After Effects Menu bar not working at all

Report · Nov 30, 2021

HI there.

This has been an issue that has been heppening more often to me, until today I can't clear it at all. Clicking on anything in the menu bar will just highlight the top level item, with nothing dropping down. Sometimes, the drop down will flash briefly then vanish. I was able to resolve this with an app restart innitially, This then grew to needin g system restart. Now I can't clear it at all. It has also now affected right clicking within the app - nothing happens. This occasionally effects other CC apps as well, but at the moement it has competely rendered AE unusable.

I have both 2021 & 2020 installed. I need 2021 in place, because you cannot export to Media Encoder in 2022, but that's a whole other story. The menu bar & right clicking isn't working in either version.

The menu bar and right clicks are fine in all other apps. I'm using a magic mouse on MacBook Pro 2019, but the results are the same with a plugin mouse or the trackpad.

At a loss with what to do to be honest. The amount of time I've lost to Adobe problems in the last 2 months is sickening - So many little bugs and issues that soak up work time. This issue has brought things to a standstill though.

Can anyone help? Thanks in advance!

Report · Apr 16, 2022

This worked for me too. Hopefully it continues to work. This is the worst bug I have ever encountered in Adobe, I couldn't do anything in After Effects. I'll post again in a few weeks if the problem comes back.

Report · Apr 17, 2022

Hi,

I found this workaround online after a search and it fixed the issue - click the AE icon in the bar containing all installed apps at the bottom of the Mac screen, while AE is running.

Not great really.

Another recent issue that has emerged is that AE CC 2022 now doesn't recognise all my installed plugins after I lauched Media Encoder 2022 - it brings up a warning that a list of plugins are no longer compatible with M1 Macs and that I should contact the individual developers to obtain a compatible update, whereas it was perfectly fine before I launched Media Encoder, and also all the AE preferences migrated from previous versions I had installed have been reset, eg output preferences, which now default to Apple ProRes.

Also very annoying.

Please fix this Adobe or at least explain why this should happen.

Ravi

Report · Nov 08, 2022

yeah thanks!!!

Report · May 07, 2022

THIS WORKS!

Read someone's tip on the following link:

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911311-after-effects/suggestions/44588847-bug-report-ae-22-...

STEPHEN ROBERTS

Yes, clicking on the AE icon in the dock restores normal menu behaviour. I closed AE, then opened it again, and it worked properly again without needing to click on the dock icon.

Not sure if I'll have to do that again, but for now, it is a simple workaround.