After Effects closes immediately when importing video

[default8n29z3fl6sfl]

Help! Adobe After Effects will close immediately without any notification or popup when I try to import any file or drag anything into the composition window. This started happening about a week ago. I have 0 plugins, 0 codecs, tried clearing up disk cache as well as moving it to no avail. Nothing works. I cannot use After Effects at all! 

[default8n29z3fl6sfl]

Adding that I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling, restarting, and updating graphics drivers.

[Rick Gerard]

System details? OS details? What kind of video file are you trying to import. Have you tried the other versions of After Effects that are available in the Creative Cloud app?

[default8n29z3fl6sfl]

Hi Rick! I'm running Windows 10 64bit. I can't import any mp4 files of any length/size, but gifs, images, and sound files are importing without issues! I just installed back down to 18.1 and AE still crashes on mp4 import! 

[Rick Gerard]

MP4 files are interframe compressed and require a bunch of CPU power to decode and turn into actual frames. One frame is real with luminance and compressed 8-bit color information, the next two frames are guesses based on what the fourth frame looks like. They are "predicted" frames, not real frames. One is a P frame, predicted forward, the next is a B frame, predicted in both directions. All it takes is one fouled-up byte of information or a variable frame rate to foul those files up for production. Transcoding will often fix the problem.

Try dropping one of your MP4 files in the Adobe Media Encoder and then use one of the Movie presets to render a visually lossless DI (digital intermediate). Good choices for codecs include ProRez 422 and about anything under AVI. Do not use H.264.