spacebar won't play back preview

Report · Jun 26, 2019

For a while I had After Effects cc 2018 and experienced no issues, until about 7 months into having it. I'm not sure what I did to cause this issue but whenever I pressed the spacebar on my mac to toggle playback of my preview, it would switch to the hand tool, and wouldn't play my preview no matter what. It didn't matter if I held or just pressed the spacebar, it would toggle between the pointer and hand tool. I even tried assigning a new shortcut in the preview pannel and just using the play button, but to no prevail. I uninstalled cc 2018 and switched to cc 2019, thinking that it might have just been a bug in the system I was using. For a month or so things went smoothly but a few days ago the same problem started up again. It's crucial that I'm able to use ae since it's my way of earning money. If anyone can help me please reply!

Report · Aug 31, 2021

I've been struggling tremendously with the same problem as you.

Pressing the spacebar does not play the preview, it switches to the hand tool, and pressing the spacebar twice will go back to the playbar.

Are you using a Bluetooth headset?
Or are you using Bluetooth earphones?

I've definitely confirmed that Bluetooth audio and After Effects are conflicting with each other.

In the end, I tried wired earphones,
In the computer (window10) settings, you need to make sure that it is set to Sound and Audio > Sound Card, not Bluetooth Headset or Earphone.

If you are in the same situation as me, I think it will help you to solve it.

I'm Korean, so I can't speak English well, so I got help from a translator.
Please forgive me if my words are poor.