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ShiveringCactus
Community Expert
ShiveringCactusCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 3, 2023
Question

Quick Tutorial: Solving the issue of After Effects freezing when switching windows

  • April 3, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 857 views

I was having a regular problem where After Effects would freeze up my whole computer when I was switching to File Explorer to find footage to import. The whole screen would freeze, the mouse wouldn't respond, CTRL+ALT+DELETE did nothing and after a few minutes the screen would go white and eventually come back. Even when it did, AE would remain unresponsive and need to be restarted. It turned out there was a really simple solution which can be fixed in the Preferences. In the import section, uncheck "Enable Hardware Accelerated Decoding". It's requires a restart but after that, the problem hasn't reoccurred for me!

    1 reply

    G
    gabriza
    Participant
    June 18, 2025

    Hey, huge thanks to ShiveringCactus! I was really struggling with After Effects freezing every time I switched to Explorer to import footage — the whole system would just lock up and sometimes force a restart. Disabling hardware accelerated decoding fixed it immediately.

    That said, I want to point out that there is a noticeable performance hit when this feature is disabled. On my setup with a Ryzen 7 5700X and GTX 1660 Super, I estimate a drop of about 15% to 25% in preview performance, especially when working with H.264 footage. The playback feels less smooth and RAM preview takes noticeably longer.

    This is an important feature, and honestly, Adobe should have addressed these driver and codec compatibility issues by now. I have friends with similar setups who run with hardware decoding enabled and get much smoother previews. Here, I have to choose between stability and performance.

    Anyway, your tip saved me, but it’s a shame to have to make this trade-off on software at this level.

      Ishan Y
      Community Manager
      Ishan YCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      June 18, 2025

      Hey Gabriza,

      I understand how frustrating this must be. Could you share your current After Effects and NVIDIA GPU driver versions? I'll be happy to look into this for you.

      Please also check if updating the Windows vcredist libraries helps (https://adobe.ly/4e8LCA0). Your system will support the x64 version of the installer.

       

      Thanks,

      Ishan

      Please tag me (@) in your replies so that it notifies me and helps me respond promptly.
      G
      gabriza
      Participant
      June 19, 2025

      @Ishan Y  I'm using After Effects 24.6 with a Ryzen 7 5700X, 32GB RAM (3200MHz), and a GTX 1660 Super. I've already switched between multiple drivers (both Studio and Game Ready), but the issue still persists.  I'm currently using driver version 566.36. Still experiencing the same issues, unfortunately.

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