FAQ: How to fix the "Invalid menu operation" error in After Effects

[nishu_kush]

When do I get the "After Effects warning: Invalid menu operation" error?

• It often happens when you click on one of the dropdown menus at the top or right-click the composition or footage.
• It might happen when opening a project file.
• Also, you might see this when applying an effect.

What causes this error to come up?

This error is caused due to the following reasons:

• If your computer is connected to a VPN.
• If your firewall is blocking After Effects from connecting to the internet.
• If your project contains more than 1168 copies of the same item.

Solutions:

Our community recommends the following solutions:

• Reset After Effects preferences.
• Disconnect the VPN.
• If your firewall is blocking After Effects from connecting to the internet, change your firewall settings.

NOTE: If your computer is connected to a public network for the internet and a private LAN with a DNS Server for file storage (for example Avid storage), make sure you are using After Effects 22.1.1 or later.

[Wayne26959765lmyn]

I've also encountered this issue, happened after I did a render that took 2 days when though it was a 3 minute video. Anyone managed to fix this?

[theredheadhenry]

Hey this is a little later, but I encountered the same issue you did. I added a 4 minute video to get rendered via encoder. I have a pretty beastly computer and rendering usually doesn't take very long, the video should have been rendered in a few hours. It took 4 days to render. Did you ever figure out the issue to this?

[Eliot307817486c1n]

Hello I have a big problem, How to fix the "Invalid menu operation" error in After Effects. My project contains more than 1168 layers and i can't delete anything. Please do you have a solution that won’t make me lose my project I’ve been working on it for more than 2 months.

[theredheadhenry]

I've encounted this before. It happens to me when a single comp reaches 1000 layers. All the layers disappear after 1000 layers. Just pre-compose layers and have nested comps to avoid.