PLAYHEAD NOT MOVING (Yes, again)

[Alejandro5EFA]

I've seen a ton of posts about the same problem. How is it that Adobe has ignored this critical issue for such a long time? I'm talking about the playhead. It doesn't move. I can see the preview and hear the audio, just the playhead won't move.

It's not the first time this has happened to me. In fact it happens quite frequently, as soon as the projects get big enough I get this bug, although I am not sure what actually triggers it. After looking through the many posts about this very issue on this forum, I've yet to find a solution. If anyone knows a fix or a workaround please let me know.

And ADOBE FIX THIS BUG PLEASE, it's embarrasing how we've had the same bug  since  2018. If it wasn't for my clients actually requesting the AE projects for delivery I would have ditched this software a long time ago.

My specs:

Processor 11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H @ 2.30GHz 2.30 GHz
RAM 64.0 GB
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

Plenty of SSD space (1 TB remaining)

[Warren Heaton]

Are you referring to the Current Time Indicator (CTI, blue vertcial line) or the Preview Time Indicator (PTI, red vertical line)?

Assuming that the frames within the Work Area have loaded into RAM, the Preivew should play as expected. 

The CTI does not move during a Preview, letting the user know when keyframe edits will take place if made during the Preview.  The PTI movies during Preview, letting the user know which frame is being displayed in the Comp.

[Alejandro5EFA]

The blue one, the one you see when you you have the comp open which tells you where you are whithin the timeline (my understanding is it's called the playhead). And the way I know this is a bug is because when I open a new project it works as it should, moving on the timeline while playing the preview.

[Warren Heaton]

No, that is not the Playhead.

That is the Current Time Indicator and called "CTI” for short.

You are thinking of Premiere Pro.

[Alejandro5EFA]

Sure, thanks? I guess.

[amourodium]

I'm also getting this error, and the issue is really that the PTI just doesn't appear on playback. The CTI remains in place, the video plays (both audio and video), and when you pause the video, the CTI will jump to your pause point. At no point do you have a visual cue in the timeline of where the video is in playback, meanwhile, your video & audio are playing without any lag.

Timecode also remains at the same point in time as your CTI until you pause playback. 

@Alejandro5EFA The best solution I've found is to purge, restart, and pray to your 0s and 1s that things work out. Best of luck. 

[patricks23459539]

Bro you know what he means. STFU.

[Ignatz Johnson Higham]

I also have this issue and have tried various things to fix it. have complained to Adobe and had them take a look, of course the issue never manifests itself when they try it!

[MJ.WORK]

Did anybody find a solution for this? My preview time indicator, the RED line doesnt move...nightmare to try to edit music like this.

[Warren Heaton]

@MJ.WORK 

Regarding editing music, you'd want to be doing that in Adobe Audition or Adobe Premiere Pro and then import a stereo mixdown from either of those applications into an After Effects project for animating to the music edit.

Without any hardware, software, or workflow details, it's hard to know where to start with troubleshooting why the CTI is not working as expected.

Some general considerations (in case you're not already doing these):

• Try doing an Audio Only Preview and place Layer Markers at important frames on the Time Span for the source audio.  Then use those as a guide for keyframes as you animate.
• Use an audio file format that's not compressed.  For example, a linear PCM AIF file or WAV file.
• Try a lower Composition Resolution.  If working at Full Resolution, try Half.  If working at Half Resolution, try Quarter Resolution.  If owrking at Quarter Resolution, try a Custom Resolution.
• Try skipping frames.  While it's ideal to not skip frames, try the default Preview option to Skip Frames or set a custom one in the Preview panel.
  
  
  

[aarons5278181]

@Warren Heaton 

Just today had this issue show up across all different versions of different projects, old and new - V2025, V24, Beta, etc.

None of these "general considerations", memory purge, re-sets, are solving the issue  Please advise, thanks

[Warren Heaton]

@aarons5278181 

I've never been able to reproduce this error in any version of After Effects.

What happens if you start After Effects in Safe Mode? 

[MJ.WORK]

It happens to me in AE 2025 and AE Beta version. Not in AE 2023. I found people speaking about the problem, but nobody seems to have found a solution. I did reset preferences but that also didnt fix it.

Maybe a full reinstall will do hopefully.