Audio delayed start on RAM preview playback.

[jimhowells]

I am experienced audio playback issues when RAM previewing in the latest version of After Effects (17.5 Build 40) on Windows 10. This issue was not present on the previous build of After Effects.

When I hit Numpad 0 to initiate a RAM preview playback, the audio does not start to playback immediately. There is a delay of about one second before the audio kicks in. I have tried several different audio hardware configurations on my PC including two different external USB audio interfaces and the onboard audio directly from my motherboard and the problem remains. Anyone else experiencing this?

AMD Threadripper 3960X 64GB RAM Windows 10. AFter Effects 17.5 Build 40.

[Rameez_Khan]

Hi jimhowells,

Welcome to the community.

I'm seeing this for the first time on After Effects 17.5. I'd try the following steps:

• Check the audio hardware configuration under Preferences > Audio Hardware
• Purge all memory and disk cache under Edit > Purge

Let us know if that helps.

Rameez

[jimhowells]

Thanks for your reply. I've tried purging the cache but it makes no difference. As I said, I have tried multiple audio configurations. This is definitely an issue that I wasn't seeing in the previous release of AE and my hardware or software configuration has not changed.

[Rameez_Khan]

If you have time, can you rollback to AE 17.1.4 and let us know if you experience the same behavior?

-Rameez

[jimhowells]

I can confirm that unchecking "Mute audio when preview is not realtime" fixes the issue.

Although it still doesn't explain why the audio is muted when the preview was playing in realtime from a pre cached timeline.

But for now, my issue is fixed.

If you need more info then the issue only seems to occur when playin from the START of a cached preview range. If the playback is allowed to loop back to the start of that preview range the audio will play as normal.

[Rameez_Khan]

Thanks for sharing, jimhowells.

I'll share this thread with an engineer and see if they will be able to figure out why it worked after changing the preference.

Thanks,

Rameez

[CraigJohnsonEbay]

Almost 2 years later and clearly your "engineer" didn't fit the problem. You guys never fix any issues. Joke of a company.

[SteveRobertsToronto]

Thanks for that: yes, unchecking the "mute audio" solves the issue.

(But we're in 2023, version 23.2.0, and we still have the issue.)

[johna48196644]

This was a huge help, thank you. This issue has been driving me nuts for the past few weeks. 

[Gisele23002966o4lu]

What worked for me
On the preview settings window, I had a specific (different than comp) framerate. If changed to Auto, audio plays synched