate audio playback, even at quarter resolution, I need to render out a quicktime and check the render.  I have all the checkboxes correct and have a panel docked under my timeline.  I swear it was fixed but after all the bugs were fixed it came back.

[jackthegiantkiller]

I have a 5k iMac and am still having no luck getting any realtime previews. I am simply shocked and mortified at Adobe's inability to fix this bug.

[Roei Tzoref]

this is a long shot but see if Hardware Acceleration in the preferences is checked - I have noticed that when this is not checked - my Preview is smooth, and when it is - it will require a second pass to run smooth.

[twdvfx]

Enabling Hardware Acceleration worked for me.  Without it previews were running about 50%, as soon as I checked it they played back at real time, even with dual monitors + AJA output.

[Roei Tzoref]

Interesting. My experience showed me the opposite but I am on Win 7 with 24" monitor

[martopiav35451750]

Just updated to CC 2017 and this problem still exists.

[VoodooBownz]

CC 2017 here too. Still have the bug. HOW after all this time... hasn't this been fixed yet?

Incredibly disappointing.

[freekorps]

Still not fixed over a year later. Whats the hold up Adobe. I didn't move from FCP for this!

[Szalam]

freekorps wrote:

Still not fixed over a year later. Whats the hold up Adobe. I didn't move from FCP for this!

I'm sure this bug is one of their top priorities. I'm guessing the hold up is that it's not a trivial issue to fix. There have been some different workarounds that didn't help everybody, so it's something fundamentally askew and I'm sure they're tracking it down as fast as they can. Hopefully a fix comes soon!

[Estebee]

I got another marketing flyer today from Adobe.  Apparently...

"Performance improvements in the latest release of Adobe After Effects CC speed up your workflow,"

To be fair they are totally with the zeitgeist:  Adobe,  an app developer for the post-truth era.

Adobe core workflow bugs like this were  an old joke over a year ago.  My most successful strategy, and I strongly advise this:

***DO NOT EVER UPDATE YOUR ADOBE PRODUCTS UNLESS SOMETHING IS SO BROKEN YOU CAN NO LONGER DO YOUR JOB.  FIRST, TRY A WORKAROUND.  CHECK THE FORUMS (ADOBE WON'T EVEN TELL YOU ABOUT KNOWN BUGS - YOU HAVE TO FINDN OUT THE HARD WAY).  AND IF ALL ELSE FAILS, THEN GRAB A MORE RECENT VERSION BUT DON'T DELETE YOUR OLD ONE.  DO THE JOB YOU NEED TO DO, THEN GO BACK TO YOUR OLD VERSION AGAIN.****

[Szalam]

Estebe wrote:

***DO NOT EVER UPDATE YOUR ADOBE PRODUCTS UNLESS SOMETHING IS SO BROKEN YOU CAN NO LONGER DO YOUR JOB

I disagree. I (and most people I've talked to) have found the CC 2017 release of After Effects to be a significant performance boost.

If you're working with footage, you should notice that it's much faster to play back - in fact it will probably play back instantly without having to cache first if you don't have effects on it (and sometimes even if you do).

If you use Dynamic Link with Premiere Pro, the consensus seems to be that it's about twice as fast as it used to be. Real time text animation, blurs, etc. in Premiere. It's crazy.

And CC 2017 seems to have a lot fewer bugs (especially if you're using MacOS Sierra).

Now, I still caution people not to let the CC app wipe out their old versions when they update to the latest release - just in case something doesn't work for them in the newer version. But, even if they do, it's easy to install an older version and you can easily save project files back a version too. (Heck, chain versions of AE together and you can get a project created in the CC 2017 release all the way down to CS5!)

Estebe wrote:

(ADOBE WON'T EVEN TELL YOU ABOUT KNOWN BUGS - YOU HAVE TO FINDN OUT THE HARD WAY).

The AE team blogs about known bugs in After Effects and they address them in threads here. I'm not sure what else you want them to do.

[jackthegiantkiller]

Significant performance boost over basically non-functionality is what again? We are professionals, I have been working in After Effects since 1999 and dabbled in it before then in its earliest forms. For those of us in the Mac world who own any machine with Retina displays, this program is a freaking unworkable mess even with these ridiculous workarounds. Stop making excuses for the wretched state of this software, Adobe has already lost much credibility in the NYC animation industry.

[Szalam]

jackthegiantslayer wrote:

Significant performance boost over basically non-functionality is what again?

The performance boost I was talking about (as a defense for their marketing email) is for the majority of their customers who aren't experiencing this bug. I was just saying that the email wasn't untrue for most people. (And even people with this issue will see benefits from the new version.)

jackthegiantslayer wrote:

Stop making excuses for the wretched state of this software,

I'm sorry if it sounded like I was making excuses; I know it's frustrating! If my system had the problem, I would be really upset that I had to keep using CC 2014 too! (Although, most of what I do works just fine in CC 2014.)

I got to talk with some of the AE team recently and the bug this thread is about is very high on their priority list. Hopefully they'll nail down whatever is causing this issue so that the rest of you can join us in CC 2017.

[Estebee]

Based on the many hundreds (if not thousands) of pounds Adobe cost me in wasted time on running into bugs across AE and Premiere last year, you won't convince me.  The lost weekend when I first hit the RAM preview issue two days before deadline still makes me queasy.  I thought it was MY project files - something I was doing wrong and I spent days and nights unpicking a whole project file to work out what was hammering the RAM.

After going through everything I then went onto Adobe forums and the penny dropped.

If Adobe had alerted me via an email to this core workflow issue I would have gone looking for a workaround, and wouldn't have lost that weekend.  Like I have time or inclination to read Adobe blogs?!  wtf?

I have zero trust in their products or their customer service.  I genuinely advise you not to either.  I'm so sick of them I have changed my whole business model and trained myself up in 3D - currently I can get 40% of my work done outside of Adobe.  One day I'll be looking at 100%.

Oh, and yes I am on Mac OS Sierra - so thanks for the warning that 2017 is full of bugs (surprise) - I won't be upgrading!

[Szalam]

Estebe wrote:

Oh, and yes I am on Mac OS Sierra - so thanks for the warning that 2017 is full of bugs (surprise) - I won't be upgrading!

I'm afraid I wasn't clear. I said that CC 2017 has FEWER bugs ESPECIALLY if you're on Sierra.

All previous versions of AE have some pretty annoying bugs on Sierra that are fixed in the CC 2017 release.

The CC 2017 release is the least buggy version of After Effects on MacOS Sierra - except for the preview playback issue on hi-res screens (in which case, CC 2014 is the way to go).

[Estebee]

" except for the preview playback issue on hi-res screens (in which case, CC 2014 is the way to go)."

Thanks for the clarification - this is the key phrase, yep - I'm on a 5K running Sierra

[Szalam]

Estebe wrote:

" except for the preview playback issue on hi-res screens (in which case, CC 2014 is the way to go)."

Thanks for the clarification - this is the key phrase, yep - I'm on a 5K running Sierra

Gah! I would be so frustrated with that setup! Such a nice screen and I'd want to run the latest AE on it! Again, I hope this gets fixed for you guys soon.

In the meantime, the biggest bug you'll experience in CC 2014 that's specific to Sierra is the change in MacOS's handling of carriage returns. That is, things go screwy when renaming layers. See the end of this thread for the workaround.

[Estebee]

Renaming layers bug - yeah - I noticed that.