Spike in RAM Usage to Max, Resulting in AE Crashes and Occasional PC Crashes

[Prabhu Raj387344708kmr]

Details:
Whenever I add more effects or sometimes even standard effects in Adobe After Effects, the RAM usage spikes dramatically, often reaching its maximum capacity. This causes After Effects to crash abruptly, and in some instances, it leads to a complete system crash, forcing me to restart my PC.

Steps to Reproduce the Issue:

1. Open Adobe After Effects and load a project.
2. Add or modify effects within the project timeline.
3. Monitor the RAM usage while adding effects or previewing the timeline.
4. Observe a sudden spike in RAM usage, leading to the crash.

Expected Behavior:
The software should efficiently manage RAM usage even when applying multiple effects, allowing the workflow to continue without interruption.

Actual Behavior:
The RAM usage spikes uncontrollably, After Effects crashes, and occasionally, the entire system becomes unresponsive and crashes as well.

Additional Information:

• This issue occurs more frequently when working with complex compositions or resource-intensive effects, sometimes with simple effects to.
  
  

  System Specifications:

  • Operating System: [Specify OS, e.g., Windows 11 Pro]
  • RAM: 64GB
  • Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-14900K @ 3.20GHz
  • Graphics Card: NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti 12GB
  • After Effects Version: Latest 2025 Version
  
  

  Troubleshooting Steps Taken:

  1. Cleared the disk cache.
  2. Reduced the composition resolution to half or quarter.
  3. Limited RAM usage in the After Effects preferences settings.
  4. Updated both After Effects and GPU drivers to the latest versions.
  5. Disabled unnecessary third-party plugins.
     
     
  
  
  

[nishu_kush]

Hi Prabhu Raj,

Thanks for creating the detailed post. Is this happening with a specific project or any project that is complex? Do you get the same Stop code on the blue screen every time? Not sure if spiking RAM usage on complex projects is a problem. However, crashing is. The blue screen is usually caused by a faulty driver or hardware issues. Here's a thread I found on the Microsoft community that has some troubleshooting listed: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/have-the-error-code-attempted-execute-of-no/0a...

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Nishu

[Ian22461620dkt1]

I have a similar issue with After Effects (and, perhaps, Adobe Audition with not a huge project  - something that Nuendo handles perfectly) where the app becomes sluggish then crashes, often taking the whole system with it. I have similar hardware specs:

System Specifications:

• Operating System: [Specify OS, e.g., Windows 11 Home]
• RAM: 64GB (then upgraded to 128GB
• Processor: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700K 3.40 GHz
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti 12GB
• After Effects Version: Latest 2025 Version

Troubleshooting Steps Taken:

1. Cleared the disk cache.
2. Reduced the composition resolution to half or quarter.
3. Limited RAM usage in the After Effects preferences settings.
4. Updated both After Effects and GPU drivers to the latest versions.
5. No third party plugins installed.

The project isn't huge, but is a touch untidy. It is also an update from a previous project done two or three years ago... Thinking I needed more RAM, I upgraded my memory to 128 GB, which really didn't make a perceivable difference in the slowing down and then crashing. It would be really good to get to the root of this problem.

Was this ever resolved with Prabhu?

Thanks,

Ian