Does After Effects "scan" my system's files?

[noahshipman]

TL;DR After Effects is causing my external cloud drive to download all the files from the server at once, and I need to know why.

I'm having a bit of a niche -- but serious -- issue that I need help with. My job uses a cloud service called Box Drive, which is a lot like Google drive or Dropbox. The drive is installed on my system and located on my operating system, so although all its files are on the cloud, from any software's perspective, they are just files that are located on my local drive. Box Drive will automatically download the files whenever a software requests access to them.

The problem: I've been using Box with After Effects successfully for years, but this month, an issue started where everytime I open AE, Box attempts to download all files from the cloud at once (hundreds of terabytes worth of files), resulting in freezes, errors, and an unusable machine.

This kind of problem can occur when some software is "scanning" the files, for example, if an antimalware software is trying to access them, or if file explorer is calculating their size. In my case, since the problem starts and stops definitively when AE opens/closes, and the Box logs reveal AE is the program "requesting " access to the files, my question is: does AE in any way "scan" my system's files for any reason? What could it be doing with them that causes Box to say it is requesting access?

I need help because as is, I cannot perform my job at all as this problem persists. Thanks

I am on Windows 11 and have the latest version of AE

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hey there @noahshipman,

Thanks for the question. That sounds pretty odd. Nothing I can think of in After Effects would be doing that. Premiere Pro does have a Media Intelligence feature now. I wonder if that might be the case. Do you have Premiere Pro installed too? Let us know.

Thanks,
Kevin

[noahshipman]

Hi Kevin, I'm grateful for your reply. I do have Premiere installed, and in fact, I have the exact same issue with it, where whenever I open Premiere, Box attempts to download all files. Can you tell me more about Media Intelligence? I wonder if that's the culprit. Thanks

[nishu_kush]

I agree with Kevin. I don't think After Effects will scan your files that it doesn't need. Do all the files (including those not used in the Ae project) start getting downloaded, or only the files that are used in the project? I'd suggest reaching out to the Box support to see if they can help.

Thanks,
Nishu

[noahshipman]

Hi Nishu, I want to be very clear about this: Box is downloading files that are not in my project, that I am not using, that I have never used, and that are not relevant to my project at all. In fact, it looks as though it is simply starting at Box's root folder and going through every single file alphabetically. Again, the logs reveal After Effects is the program requesting access to all these files:

If Box were only downloading files that I were using in my AE project, then we would have no issue here since that would be the expected behavior.

I already reached out to Box support, but they told me to speak to Adobe. Box Drive is designed to download files automatically no questions asked as soon as a program requests them, so from their end, there is not much to troubleshoot. Instead, I need Adobe's help understanding what AE is doing with these files.

[nishu_kush]

That's really strange! Have you installed any third-party plug-in for After Effects? Can you try running After Effects in Safe Mode with third-party plug-ins disabled and see if that brings any change?

Let us know.

Thanks,
Nishu

[noahshipman]

Hi Nishu, I started in safe mode multiple times and it did not resolve my issue. I also attempted to uninstall all my plugins and do a completely fresh reinstall of AE, and it still did not work. Any insight on the "media intelligence" feature that Kevin mentioned? What is this and does it access my system's files? Please help if you can. Thanks

[Paul Uu]

It would be very helpful to know with which versions of After Effects and Premiere this behavior starts.

Am I correct in understanding this behavior started when you updated both applications to their 25.2 versions?
If so, do you recall which versions (of each application) you had installed previously?

In any case, this might be the biggest help to identify what is causing the issue.

1. Go to the Applications section of the Creative Cloud Desktop Application and fine After Effects 25.2.2


2. Click on the three dots to open the more actions menu


3. Select Other Versions
4. In the Older Versions section, install AE 25.1 and see if that still causes the issue to happen. If it still does, then try installing AE 25.0.1 and see if that still causes the issue to happen. And if it still does, try rolling all the way back to After Effects 24.6.6.


Any details you can provide here will be most helpful.

Paul

[noahshipman]

Hi Paul, I very much appreciate your willingness to help and sorry if anything about the way I described things was unclear, but please ensure you have actually read the post because as I stated, I am using the latest version of AE which at the time of writing this is 25.2 and no, the problem did not start when I update. I have said that the problem began when I installed a new SSD on my Desktop computer. I have tried rolling back versions of AE but no luck! Thanks