Playhead not moving and time indicator line not showing when playing

[RobyBehrens]

Running AE 17.5.0 Build 40 on an ASUS StudioBook Laptop with xeon 6 core processor and mobile gtx 2080.

The project is a large after effects file, 173mb, as it is being used for 11 simultaneous how-to videos with very minimal motion graphics, ipad screen captures, and C100 video footage shot in AVCHD.  The project is a complex, carry-over project updating videos from years ago or I would start a new, smaller project file.

The issue I am having is that sometimes, when I press spacebar, the composition plays but the playhead doesn't move to the new position when I stop it.  Also when this happens, there is no red-line-time-indicator that moves across the composition.  When this happens, I am forced to restart the project to get my current location indicator back.  The playheard seems to scrub accross the composition just fine, but this is a pretty serious hinderance to my workflow, constantly restarting the software. 

Also, saving is very slow.  Please advise.

[RobShultz]

If it’s playing slowly you may have to let it play through once to render the composition into memory and hopefully it will play as expected afterwards.

[Rick Gerard]

It sounds like you are trying to edit your video in After Effects. That's a very bad idea. AE is a tool specifically designed to create visual effects shots, motion graphics, and animations that cannot be created in an NLE like Premiere Pro. Most AE comps created by professionals are one shot or one short sequence that is only a few seconds long. 

If you are stuck in AE the best thing I can suggest is that you break your comps up into shots or short sequences by selecting the appropriate layers and pre-composing. Render the pre-comps then edit them using Premiere Pro. AE was never designed to do long previews and the only practical way to work on longer sequences is to set the Preview Panel to skip at least one frame, set the Comp Panel resolution to Auto and magnification to 50% or 25%, and turn off motion blur and as many effects as you can. Check a few critical frames at full res with all effects on, then send the comp to be rendered.

[aspire029]

Highly respect your posts and i love the information you give out, extremely valuable and an asset to the community.

You mention "AE is a tool specifically designed to create visual effects shots, motion graphics, and animations that cannot be created in an NLE like Premiere Pro."

How would you tackle a explainer-type video in which i basically recorded lots of screen records and recorded the voice-over separately, without bogging AE and not treating it like an NLE?

The issue i  have atm is i want to use AE and be able to take advantage of the stroke animations with trim paths etc and a lot of the other effects and features which prem pro doesnt do well or at all.

Dynamic links are becoming troublesome i have found, switching between the 2 programs, as there are also limitations with dynamic links as to what effects are transferrable.

The voice overs audio clips i dont include in the dynamic links because i know AE isnt an NLE and it would just bog down the program, so i create markers to give me ques to when the audio will appear in prem pro. But even that is hard as markers dont translate well when using dynamic links.

The control of the effects is what i love most with AE, what's your thoughts?

[aspire029]

Even simple zoom or scale transitions i find are smoother and then wanting to reverse keyframes to get the exact scale transitions can be done in AE but cant be done in prem pro so you end up using scaling effects throughout the video clips that are dynamically linked. 

And the control of the graph editor with prem pro and then using AE graph editor. Chalk and cheese.