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Low memory warning in After Effects 23.0 (2023)

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
October 18, 2022
48 replies
93425 views

Unfortunately 23.0 did not fix the issue for me on my M1 mac. It still only renders 2 frames at a time and gives the same error. If I revert back to version 22.4 it works perfectly but any subsequent update (including the 23.0 just released) has the playback issue.

Update: version 24.0 working much better!

I had various results with updates 23.1-23.6, most of them still occasionally having the issue saying it's out of memory or even black frames when rendering. It didn't matter if I had all plugins removed, fresh install, and no other programs running. I just updated to v24.0 and instantly started working like it used to before v23.0. RAM previews are loading right away and playing back in realtime speeds. I'll update if anything changes but so far they seem to have fixed the issues plaguing v23+ at least for me.

Correct answer Rameez_Khan

Hi all,

After Effects 23.1 contains improvements to memory management and fixes an issue that caused After Effects to show low memory warnings during preview. If you experience a low memory issue in After Effects 23.1, please create a new post for troubleshooting.

Thanks,

Rameez

Show previous replies

F

FedeParodi

Participating Frequently

It seems that the beta v23.1.0.46 solves this problem. So far it works like 22.4 (sometimes I have to scrub the playhead to extend the ram preview).

M1 - 16GB RAM - 512GB SSD - macOS Monterey

Rameez_Khan

Legend

Thanks for sharing! @FedeParodi

F

Frank23179175tu3z

Participant

Still have the issue over here.....

hugov21704020

Participant

Same here !

CinematekCreative

Known Participant

I want to take a minute again to say that the update to 23.0 is a complete fail. Despite my initial success with the update that I mentioned in a previous reply, it's all bad news now. Not only do I seem to be limited to 5-frame previews, but in some cases even just refreshing the composition window is taking up to a full minute! This is unworkable. I reinstalled 22.4, but of course any work I did in the past two days in my updated project files is inaccessible because 22.4 can't open the new project.

For what it's worth, I have one theory... I updated AE to 23.0 and played with it for a while and it worked just fine. I didn't update Premiere to 23.0 until the next day. Could it be possible that the Premiere update somehow broke the fix that had been applied to AE? I don't know - that's a question for the developers to solve - but please solve this problem quickly.

H

hengo

Participating Frequently

Had the same problem, but you can save the work you did in version 23 under
"save as" and then version "22.x" so 22.4 can open it.

I mean, there is some trouble if you excessively used the new matte-feature
as I did, but it still saved time

A

Aleix23153438wqty

Participant

Just here to state that same here. I'm in a time-critic project and I can't allow myself to lose minutes installing versions back and forth. Moreover, I need Premiere, After Effects and Media Encoder to be on the same verion to send mats between them. Incredibly dissapointing. And, no it doesn't get fixed by emptying the cache or allowing more RAM to AE. Please fix this.

A

Anand26678625z9rk

Participant

Hii i'm still facing this issue in 23.0 on my M1 mac. I created new project and there still showing low ram.

R

Randy - Dice

Participating Frequently

V23 major memory leak issue, have 128 gig installed and AE uses all of it even when no project in use, Just by having AE open it starts building up memory usage till it reaches my maximum that I had set in available for AE. Getting same problem as others saying I dont have enough ram to preview a 5 sec clip. Had to revert back to AE 22.5 but even in 22.5 AE builds up ram till it s full but does not affect the previews

R

Randy - Dice

Participating Frequently

I forgot to mention I m on windows 10, so it has nothing to do with Mac version others are experiencing AE 23 and AE 22.6 are doing the exact same memory eating bug

M

motionbutton

Inspiring

Still a problem in 2023... actually might be worse.

Rameez_Khan

Legend

Sorry to hear this!

Please check the pinned comment for more information and see if that helps.

C

cmcilwain4450

Participating Frequently

Are you working in an old project? The update started working for me in some existing projects. But I had one in particular (large and spanning a couple AE generations) that just wouldn't work. I had to bite the bullet and start a new one for that client. But AE is working again. The other thing that may have affected it was uninstalling and reinstalling all Red Giant plug-ins.

raymondcraigAuthor

Participating Frequently

It looks like you're right. I created a new project and that does seem to playback correctly, but on my older projects the issue persists. Thanks for pointing that out, and I guess I may have to keep both versions installed for the time being so I can still access those files properly.

tonycomley

Known Participant

@tonycomley

Looks like you need more RAM.

