Preview in After Effects doesn't work

[miah27136225]

Hi!

I am working on a project in After Effects and all of a sudden the preview stopped working. I push play and the active camera starts but nothing happends. I have tried to start a new project but I have the same issue. Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong?

/Mia

[RobShultz]

Please check to see if the “caps lock” key is pressed on your keyboard.

[miah27136225]

Caps lock is not activated.

/Mia

[David Arbor]

Can you please post a screen recording of this happening?

[miah27136225]

Now I have pressed play in preview and you can see the stop mark. But the preview doesn't show.

/Mia

[David Arbor · Accepted solution]

Try going to:

Edit>Purge>All Memory & Disk Cache

Also, is this happening all the time or does it work when you restart Ae or your computer?

[miah27136225]

I restarted the computer and purged all memory and disk cache and now it's working!!! Thank you sooooo much!! Lifesaver!

/Mia

[Aditya X]

Will this remove all previous projects that i have saved?

[SebSaga]

Nope, purging does not effect your actual project files. It just deletes any ram previews, so if you opened an odler project that used theses previews, you;d just have to wait for Ae to build them again.

[Oriol John25058527tq9t]

I have a similar problem where my After Effects 2022 it only playbacks 4 frames repeatedly, as if my "work area" is those only 4 frames. This happens everywhere in the comp when i press space to playback the comp, its just renders the first 4 frames and does that forever. (i sent 2 screenshots)

I a already cleared my cache and memory and restarted my mac numeroous times and nothing fixes it. Do you a fix?

[talwag]

Hi!

I thought I have a similar problem and tried Purge, but it still doesn't work.

I hit space and nothing happens. its the same when push the play/stop button on the preview panel.

I've noticed that when I hit space again, in order to stop the preview, the time indicator jumps one frame backwards.

Im not the only one who uses this computer, so it might be that someone changed some settings...

Does anyone knows how to fix this?

thanks

[Mary_36]

Same. It's so annoying

[Martin Girardeau]

Same problem, the time indicator jump backward when I press space.

[cece2ae]

the same exact thing is going on with me. did anyone figure this out? please help.

[ladyinsane]

I tried this and worked. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl8LxHBSX88 

[default4z6vi3qi8les]

Thanks! This worked! Weird fix😅

[n.]

lol a new person

[default5h6aohhgby5z]

Nope didn't work in the long run. Also this is actually related to another problem. But i guess it's similar to reseting the prefs folder in Maya. Anyways... after a short while the playback problem comes back. No fix as of now for me.

[CatalinPascaru]

Hi!

Not sure if you found your answer but it has been solved in a related post:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects/after-effect-preview-not-work/td-p/9804111

In short, it's because of Audio Hardware (and audio devices connected to your laptop/pc)

I've changed my audio hardware from MME to ASIO and the problem has been solved.

[default5h6aohhgby5z]

Same. It's infinitely annoying. And it has been over more than a year... It just sometimes happens. Restarting AE helps.
Which might be an okay and usual bug for an open source software... but Adobe?
Not a fan...

[default5h6aohhgby5z]

Yeah. That's exactly what i've got... Including the jumpback one frame.
What is it? Any solution after 2 years?

[Oriol John25058527tq9t]

I have a similar problem where my After Effects 2022 only playbacks 4 frames repeatedly, as if my "work area" is those only 4 frames. This happens everywhere in the comp when I press space to playback the comp, it just renders the first 4 frames and does that forever.

I already cleared my cache and memory and restarted my mac numerous times and nothing fixes it. Do you know a fix?

[Oriol John25058527tq9t]

I have a similar problem where my After Effects 2022 only playbacks 4 frames repeatedly, as if my "work area" is those only 4 frames. This happens everywhere in the comp when I press space to playback the comp, it just renders the first 4 frames and does that forever.

I already cleared my cache and memory and restarted my mac numerous times and nothing fixes it. Do you know a fix?

[tribambuka]

Having same problem here. Updated to After Effects 2019 - it doesn't recognise half of my linked files, so I got back to After Effects 2018, and it doesn't preview anymore. It also stopped sending files to Media Encoder. Tried purge, didn't help.

[masihm57007419]

very very tank you !