Duplicate layers on monitor, but not in the timeline. Closing the layer eye only removes one.

[Craig_T_Miller]

This is the first time since 2006 that I have elected to use AE, which is version 24.3.

My comp has 55 layers, one being a 17 minute MP4. The rest are either shape layers or PNG layers.

Issue - Yesterday, I rendered the comp with no issues. This morning I took a look at the finished MP4 again and decided to fine tune some of the rectangles I used to bring attention to what the narrator is talking about. When I opened the project and started scrubbing through the timeline, I noticed something wrong with the first instance of rectangles: they were duplicated, but shifted a few pixels to the right. Every one of the layers were duplicated on the monitor, but not in the timeline. 

I did the following, which yielded no remedy: purged the cache; restarted app; restarted my laptop; opened the project on different laptop.

I closed the layer eye on one layer and noticed that one shape would disappear, but the other is left there, yet there isn't a layer representing it. I closed all the layer eyes except for the underlying MP4 and the comp played as if all of the layers eyes were opened. I created an MP4 from the comp and all of the layers were there, even though all but one layer eye was closed.

Yesterday, I updated my NVIDIA RTX A2000 Laptop GPU driver from version 528.79 to 551.86, because AE alerted me on start-up that the old driver was incompatible.

[Operating System] Windows v.10.0.19045.1
[Free Space] 201 GB
[RAM] 32 GB

If it helps, I have uploaded the AEP.

[Paul Uu · Accepted solution]

Hi Craig,

Looking at your project, one thing I notice is that the imported Comply365_Familiarization_04-05-2024.mp4 layer has the exact same name as your Composition.

Is it possible that when you rendered the Comp yesterday, you inadvertantly overwrote the original .mp4 with the Comp render, such that when you re-opened the project, all the content in your Comp is now also contained in the .mp4 layer — visually duplicating it?

A first thought on my end, anyway.

Paul

[Craig_T_Miller]

Paul,

You're my hero! I missed the forest for the trees again. Thank you so very much for your consideration, and for taking the time to look at my project! You hit the nail on the head.

One thing that may have vectored me off in several directions was I don't recall getting a prompt to approve an overwrite of the MP4 file.

Thanks once again!

Craig