"Stuck" Image in Transparent Background

[Marc Trzepla]

After Effects 11.0.2.11

Mac OS 10.7.4

A "ghost" frame from an old movie is stuck in the transparent / checkerboard background.  Always the same movie / frame.   Even in a new comp without any layers this old quicktime movie shows up.  Was a moving movie, this ghost effect is now just a single still frame.   Put one item in the comp and it disappears.  Turn off the eyeball for all of the layers and the ghost image comes back.

Does not show up in final renders .. yet.   Mostly in just (Auto / Half) rez comp viewer previews.

I've tried deleting prefs.    Cleared disk cache.    Cleared Conformed Media Cache.  Restarted the program.    Restarted the computer.      It's been like this for weeks.

Now it has started showing WITH other layers "on".  This is new.   Makes it tough to work.

IT department says they have no idea, that "we'll have to wipe your entire computer" but before going THAT route wanted to see if anyone else has ever had this problem and if they've discovered a solution.

Thanks,

Marc

In these examples below this "rooftop scene" not only isn't supposed to be in the image, it's not even in the AE project file.       

Here it is actually with other layers set to "on" which has never happened before:

[Demsta]

SOLUTION!

Hi everyone, I have had the same problem and it is sooo frustrating but i found a solution on another forum and have done it and it works! (for me... hopefully i does for you too) It's definitely worth a try.

please note: i use PC but fix could work on mac too. lmk

Apparently when you clear your caches it doesn't clear one folder in particular (*.noindex). This folder contains hundereds of folders named 0a, 0b, 0c, 1a, 1b,1c, etc. If you delete everyone of these folders the problem will be fixed! (It will not effect anything on your adobe install or any projects)

Navigate to here or equivalent on your set up.

C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\Adobe\After Effects\13.7\Disk Cache - YOURUSERNAME-PC.noindex

Delete the contents and you should be good to go!

Really hope this helps

D*

[davew41746145]

Thank you very much. I was baffled completely on this one! You saved my project!

[jwood444]

So I have been troubleshooting this problem all day and I just wanted to add something for people like me who are using their AE comp as a dynamic link in Premiere. Your solution did work for me...in After Effects, but the "ghosted image" was still showing up(and rendering) in Premiere. I tried deleting my media cache in Premiere and that didn't do anything.

My solution, which makes no sense to me, was renaming the comp in After Effects. Mind you, I had been saving my files in AE to try and update the dynamic link to no avail. When I renamed the comp I was linking to in After Effects, the bug stopped happening in Premiere.

Not sure why that worked, but if you are skimming this just try renaming your comp after you clear your cache, and before you give up.

[nugget tutorials]

That is so weird but it works! Thank you so much!!

[GazdaLive5FFE]

HAHA, here in 2021 and it still works, thanks so much! Just cleared out 10GB of space on my C drive.

[wondtacular]

Bumping this because I just got a ghost image in a very long project here in CC 2018. Still happening!

Worth noting the image was of my film subject with Darth Vader. So I really thought I was slipping into an alternate reality or being rightly trolled.

Here to report that simply using the new (more recent) Purge > everything fixed it 100%. No need to go in and delete any files manually. I watched the ghost image disappear from the frame in question as soon as the purge was complete.

My guess is that whatever image is being cached when it gets clogged becomes the lucky ghost image. But who cares -- it is definitely about time this went away. At least Purge seems to be working for me. Hope this helps & happy ghost busting!

[dhruvbahri]

This happened to me for the first time with this latest patch. Bloody irritating but I think it has something to do with Adobe Dynamic Link. I am stacking a project across Premiere and Afx and this started happening. Also if you use multiple screens at different resolutions or just multiple screens with the wrong hardware it seems to cause issues too. Purging all caches seemed to help me.

[Evil Edison]

Edit/Purge/Image Cache Memory seems to have fixed the problem for me.

[Fine Vermin]

Yes, a weird but persistent problem across projects.  Still happening in CC2020.  The image was always "under" all the other layers, lingering/persisting in the background in every new project and composition.  It disappearing by putting a black solid as the bottom layer, but that was obviously a hack...  Purging the image cache memory worked immediately.

[pidgepxdge]

The same problem is happening for me as well and I'm using CC18! It's been like this for the last few projects and it's honestly really irritating!

Adobe please try fix this!

[orm1982]

Happening to me on a mac with the 2020 version - was going mad with it and wanted to let people know that renaming the linked comp in AE fixed the problem - WTF!

[Jonathan Santos]

I'got the same problem here, but nothing in this forum actually helped me. The solution I found were deleting an effect CC LENS that was applyied in a shape layer. I found this hiding every layer and trying to export until I realised that was the CC LENS. I still don't know why it didn't worked, not sure if it is my GPU (RADEON 570x) or other thing. The most important is that my problem is now solved!

[Saita0101]

It gets weirder. It only seems to happen for me when previewing on Full. (Maybe because I was on Full when the bug first occured?)

It happened after After Effects had a memory leak and crashed my PC after expanding to 32GB ram usage. It is a baked image of a scene I used in a transition. Which is similar to the OP's situation. Maybe there is some relation?

A workaround if you can't figure it out, Just work in half res when dealing with transparency.

I'm also not sure that this bug bakes into rendered videos.

[Param22568590i70a]

I'm using After Effects 2021 and had the same problem for a long time but I found out this simple solution.

Edit > Purge > image cache memory

[Grafsgaardian]

I am working in AE 2023 (23.5.0) and had this happen, so it's still a problem for some current users.  Purge All Memory and Disk Cache cleared the stuck frame.  Thank you!