After effects preview not showing except when timeline is moved

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
March 27, 2020
5 replies
2394 views

Im brand new to after effects, and I'm confused. I made a video a couple weeks back and opened it today only to see that I cant view my work at all. The preview doesn't showing except when I drag the time indicator to a new spot, and even then the preview only shows up black. Any help is appreciated!

Error or problem

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Rick Gerard

Community Expert

If you are new to AE it is very important that you spend several hours with the basics. The User Guide is a great place to start. Here's a link to the User Guide tutorials. User Guide

Run through at least all of the first 10 Getting Started tutorials at the top, then return to your project and you'll be able to see what you are doing wrong very quickly.

Mike_Abbott

Legend

OK. 8GB is below minimum system requirements, so that is an issue. See:

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/system-requirements.html

Anyway, try:
MENU: After Effects > Preferences > Media and Disk Cache.
Click buttons for 'Empty Disk cache' and 'Clean database and cache'.

also:

MENU: After Effects > Display > Hardware Accelerate Composition, Layer and Footage panels.
Try that 'off'.

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hallieg11916926Author

Participating Frequently

The preview will now show, but the timeline still will not play

Mike_Abbott

Legend

I suspect you're just running out of memory...

1. How many layers in your project? How many video layers? Many effects?

2. Make sure you don't have any other applications open.

3. After Effects > Preferences > Memory... Installed RAM = 8. What is the setting for "RAM reserved for other applications"?

Mike_Abbott

Legend

OK - understood. Try the options under the menu: File > Purge >....

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hallieg11916926Author

Participating Frequently

what do i click from here?

Mike_Abbott

Legend

Hold Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows) key and choose Edit >Purge > All Memory.

Also worth trying the top option - all memory and disk cache.

Mike_Abbott

Legend

Well, the first thing to note is that your playhead in that screenshot is at a time (23 sec.) that doesn't have any layer content - unless you have layers further down the timeline. If you move the playhead to 12 sec - do you see anything?

I also notice you have a 1080 x 1080 comp - but you're only seeing roughly the top half of it. Set the magnification menu in the lower left corner of the composition window to: "Fit up to 100%". Does that help?

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hallieg11916926Author

Participating Frequently

I have layers farther down, but here is the screenshot for reference

Mike_Abbott

Legend

You will need to take and upload a full resolution screen shot (full size - do not scale it down) showing all of your composition window and timeline for us to help you.