After Effects crash when coppied shape mask data from Mocha AE

The After Effects update that came out last night (might take up to 24 hours to propagate to Adobe's servers around the world) fixes this issue. (And several others - it also adds some new functionality.)

Here is a tech note and video which addresses this issue.

Tech Note: Mocha Mask Crashing Adobe After Effects CC 2018 from Imagineer Systems on Vimeo.

On October 18, 2017, Adobe released the new After Effects CC 2018. Please be aware, we have verified that this release introduces a significant crash related to Mocha’s workflow for converting masking data to AE masks.

Specifically, this crash occurs when you are inside the Mocha interface, export Mocha shape data, and copy to the clipboard. When you go back to After Effects, you will most likely crash.

This AE crash can occur in all Mocha products: Mocha AE, Mocha Pro and Mocha VR. Please note, the crash does not occur when pasting tracking data from Mocha to After Effects. Only shape data on the clipboard causes the crash.

For owners of either Mocha Pro or Mocha VR, the simple workaround to avoid crashing After Effects is to avoid “copying mocha mask data” to clipboard. Instead, when using Mocha for masking, use the “Convert AE Masks” button in the plug-in interface to convert Mocha shapes to AE masks. All other export formats found in Mocha Pro & Mocha VR are working fine.

For AE users that rely heavily on Mocha AE for masking, but do not wish to upgrade, we advise you to wait on updating to the new 2018 release. If you have updated After Effects and experience the crash, you can roll back to the last 2017 version.

Adobe’s engineering team has verified this specific crashing issue and has committed to providing a fix in an upcoming point release. Boris FX apologizes for this inconvenience and would like to invite you to download and test a fully working, 15-day trial of the Mocha Pro plug-in for Adobe.

Download: Boris FX | Downloads

it's a bug in the latest release. once you copy the shape data, the clipboard data will crash Ae once you are back in Ae.

a workaround would be:

1. remove the bundled "mocha shape" plug-in (leaving you only the option to paste as masks)

you can access it in the After Effects folder in effects->mochaAe folder

I would recommend just changing the extension so you can change it back later if you want. this will disable the mocha shape plugin, but will give you the option to paste as masks.

you will get an error when you come back to Ae but just click ok

2. import/paste the shape data to Ae 2017, save the project, clear the clipboard (as long as the data is in the clipboard, Ae 2018 will crash so just copy anything else)  and then import that project to 2018. this is also good if you need the mocha shape as an effect.