Opening older After Effects project in newer version, assets are completely black or missing

[ml3m]

I'm opening AE project files made on the 2021 version in the 2024 version. Whenever I open them, the message  "This project must be converted from version. The original file will be unchanged"

Opening the project, all the uploaded movs and image files I added don't show up in the preview, or are completely black. I did follow this tutorial to try and fix the issue, but not only did it not fix the missing assets, but made one of my other projects more confusing. Previously it was entirely black, but now it has these colored squares where the assets are supposed to be.

Should also mention that I tried following the tutorial yesterday, but it repeatedly caused Adobe to stop responding.

Here are what my project files look like in both versions

[ml3m]

Should have included this in the thread, but I should mention that the mov files are totally black in new projects, so adding them to new projects doesn't fix them

[nishu_kush]

What are your system specifications (CPU, GPU, RAM, OS version)? Where your media files are stored? Are they in synced folder (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc)? If so, try bringing them to your local location and import them into a new project to see if that brings any change. 

Let us know. Moving this thread from Bugs to Discussions for troubleshooting.

Thanks,
Nishu

[ml3m]

I'm not super knowledgeable on that sort of stuff, but from what I could tell, it runs on RAM and has an NVIDIA graphics card

The movs are stored in a subfolder in documents, and the images (HEIC) were previously downloaded from Drive, and are stored in my downloads folder. Dragging the files directly from their folders yield no differences.

[nishu_kush]

Could you share a few sample files to test on my end? It would be great if you could share a After Effects project file as well. Feel free to DM me if you don't want to share the files publicly.

Thanks,
Nishu

[ml3m]

Sent

[nishu_kush]

Thanks for sharing the files. I opened them on my end, and they seem to open fine (screenshot). Try clearing the media cache (Edit > Purge > All Memory & Disk Cache) and running After Effects in Safe Mode.

Let us know the outcome.

Thanks,
Nishu