After Effects 2017 CC - Preview Lagging - MacSierra

[The Jsquared]

Hello, I have a fairly new iMac 5k, 32GB, 4.0GB Graphics Card, i7 Core

I recently updated to MacSierra and now it seems both my 2015 CC and 2017 CC are lagging in preview.

I open up a new brand new project, brand new comp with completely nothing in the comp, I hit preview and the red line lags when it moves down the timeline.

It shouldn't be this way. It should have a smooth ride down the timeline. What's going on?

Any thoughts? Thanks

[Roei Tzoref]

I open up a new brand new project, brand new comp with completely nothing in the comp, I hit preview and the red line lags when it moves down the timeline.

if the red line strobes that's not the indication that something is wrong. what about your info panel? does it show realtime in brackets indicating it is real time?

or does it also show red indicating dropping of frames?

try resetting your preferences:

Reset After Effects Preferences

there have been problems on some high res displays causing not realtime preview. the workaround was to stick a panel under the timeline panel... or even seeing in full screen mode. try it and see what happens.

[Flydigital]

I have eagerly updated to CC2017 hoping it would address the issue with Sierra and audio / real time preview. Sadly it is still a problem, though Adobe now says Sierra is compatible with the new release.

My 25fps timeline plays at about 12fps. It then gives a spinning wheel and is very difficult to break out of the ram preview. Getting out requires quite a few clicks outside of the render area.

[jeroyg]

please see this thread here for the current state of this issue plus potential workarounds.

AE2017: looping playback beachball

[The Jsquared]

Yeah, the playback is in real-time. When I preview the animation lags even with the green-bar pre-RAM preview loaded.

Shouldn't play smoothly with the green-bar already loaded in the timeline? What about the Preview Preferences?

[jeroyg]

have you tried any of the workarounds that are presented in the thread i pointed to above? there is an active issue that is Mac only where the entire timeline can unintentionally redraw during preview which may be the root cause of your issues.

your post above is a little confusing, you are saying the playback is in real-time but yet the animation lags? what animation are you referring too?

[Flydigital]

There are 2 separate issues here.

The redraw bug that freezes the program but also the non real time preview. The ram preview will not play real time. For my current project it stutters along at about 13fps.

I have had to rebuild my laptop with OSX Yosemite for the time being until this is fixed.

CC2015 + Sierra had one problem- playback. With CC2017 there are now 2 big problems! And this version is advertised as compatible with the OS and clearly isnt.

[StephaneA_AfterEffects]

On Windows 10, the audio in ram preview is still not working properly (laggy and choppy) too (2014 CC works perfectlly) !!

What on the earth are they doing at Adobe ?!!

[Flydigital]

Agreed. For the first 15 years or more of AE, ram preview was never an issue. Then they tried to make it fancy and it's a mess. Past 2-3 versions has been buggy, crashy, complicated. Adding markers while playing audio caused it to 'burp' and stutter. Then it was resolved after a year or so of hassle and now it's broken again.

[The Jsquared]

Okay, I have 2 computers I work with. My home computer is the iMac 5K, 32GB RAM, 4GB GPU, i7 Quad-Core.

I thought it was probably my computer. Negative. My work computer is a MacPro 16GB RAM, 6-Core Xeon Processor, 4GB GPU

I, just today, updated my work computer from Mavericks to MacSierra (like I did for my iMac) and the EXACT, SAME, RESULT that happened on my iMac at home happened on my MacPro at the office.

On my home computer, the preview started lagging, audio goes in and out, and the audio lags, and the middle-mouse scroll zoom lags as well, the exact same thing that happened to my MacPro that I have at the office at work.

So, whether it's an iMac or MacPro, it seems that the MacSierra update gives After Effects 2015.3 and 2017 problems.

YE BE WARNED! fellow AE artist!

Do not update to MacSierra! Take my experience and save yourselves until Apple and Adobe gets on the same page.

I hope an update comes out soon that fixes this issue; I can't work like this.

[Szalam]

Everybody who is having this sort of issue, please install the latest update that came out last night: After Effects CC (November 2017) Bug-Fix Update Is Now Available

This update is 14.0.1 and should be a bug fix for this and several other disturbing issues - especially for Mac users. It does not fix all the bugs that are new with the CC 2017 release (Known issues in After Effects CC 2017), but it does fix some issues that have been plaguing After Effects since the first parts of the new architecture showed up in the CC 2015 release.

If you can't see the update yet, you may need to wait a while until you see it as it can take up to 24 hours to populate an update across all the data centers. You may need to log out, relaunch the Creative Cloud app, and log in again.

[jackthegiantslayer]

Update does not matter. Preview is certainly improved over the last two updates, but I still continuously get dropped frames and audio lag even previewing at half-res.