Your screenshot shows that you have at least one Composition that's 9000-by-700 with a duration of four minutes, thirty-seven seconds, and twenty frames in a project that's at 8 bits per channel. That one Comp is 24 MB per frame for 6,945 frames without factoring in the overhead of After Effects rendering whatever is happening at each frame. It's hard to tell from the screenshot, but it looks like you have several Comps at these settings.

If I create a Comp at those settings, add a Solid at Comp Size and a Shape Path set to a 10-pixel Stroke Width with Wave Warp applied, After Effects shows that it needs 14.27 GB at first. After Effects increases to needing 51.99GB as the Preview approaches 00:0130:00 while it caches frames while idle.

While you're working, what do you see when you go to Preferences > Memory & Performance > Show Memory Usage Details?

I've copied and pasted my Memory Details below for reference.

Installed RAM: 64.00 GB Current RAM Usage: 14.27 GB Allowed RAM Usage: 52.00 GB

Process IDApplication NameMin Needed MemoryMax Usable MemoryMax Allowed MemoryCurrent MemoryCurrent Priority

88667After Effects1.0064.0052.0014.271 - High

88674Team Projects Local Hub0.000.000.000.003 - Low

Installed RAM: 64.00 GB Current RAM Usage: 51.99 GB Allowed RAM Usage: 52.00 GB

Process IDApplication NameMin Needed MemoryMax Usable MemoryMax Allowed MemoryCurrent MemoryCurrent Priority

88667After Effects1.0064.0052.0051.991 - High

88674Team Projects Local Hub0.000.000.000.003 - Low

If you have not done so already:

Disable "Cache Frames While Idle"
Work at Quarter Resolution or a Custom Resolution (View > Resolution > Full, Half, Third, Quater, Custom)
Set the Comp duration to a shorter duration (fewer frames = less RAM usage)
Work with Compositions that are not as wide (fewer pixels = less RAM usage)
Set the Disk Cache to a high capacity, high bandwidth drive
More RAM

I really appreciate the lengths you've gone to but the variables you list are not the issue:

- I'm not using any of those large comps in the timeline I'm RAM previewing from.

- I recreated the problem today from a project that was reduced to just the timeline you see. So just 11 shape layers and a black solid with no effects, just animated paths with four keyframes on each of the 11 layers in a 2160 x 2880 comp.

- This issue happens across multiple projects and only over the last three months.

- Previously I've used even larger comps with less RAM with no RAM preview issues besides the expected limitations.

- This new issue will render only two frames regardless of preview resolution and return the same specific error that so many here have reported since version 22.4.

I really appreciate the feedback but I've been using After Effects for 15 years and know a bug from a limitation. This issue has been doing the rounds for a few months and you can find several workarounds on YouTube including downgrading to version 22.3.

K

K4rel

Participating Frequently

Hi Rameez,
For me unfortunately the fix of 23.0 doesn't seem to work. It still only renders 5 frames. Is there anything I could do to improve the performance? Any specific settings that should make it better?

(working on a MacBook Pro 14-inch, M1 Pro, 16 GB memory)

K

K4rel

Participating Frequently

Okay, a correction to my previous comment. The fix does seem to indeed work. Only in full quality it stays at 5 frames, any other quality does actually preview a lot more frames.

Rameez_Khan

Legend

A few people here reported that it's working fine for them in new projects. Have you tried creating a new project vs. opening or upgrading an older project?

Let me know.

Rameez

CinematekCreative

Known Participant

I installed 23.0 and have been playing with it for a couple of hours.
Everything seems to be working just fine. Great work team! Thank you for
the fix. The animation presets are cool, too!

M1
16GB RAM
1TB SSD

CinematekCreative

Known Participant

Actually... I take it back... After editing for about 10 hours back and forth between AE and Premiere (both updated to 2023 version) the problem has returned! 5-frame-only rendering in AE. If I purge cache and restart my computer then it seems to work again for a little bit, but after an hour or so the previewing limits back to 5 frames. This is in a 1920x1080 composition at Quarter resolution.

Back to the drawing board, guys. Fingers crossed for 23.1

H

hengo

Participating Frequently

Same here, but different.

It's up to five seconds in full resolution when i completely clear the cache (270gb). Half res is 10 seconds. 4k resolution.

It's very unfortunate indeed. I thought it was fixed so I stopped using the 22.4 version and now I'll have to decide whether to finish with these limitations or lose all work I've done since updating, because the 22.4 version won't open a 23-file.

Ah.

I just wanted to ask if there's any possibility to save in a former version-version (lol), so yeah, there is, under 'save as'. I'm still new to this. Glad I could help me out, though. Thanks. I'm welcome.

Hengo

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