Latest After Effects (CC 2022) keeps crashing

[A.I.1]

When I load a recent project and then go to the timeline nothing happens (no preview shown).

Closing the program ends up hanging/crashing.I've sent crash reports to adobe.

I've installed the latest GPU studio driver in case that was anything to do with it (I also tried setting it to software only). Saving the project also gave an error saying it can't rename a file.

How can I easily download an earlier version of After Effects so I can have multiple versions of the AE software on the same machine (like I used to have on my previous machine), so that I can have a version that works?

I tried not opening an existing project and just creating a test composition with just a solid in it and that worked. Maybe it's something to do with loading existing projects or working on more complex projects.

edit: After trying the test composition then reloading a few other projects then going back and loading the project I was having crashes on it's started previewing that okay now, but I assume it won't continue to be okay, since there must still be bugs that were causing the previous crashes. So if anyone knows how I can have an older version of the software installed on the same machine to use when I can't get the current one working that would help thanks.

My system info (in case that helps with the crashing stuff):

Windows 10 Pro, AMD Trx40, RTX 3090 GPU, 256 GB RAM, also hard discs and SSD (an nvme with about 1.8 TB set for AE disc cache - about half of the drive space to stop AE complaining when it gets to more than half used).

[Rameez_Khan]

Hi @A.I.1, 

Sorry to hear that the new update is crashing on you. 

I appreciate your efforts in trying to troubleshoot this on your own. 

If you have included your Adobe ID or email address while submitting crash reports, please share that with me via a private message. That will help me track your crash reports and have an engineer inspect them.

I recommend you continue working on the latest After Effects version (22.6) because it contains stability improvements and bug fixes. 

Follow these instructions to download the previous major version of After Effects that you can run simultaneously with your current After Effects version: https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-discussions/faq-how-do-i-reinstall-a-previous-version-o... 

Thanks,

Rameez

[A.I.1]

Thanks. I'll try using the link to download the earlier version to have >1 version installed.

While the latest is currently working ok just now that was the version that kept crashing tons of times today and generally not previewing anything.

Shouldn't they automatically be checking the crash reports I sent them? Also can't you get my Adobe ID/other info from my forum profile? Or should I pm you a crash report from today?

[Rameez_Khan]

They check crash reports automatically. However, in your case, we can isolate your report and have them look into it so I can tell you what's causing it (if the crash report has enough information). 

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Also can't you get my Adobe ID/other info from my forum profile? Or should I pm you a crash report from today?

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I can pull it up from your community profile if you shared your Adobe ID while submitting the crash report.  

If you didn't share your Adobe ID while submitting the crash report, feel free to post the crash log here. 

[A.I.1]

Yes thanks I did share my adobe id in that box when submitting the crash reports earlier today. So I assume you can now access those After Effects crash logs I sent today. I' put my id then and selected the "adobe may contact me for fixes and workarounds" option. If that's not sent properly I can pm the log though.

[A.I.1]

I looked at the link about downloading a different version and in the Creative Cloud Desktop I don't see an advanced tab to be able to disable the "remove old versions" option. when I select to install an old version it says "this will remove the version that is currently installed" with just a cancel/continue.

Maybe the advanced tab/option to disable the "remove old versions" isn't in the current Creative Cloud Desktop?

[A.I.1]

It's gone back to crashing again with the latest  After Effects 2022. Even though it had been working okay for a while in the middle of the day (after crashing a lot at the start of the day). So when I open an existing project, click on the timeline in a composition (nothing shows), close the project, it crashes.

[A.I.1]

I've still not got any replies from Adobe about the crash reports I've sent from After Effects. I've got a project I'm supposed to be working on for someone and I can't even preview the timeline. Any idea what I can do? I've got multi-frame rendering off. I get the same probelm with it not showing the timeline with it set to "mercury software only" in the project settings so I assume it can't be because of GPU settings if it's failing on software only rendering.

[A.I.1]

Could the issue be anything to do with folder+filename size?

When I load an older version of the project (before a revision) that's in a folder above the one that doesn't always play that showed the timeline image, but then when I reload the one with a longer folder name (the one in a subfolder) it crashes again when trying to view the timeline.

edit: I tried copying it to the folder with the shorter name and it still crashes.

When I load the project that crashes in the top right it says "conforming [one of the voice over file names]". I don't know that's something to do with it. Maybe it could be some issue with that .mp3 file since when I tried to play one in AE it sounded bad/the waveform looked bad (but at least it didn't crash like it does now) though the other .mp3 looked and played okay. I've trtied removing all temporary cached files in AE before loading the project.

