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A
Akiva.Avros
Participant
January 18, 2023
Question

Project crashes on opening

  • January 18, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1785 views

I have a project that crashes After Effects every time I try to open it, with this error message:

 

I created the project in November 2022 in After Effects 22.3 on a 2019 MacBook Pro running macOS Big Sur 11.7. In late November I received a new computer for work - a brand new M1 Max 16" MacBook Pro - and since then, I've been unable to open the project.

 

This project uses a preset called Numbers+ by Creative Dojo, which, in the developer’s words “is just a bunch of expressions tied to a pseudo effect”. Since I migrated to a brand new M1 Max MacBook Pro, I haven’t been able to open the project, as it crashed with this same error message every time.

Here are a bunch of things I’ve tried, with no success:

  • Download and reinstall the preset
  • Remove the preset
  • Reset After Effects cache
  • Reset After Effects preferences
  • Downgrade to the same version (22.3) of After Effects I used when creating the project
  • Try every version since (22.4, 22.5, 22.6, 23.0)
  • Reinstall after using Adobe’s Cleaner tool
  • Create a new project, and import the original into the new project

 

My colleague is able to open this project, working on a Mac with identical configuration to mine (he received a new computer at the same time as I did).

It’s only on my computer that I can’t open it. My After Effects installation is ‘vanilla’ as it gets. I have no external scripts or plugins installed other than Numbers+.

My old computer, the one I used to create the project, was similar. It was also a vanilla AE setup, with just Numbers+, as well as Lottie and Bodymoving for Lottie exports. No other 3rd party tools.

 

If I use the Numbers+ preset in a different project (create a layer with the preset, adjust settings, etc.), I can save the project, and it’ll open just fine.

Even on a clean installation of After Effects without Numbers+, it still opens without trouble.

 

So as far as I can tell, there shouldn’t be any problem caused by this preset, just that AE always gets stuck opening this particular project on this particular computer.

 

Has anyone here come across a similar problem? This is driving me mad.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    A
    Akiva.AvrosAuthor
    Participant
    February 8, 2023

    Just a follow-up in case it's useful info for anyone who comes across this post in future:

    On a whim, I decided to create a new user on my Mac and try open the file from there, and voila it worked just fine! Using the same copy of After Effects that was 'installed for all users', with the same presets and everything.

    I then spent a couple of hours deleting comps, saving as different versions (22.x, 18.x, XML), using the Dependencies menu to reduce the project, remove unused footage, etc. After all that, I still couldn't get After Effects to open the file under my main user account, no matter what. In the meantime, the error message changed from the one about the missing plugin to

    <BEE_WorkQueue> <5> BEE_WorkQueue_PreCloseProject end

     

    Figuring the only possible difference between the two installations must be in the user-specific preferences, I went back to the Adobe Cleaner tool. Last time I deleted After Effects and its preferences, but this time I nuked every trace of Adobe from my computer, including Creative Cloud itself, and went through ~/Library and deleted all Application Support, Preferences, Caches, etc. that I could find.

    Start over, download CC, install After Effects, and STILL no luck. At this stage the only solution I can see is migrating all my files, apps, workflows etc. over to that user account that does work, but that takes me past the point of diminishing returns - starting my whole system over from scratch would take more time and effort than simply rebuilding this file in a new After Effects project.

    So Adobe won this round, and I'll just have to hope this doesn't happen to me again…

    zoew97621235
    zoew97621235
    Participant
    September 12, 2023

    I'm having this exact same issue!! After 2+ hours with support remotely controllig my computer, the only possible fix was working under a different user. Did you ever figure out what caused it? Totally insane. The support rep told me to contact Apple suport. 

    Mylenium
    Mylenium
    Legend
    January 18, 2023

    There is an issue with non-English file paths and based on your name I'm inclined to think that this plays a role here. Just renaming the project to not contain any special characters and such may be enough to get it working and being able to open the project. I'd also look in the pseudo effects XML file in the AE configuration folder. Perhaps some garbage data has snuck in there that's throwing things off. Deleting that and reinstalling the preset might cure things as well.

     

    Mylenium

    A
    Akiva.AvrosAuthor
    Participant
    January 19, 2023

    Thanks for the suggestions. The file and path name use only alphanumeric characters.

    I tried your suggestion about the XML file. Everything in the file looks like standard XML data. Deleting the file (moving it out of its original location) just gives me an error on launch "After Effects error: Psuedo Effects failed to load." and still fails with opening the project.

    It also occurred to me that Dropbox's 'smart' syncing might be causing some trouble, so I copied the project folder to a location outside of Dropbox, but still no dice.

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