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I have all kinds of problems with MP4 footage not updating properly, and I feel like it didn't used to be this bad in previous AE versions
My standard workflow is to export MP4 renders from another animation software and composite them in After Effects.
Whenever I re-render an existing shot and then switch back over to After Effects, the MP4 footage becomes all garbled / corrupt looking in the AE timeline.
"Reload Footage" does not help.
"Replace Footage" (with the same file) does not help.
Purging All Memory & Disk Cache (then reload or replace) does not help.
Most of the time, quitting out of After Effects entirely, purging cache, re-opening the project and reloading the footage works.
But sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes I have to change the file name of the MP4, then "Replace Footage" when After Effects reports it missing... and then change the name again every time I re-render it!
This is unacceptable.
I should be able to re-render footage in another app, tab back over to AE and see it refresh without doing anything.
You might want to try updating to 23.6 to see if the situation improves. I'd also suggest seeing if turning off hardware accelerated decode (Preferences -> Import) improves the situation. It may be that your video drivers are causing hardware acceleration to fail which is resulting in the corrupt shots.
If you have any mp4's you can share with us to see if we can repro the problem, that'd be useful too.
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AE version: 23.4
macOS 13.4.1
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You might want to try updating to 23.6 to see if the situation improves. I'd also suggest seeing if turning off hardware accelerated decode (Preferences -> Import) improves the situation. It may be that your video drivers are causing hardware acceleration to fail which is resulting in the corrupt shots.
If you have any mp4's you can share with us to see if we can repro the problem, that'd be useful too.
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Thanks for the suggestions.
The problem is not with the MP4 files, since they work just fine once I rename them.
It seems to obviously be some kind of persistent cache that is not user-purgable.
Turning off hardware accelerated import did not fix it (just made it slower).
I really hate updating AE mid-project, but I did update to 23.6 just now.
No improvement (with or without hardware acceleration). And it's crashing, running much slower than my previous version, stretching the preview image... a lot of general bugginess. 😞
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That's very strange and I'm not aware of those sorts of bugs existing right now from other users. Are you on Mac or Windows?
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macOS 13.4.1
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Thank you for the message. Are you still having the issue? Let us know.
I am moving this thread from Bugs to Discussions for now.
Thanks,
Nishu