Expressions like "marker.key ("NAME")" now do not work?!

[Evgeny Lancer]

Hello everyone!

After update 17.1.1, expressions that are linked with a marker name stopped working. And now it breaks me the whole game. I know that can enable Legacy ExtendScript and it will work, but this is a bad solution. Is there any chance that this will be fixed in the next update?

[JohnColombo · Accepted solution]

Hi evgeny_hive,

Thank you for reporting this issue. This bug was introduced in the 17.1.1 version and the team is now tracking it internally. Apologies for any frustration this may have caused. When a fix becomes available, it will be in the Beta version of After Effects before coming to the release version.

Thanks again,

- John, After Effects Engineering

[Rick Gerard]

Switching the project back to the Legacy ExtendScript should fix it temporarily. Just open up the Project settings and make the change in the Expressions tab. Shift + Alt/Option +Ctrl/Cmnd + k will take you there.

[cocreo.io]

Sadly the error still occurs on beta 17.1.2x33 on Windows 64.
We are also waitig for a fix on this issue as soon as possible ...

[Asher_E]

I'm getting this same error. I've been trying to figure this out for two days now. I can't believe this hasn't been resolved.

[JohnColombo]

Hi @Asher_E,

What version of After Effects are you using? I've just confirmed that referencing comp and layer markers by name is working in After Effects 2023 in both expression engines. If you're using that same version of After Effects, would you share your expression? Perhaps there's an additional syntax error.

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

[Asher_E]

Hi John,

Thank you for the replay. Working more with the actions it seems like the error is occurring when adding Math.min. If I use just easeIn(time, markerIn, markerIn+dur, bot, mid); to trigger a position animation the code works. But if I try to use Math.min to trigger more than one animation, that's when I get the error on the first line of code. Here is the code I have for the position animation.

var markerIn = thisLayer.marker.key(1).time;
var markerOut = thisLayer.marker.key(2).time;

var dur = 1; //time in seconds

var bot = [960,1830]; //bottom position
var mid = [960,575]; //middle position
var top = [960, -748]; //top position

//at marker 1, move from the bottom position to the middle position, then at marker 2 move from the middle position to the top position
Math.min(easeIn(time, markerIn, markerIn+dur, bot, mid), easeOut(time, markerOut, markerOut+dur, mid, top));

 Thanks for checking this out.

[JohnColombo]

Ah, that makes sense. Math.min() would not be able to handle the arrays that would be returned by easeIn and easeOut. However, I think changing the last line will get you what you're after:

easeIn(time, markerIn, markerIn+dur, bot, mid) + easeOut(time, markerOut, markerOut+dur, mid, top) - value;

You may need to tweak the position of the layer after applying the expression, but it will animate correctly on the markers after that.

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

[Asher_E]

Awesome. that's so simple.

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.