unbalanced unlock ( 7 :: 40 )

[R.Silva]

Hi:

I just got an error that displays and doesn't want to go away even after I click the only OK button in the dialog box.

The error as cryptic as this is, is:

"After Effects error : unbalanced unlock. ( 7 :: 40 )

Does anybody know how to get rid of this and why did it show up in the first place?

Using Mac OSX El Capitan with the latest AECC2015 update (13.6.1.6)

Thanks.

[bálinth52542354]

Yep. This worked! Human astuteness vs machines : 1:0

[magicfxnm8r2]

This happened to me in After Effects CC 2015.1 on PC. No matter how many times I hit escape, the error kept

popping up, preventing me from saving, exiting, and restarting After Effects. I ended up hitting Enter and escape

alternately very fast. This eventually produced a layer view, which stopped the error, allowed me to save, exit, and

restart After Effects. Once restarted, the problem went away.

[louisd97964158]

Exactly the same deal. Happened when creating a mask on an adjustment layer. Esc, Enter saved by bacon!

[Paulohc]

I was masking and got this problem, them i press Esc,enter,edit,save and then purge all memory and disk cache, this solve for me.

[David Mudd Art]

I am mostly posting for documentation.  I received the same error just now with the most recent version of AE CC 2015.3.  All I was doing was editing text and moving it around which doesn't seem like it would be that taxing on the system (iMac 5k 16gb RAM 4 GHz Intel Core i7) I also have 100GB for my cache which was only at 80% at the time.  It would be nice to have an explanation on how to avoid these little errors as they seem to appear randomly but I'm no engineer

krismortensen​ and magicfxnm8r2​ 's tricks seems to have worked for now. Enter, ESC, Edit, Save. Or just enter and quickly hitting (command + s) or (command + Shift + s) worked to.  Then clearing your cache and reopening the file, the error has since not popped back up. 

It might just be me but the new AE CC 2015.3 has had a lot of bugs so far and adobe doesn't like to respond to my emails...

I hope everyone is having a great day!

- David

[tinamneely]

I received the same error when working with a simple shape layer (adjusting opacity and scale). No matter how many times i click "ok" the error message won't go away.

[stib]

It's happening now to me. I can't get out of the loop with any of the tricks, I've tried hitting escape, putting on the caps lock, hitting the edit menu as soon as I hit return, but no avail, it's in a death spiral.

Is it just me or is 15.3 the Worst. After Effects. Ever.

[harryk86160331]

same error. cant do anything. have to kill the entire AE process because the OK doesn't work and keeps popping up again lol. i had a solid with optical flares applied to it which i then tracked to a light source, then i moved the light source several time and bam error. i don't think the error can be fixed because this is an intermittent problem with no exact way to reproduce.

[harryk86160331]

Now i got that annoying error again with only dealing with 2 video footages and 3 or 4 duplicates inside a composition

[_R_H_]

It must have to do with masking somehow... I just got the same issue here while drawing a path layer. Win 10, Latest CC2015.3
Wish Adobe would chime in right about now.. it's clearly a bug.

[TSummerhays]

Yep I am having the same issue while trying to make a mask layer. Even when I restart the program. I restarted the computer even. I only have about 2 minutes to work before the message pops up and I have to force quit the program.

[mikeh64589377]

Same error. Contiunally clicked the Enter button while pressing CTRL + Z. Eventually went away withut losing any work.

[deondraj41935267]

I cant get around this too, came up while I was copying and pasting keyframes with opacity onto file/layer that was a rendered and converted quicktime. I was making a demo reel for the end of class project. I shot movie with all my little quicktime converted files and other short comps in it. Then I was fading in and out the type titles  copy copying and pasting two opacity keyframes onto my text title laters. When I tried to move past a converted quickitme file that was on a layer in the timeline panel, thats when that (7::40) error popped up. and I cant get it to go away!!!!!Adobe, you need to have better support or don't release a new version of a program until you work out the bugs that's why cloud sucks now because it's always the latest updated version that hasn't had the bugs worked out or the solutions figured out. Adobe, help out your professionals and students that are paying an arm and leg and devoting themselves to learning these fantastic beautiful amazing programs, by having more trained tech ppl respond to these forums so ppl can get their work done and not get fired or get F's on projects. lol Thank  you!!!!!!!!!!

[fabiohosoi]

same problem here. sad... =/

[mrmagnum]

I'm having the same problem it appear at random times. I thinks its just a build bug in the latest version . ADOBE please update.

[c_pase]

Just happened to me to. Running AE 2017 (14.0.1.5)

Was editing a mask and got the same error. The escape and CMD+S worked for me.

So im assuming the issue has not been resolved?

[Dave_LaRonde]

c.pase wrote:

So im assuming the issue has not been resolved?

Probably not.  I looked at an Adobe list of known issues for AE CC 2017.  This isn't one of them.

[uburoibob]

Same thing. I found, however, that if you drag the dialog box off the preview window and onto either the timeline or the area to the left, you can hit OK, then save and quit. When I reopen After Effects and the file, no probs. This is on a 2013 iMac 3,4GHz Core i5 with 32 gig of RAM. Sierra, latest system.

[kenb30930163]

Well for an unknown issue, it sure has popped up a lot. Thank you Correct_answer and uburoibob for the two parts to a solution.

[cristelr4852565]

YES! Thank you!

[anyuew95754435]

thanks a lot you just saved me！

[anandm69535481]

I faced the same problem, I pressed Esc and moved my mouse across timeline repeatedly and the error disappeared.

[kenb30930163]

Thanks anandm, the problem continues intermittently for me and I'm happy to have another option for correcting it.

[motequem41674479]

While I couldn't get to the Purge option using my mouse because of the error, I used Enter, to get rid of the error message for a second and Alt+E  to open the edit menu, which stopped the error from coming up and I could purge the memory. Just saying in case someone else has this problem.

[taylor_C]

Does this get rid of everything on my After effects. i was just holding down enter and i get the opportunity to purge it. Will all my memory be gone? Like i could never get it back?