After Effects Window changes size on opening a new project from windows Explorer

[defaultrmpite1uovz6]

Whenever I open an AE project from windows file explorer, the entire AE window resizes. This does not happen if I open the window via AE's open menu. The expected result is that the AE window should not change size when the project is opened. For example, if AE is maximised before I open a project, it should not shrink in size when I open a project from Explorer.

Given the place I'm at now has us opening (and thus resizing) things literally hundreds of times a day across our team, its incredibly frustrating. Given we're also working to incredibly tight deadlines (we're in news, so timeframes of mere minutes is not uncommon), this issue actually has a measurable impact on our ability to turn around critical content as efficiently.

There was a similar post about this on the old uservoice page, but I can't find it here. Its been an issue for at least the last few versions of AE, and I can't understand why Adobe hasn't fixed it yet.

I've only noticed the issue on Windows 10, but I don't have any W11 or Mac devices to test on.

A sample of the specs we're using are below:

AE 2020-2022 (haven't tested AE 2023)

Windows 10 Enterprise (19041.1415) (all machines are kept up to date, but windows version hasn't shown to make a difference AFAIK)

Intel Xeon Gold 5218 CPU

96 GB RAM

NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000

Surface Pro 6

Intel Core i7-8650U

16 GB RAM

Intel inbuilt graphics

AMD Threadripper 3970X

64 GB RAM

RTX 2070 Super

Is there any chance someone from Adobe can tell me if this is being worked on? I'm happy to help bug test and provide any kind of data you need to help solve this.

Thanks,

[Mylenium]

I don't think this ever worked any different because it's a Windows thing. Windows itself doesn't know anything about the internal Fullscreen mode. And that kind of is the answer in itself: You need to change the setting in the application/ shortcut properties to "Always open Fullscreen".

Mylenium 

[defaultrmpite1uovz6]

How do you do this?

[Mylenium]

Right-click on the app or shortcut, choose Properties, select the Advanced tab.

Mylenium 

[defaultrmpite1uovz6]

I've just tried this, and it doesn't fix the issue. The issue manifests when I open the project, so to my understanding its not a windows setting that's at play. No other Adobe app behaves this way, as an example.

Let me go into more detail. Say I open After Effects. After Effects is open full screen when I launch it. I then go to my project folder, then open the project from explorer. Now the AE window is only filling half the screen.

The window will stay maximised if I open the project by pressing ctrl+O and open the project that way. The problem doesn't seem to be with windows, as, again, no other apps behave this way.

[nishu_kush]

Hi defaultrmpite1uovz6,

Sorry for your issue.

I haven't seen this issue before. Before coming to a conclusion, let's try some troubleshooting, and let me try reproducing it at my end.

Are you using any third-party plug-ins? Please try resetting the preferences of After Effects if you haven't tried it already. Also, please share a screen recording so that we can share it with the engineers to get their feedback.

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks,

Nishu

[defaultrmpite1uovz6]

Thanks Nishu for your quick response. I'll do a screen recording later, but I've tried resetting/reinstalling/updating everything before. While some of these machines have plugins installed, even machines without plugins installed have the issue.

What's the best way to send you the screenrecording? For obvious reasons, I'd rather not post it publicly 🙂

[khangster1406]

I had this too and it annoyed me to no end. I have found a workaround for this: when it "shrinked" after opening a new file, drag the corners of the window to maximize instead of using the maximize button. 

[johnm83871]

This is the right answer for me, thank you.