[A.I.1 · Accepted solution]

Just so everyone knows, I've found out what was causing the crashes. It was one of the voice over files (.mp3s). One of them had not played correctly and shown a waveform that had a lot of it at full volume. I tried loading that mp3 in Audacity and that failed to load (but loaded the good one okay). So I re-downloaded the voice over file that had the issue and called it something slightly different. The one that caused the issue had a slightly different filesize to the re-downloaded one. So I deleted the one that had the issue and reloaded the After Effects project that was crashing previously. That said it couldn't find the missing file. I then told AE to replace the missing .mp3 file with the re-downloaded one. That one conformed okay and now the project previews etc. okay. So the problem was conforming the (possibly invalid) .mp3 file.

Thanks for the help though.

So when they're checking the After Effects code to prevent crashes (fixing bugs) I think it would help if they checked the bit that conforms audio (.mp3) files to check there's no issue with the .mp3 file (to check it's totally valid).

[A.I.1]

Can I just add that it's After Effects that at some point is corrupting that paticular .mp3 file and then that makes AE hang.

eg. I redownloaded that voice over mp3 file again and made a copy of it (in case I needed to go back to it and to compare file sizes).

I checked the redownloaded mp3 (that I downloaded today) in Audacity and that loaded and viewed okay.

I then replaced the problem one in AE and that worked okay for a while. I tried saving and closing the project again and reopening to see what happens.

 Now it's crashed saying at the top right of the screen "Checking for changed footage" then the name of the new redownloaded VO file (.mp3).

Loading the new (as of today) re-downloaded mp3 file back into Audacity now says it's not a recognized type of file. The filename hasn't changed (still .mp3) but the file size has increased by 6 KB compared to the backup copy.

After Effects has somehow corrupted this .mp3 file (which loaded okay before) and seems to be the cause of the hangs in AE.

I'm going to remove that .mp3 file from the project as I was intending to use an alternate one due to the high peaks when I tried it earlier (that now seems like it was caused by AE corrupting the mp3). But if I need to use that mp3 that's going to be a serious issue when AE keeps corrupting it. I think I'd probably convert it to a .wav in Audacity as I assume AE would work better with a .wav but it's a serious bug if AE keeps corrupting source .mp3 files and then hanging the program. It really needs to be fixed I think.

[Rameez_Khan]

Here is how you can access the "Remove old versions" option.

[A.I.1]

Thanks. I've used that and deselected "remove old versions".

They could make that section clearer though. The option is labelled "enable auto-update" - it would be better to be able to disable "remove old versions" without having to change the "enable auto-update" setting.

I assume pressing that "enable auto update" and "continue" with that "remove old versions" has enabled the auto-update but it now shows the option "check for updates" on the top right (I'm wondering why that's needed if auto-update is enabled).

Wouldn't it be better to have a checkbox for the "enable auto-update" and allow the "remove old versions" to be checked/unchecked irrespective of the "auto-update" setting?

Really you could have options for:

1) When/how often to check for updates to apps

2) If an update is available, when/whether to download it

3) An option to install it or to install it automatically

4) Whether, when installing it it should keep or remove the existing app (but maybe it should ask you for each app eg. just before it would install).

[Rameez_Khan]

Hi again, @A.I.1 

Thanks for keeping me posted about the progress. Excellent job troubleshooting it on your own! 👏🏻

I worked with an After Effects engineer to track the crash logs you sent.

Here is what we found:

The crash reporter indicated it was more of a "hang" than a "crash." The app was force-quit while opening a project. It looks like the project might have Dynamic Link components, and something is causing After Effects to hang as it attempts to start up Dynamic Link to read them. 

Hope this helps too.

Best,

Rameez

[A.I.1]

Thanks a lot. Yes it was due to the conforming audio and the probably invalid .mp3 file.

The engineer said "The app was force-quit while opening a project" - it wasn't quite while opening a project - it was after trying to close it that it just hung for ages without closing. After opening the project it did allow me to click on different parts of the composition but wouldn't preview any of the timeline (it just flashed black in the preview area) (I assume because at least some part of the program was stuck in the process of trying to conform that probably invalid .mp3 file - based on the message at the top right). Then when trying to close the project/AE it hung for ages. So perhaps some part of it hadn't finished the initial start up things (eg. if it does the conforming in a different process (or thread?) to the bit that handles other things like previewing/selecting different options.

[Rameez_Khan]

Thanks for the additional information. I'll share it with the engineer. 

Best,

Rameez

[Stepan5FD6]

Hello I have shared multiple Crashes from yesterday working on tight deadline and AE is crashing on me all the time. I tried all of the online fixes and solution but everytime I close the app it will crash makes me nervous

[A.I.1]

You could create a seperate thread if it's crashing/hanging for a different than mine was.

You could check if it's saying anything that it's trying to do eg. towards the top right corner. That might give hints what the issue is. Sometimes AE can be slow in closing (maybe it it's updating lots of files).

You could try setting the project to use "software only" rendering for preview/rendering or uncheck "render multiple frames simultanously" to see if that helps.

You could also try installing an older version of AI (one that would still load your project) while making sure it wouldn't remove your current version.

Maybe send crash reports to Adobe about it if it still crashes.