(MacOS) Rendering slows/pauses when AE is not forefront or screens go to sleep

[vf.jeinselen]

Is anyone else experiencing this? Sometime after my screen saver runs for a bit (it's not immediately tied to the screensaver), my screens go to sleep, or even just switching to a different application, After Effects 2019 slows rendering to a crawl. Just starting this thread in Chrome (5 minutes) created a three minute pause where AE didn't render anything. As soon as I switch back to AE it'll render a few frames, and keep rendering...till a few minutes after I switch back to any other application, where it slows/stops again.

Last night I set a number of sequences to render, all of them 2 seconds long. I set the screen saver to turn on after 1 hour, and display sleep after 3 hours, and made sure no other apps were open. Based on the frames rendered, an hour and a half after I left my computer (so not necessarily directly tied to the screensaver) After Effects dropped to about 3 frames every 4 hours or so. It took between 1 and 19 minutes to render each sequence...except after the monitors locked, it spent 14 hours barely rendering at all. Once I unlocked the displays, it finished that one sequence in a matter of minutes. It's now slowing down or pausing rendering every time I switch to a different program (I currently have four apps open - After Effects 2019, Chrome with 6 tabs, Activity Monitor, and Versions for SVN).

When at the forefront, After Effects is only using 1 or 2 out of the available 12 cores, and about 56GB out of the available 64GB RAM (according to the activity monitor it has about 11GB in compressed memory). CPU usage drops to about 1-2% of a single core when AE is not forefront. I assume this is what's happening when the screens lock as well (since it technically doesn't technically entirely stop rendering...it's just incomprehensibly slow).

Hardware: 2013 Mac Pro — 2.7 GHz 12-Core Intel Xeon E5, 64 GB 1866 MHz DDR3, dual AMD FirePro D700 6144MB, 1TB SSD

Software: MacOS High Sierra, version 10.13.6 (latest update for this version, I can't upgrade to Mojave yet due to other software requirements)

After Effects: CC 2019, 13.0.3 (latest update)

Any ideas? I've never had issues with MacOS throttling background apps before (I just rendered a bunch of 3D assets the other day in a different app without a hiccup), nor have I had issues before with AE killing itself when it's not the centre of attention...which appears to be what's happening now?

[cocoua]

Hi, I'm on version 16.1.3, when screen goes to sleep, rendering to frames would make the render x3 slower, but having the screen active, even using th computer would make it faster, as soon as I lock screen render start again to goe slower, between x2 and x3 slower...

[Darko Petrovic]

I'm sorry for dissapointing you guys but you didn't solve it yet.

The issue is still there, Version 18.4.1 (Build 4). It pauses while AppNap is not active.

Please check my last comments in the thread. Thanks!

[justinb92506862]

Just updated to 16.1.2 and this issue appeared while rendering dynamic link comps in Premiere. I wasn't having the issue before.

[seamartin1247]

I have the latest update of After Effects 2019 V16.1.2 and the issue is not resolved.

I've opened the activity monitor whist rendering as has been suggested and when monitored the App Nap is static at "No" BUT the Preventing sleep is generally "Yes" but it does now and again change to "No"?

CineRender is No - Yes

VTDecoderXPCService is No - No

AdobeCRDaemon is No - No

VTEncoderXPCService is No - No

If I put my MAC into sleep mode it stops rendering (drives are set not to turn off)

When the system is left to automatically go into sleep the render fails with Cineware fault

Please re-visit this because I'm having to render with my monitor on.

Thanks

[Rameez_Khan]

Sorry to hear that you're still having issues. I'll share it with the engineering team.

Thanks,

Rameez

[seanrowley]

Sept 13, 2019 and this is still a problem. I'm running the lastest Mojave and Adobe CC and I can't leave my computer alone while rendering. As soon as the blank screen saver kicks in, rendering slows to a crawl. This also happens when trying to render with Caps Lock on, which is supposed to be a time saver, not a render killer.

[pcg]

I have he same problem: 2013 Mac pro, Mojave lastest version, - renders don't work over night.

I would say that is a core functionality problem.

I owned lots of versions of AE before it was turned ito a rental. Now it cannot render a lot of formats anymore and it cannot render over night anymore??

This is not solved since april (!)

It might be Apples compulsion to limit options throwing us another curve ball.

but still

sometimes, less is just less.

I wish I could help

[cocoua]

same here, version 16.1.3 and renders is 200% to 300% slower when mac screen goes off

Energy saver settings are:

computer never goes to sleep

screen goes to sleep after 15 min.

when screen is ON, rendering frames to images gives 1 frame per ~1 minute, when screen is OFF it goes for 2~3 minutes (it takes some minutes to start slowing down) as soon as screen is ON render start faster again.

Weird, I have to keep screen ON, as I chave 3 screens, this is a lot of power comsumption over nigth, of course I disconnetc 2 screens, but anyway, very awkward 

Could this be becasue when screen is OFF, AE is no longer the main task for OSX and the OS reduces processor resources????

My bet is this hapens to everyone, but is hard to tell if the render has been slower than it could be, as to tell the difference you have to do the render twice, one with the screen ON and other with the screen locked or screensaver ON.

This drives me nuts as I can't leave the computer without locking screen because I'm in a co-working.

check the times:

one minute difference is while websurfing, as soon as I left computer, and screen locks times rises!!

red label marks screen lock, grey ones using the computer (web surfing or files handle)

[Whiteinktv]

Hi Thomas, I'm on 17.01 still the same issue. Thanks!

[cocoua]

HI, disabling App Nap works, but you have to disabl it for the whole system

[ionas_kaput]

Hi. I have 17.5.1. AE and rendering when screen is off is still an issue. Workaround with Terminal doesn't work as Terminal keeps saying to me "The domain/default pair of (kCFPreferencesAnyApplication, NSAppSleepDisabled) does not exist"

iMac 5k, Late 2015, Mac OS Mojave

[cocoua]

Hi, tha's weird, I have Mojave and this works for me:

Possible Workaround:

If you have confirmed that AE got switched to App Nap when there is active rendering in render queue. Here are the steps to shut down the App Nap feature entirely. Note this will shut down App Nap not only for AE, but for all application.

1. Open Terminal

2. Type in "defaults read NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled ". It should return '0' indicates App Nap is enabled.

3. Disable it by typing in "defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES"

4. Type in "defaults read NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled ". It should return '1' as App Nap is disabled in step 3.

[Darko Petrovic]

AE 18.4.1 (Build 4) still the same issue. To have it 2,5 years later after first report is the shame.

Few seconds after I move focus from AE, Render Queue pause the rendering and immediately continues when I click back on AE.

macOS Big Sur

Version 11.5.2 (20G95)

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017)

Processor 4,2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

Memory 64 GB 2400 MHz DDR4

Graphics Radeon Pro 580 8 GB

[Darko Petrovic]

Screenshot of Activity Monitor / Energy while Render Queue put yourself on pause is attached. There is not issue with App Nap or Previenting Sleep in my case.

[mistfall]

I'm having this trouble with rendering stopping when I switch focus to another app, with the most current version of AE in 2022.

Mac version.

[Peter23526835my94]

Same problem here... my client is getting very angry

latest version on M1 Max

[Peter23526835my94]

switched to media encoder and it rendered fine... weird! However not always good to render from AE using media encoder as it doesn't keep the same history in the project and doesn't update in and out points of new versions etc.

[weccleston]

Definitely should not be marked as "Solved".  Problem still exists.  And in Monterey, the Terminal command offered as a workaround no longer works.

Macbook Pro M1 Max

Monterey 12.5

AE 22.6.0 Build 64