Marquee keyframe selection hangs

[f1days]

Recently I have started to have big problems group selecting keyframes in the timeline. When drawing a marquee to select a keyframe group over several layers the marquee hangs and freezes for 2-4 seconds mid selection.

Selecting keyframes has become a nightmare and workflow is hugely effected.

This issue is happening on multiple machines, imac, macbook and mac pro. It doesn't appear to happen on windows. 

It happens both using a wacom and with a mouse.

Any advice or solutions to this big would be really appreciated.

[vinegarshots]

I've been having the exact same issue. Using iMac Pro. Also, whatever is happening also appears to affect dragging layers on the timeline... same freeze happens intermittently when I'm dragging layers left or right. 

[Rameez_Khan]

Can you share your files, vinegarshots?

The instructions are in my post above.

Thanks,

Rameez

[vinegarshots]

Hey Rameez --An even bigger bug: Some effects prevent projects from being loaded into Adobe Media Encoder. For example, if any of my layers have Linear Color Key applied, then the project won't load in Media Encoder. If I remove Linear Color Key, then the projects load as expected. I've also found this happening with certain 3rd party plugin effects as well (Optical Flares from VideoCopilot causes the same behavior). 

[Rameez_Khan]

Really sorry about that, vinegarshots.

We're investigating that issue and it seems to be related to certain third-party plugins as you have experienced. Here is the thread for your reference. I'll post updates on the thread whenever I get them from the After Effects team.

Thanks,

Rameez

[vinegarshots]

Rameez, I've put my log files into the Gdrive folder below:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1W3cYjK6oAjHm6hI8E_Xh-pDVkH3JJKlR

I got it to freeze on the marquee selection many times in a short timeframe on this log. 

Also, note that I've rolled back to last year's version of AE, because of the Media Encoder bug I mentioned previously. 

[Rameez_Khan]

Thanks for sharing the files, vinegarshots. I've attached them to the bug.

The Media Encoder bug is specific to AE 17.0.6 and AME 14.1. You can work with AE 17.0.5 if you like but if AE 16.x.x is working for you, I'd recommend that you stay on that.

Best,

Rameez

[Videogain]

I fixed this exact bug for many weeks by putting a fan next to my iMac, blowing towards where the cpu is from the side. With the fan on, I didn't get any lag for a long time. Today it got really hot where I am, and suddenly the issue is back. I wonder...

I will add the log info, really hope for this to be fixed.

[vinegarshots]

I appear to have fixed this issue on my iMac Pro. I opened Activity Monitor and noticed that mds-stores process (Spotlight index) was using 100% cpu while this was occurring, and it would not stop running no matter what I tried. Also of note was that no indexing should have been taking place. I attempted to rebuild the Spotlight database twice with no result. Finally I manually excluded all drives from Spotlight, restarted, and added all drives back. mds-stores is now behaving, and more importantly, no more lag when selecting or moving layers around in AE. 

[Rameez_Khan]

Thanks for sharing your updates, Videogain and vinegarshots.

I've added your comments to the bug. I'm hopeful that these insights will help the After Effects team. 

Really appreciate it.

Rameez

[Videogain]

Ae log: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QRUgXwTa6jOEFNo5au5hFfhFlTSnuEis/view?usp=sharing

Sample process: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1djoLiWJqgYcdCppFzb-DoeRyKQDXETdF/view?usp=sharing

[Rameez_Khan]

Both links are for the sample process, Videogain

-Rameez

[Videogain]

Oops, fixed.

[Videogain]

Is there a way to have this issue not be marked solved? It is very much still a problem.

[Ozzy Otter]

I agree, it is absolutely NOT solved. It seems to be the same issue addressed in the following threads:

After Effects Lag Issue Selecting Multiple Keyframes on Different Layers macos Catalina 

After Effects Hesitates When Dragging Clips Left and Right on Timeline 

Problem is being seen on our iMac Pro 18 core, 128 GB RAM, 4 TB SSD, macos 10.13.6 High Sierra, Radeon Pro Vega 64 16GB, Dual Monitor setup with LG Ultrafine 5K 27" via TB3.

[Rameez_Khan]

Thanks for providing the links, Ozzy_Otter!

We're actively investigating this bug. Did vinegarshots's Spotlight trick help you at all? 

-Rameez

[Rameez_Khan]

Yes, I can surely do that.

This is marked as a correct answer so that the info is pinned to the top of the page.

[alboardman]

This should not be marked as resolved. It's still very much a major issue. 

[Rameez_Khan]

Hi alboardman,

I've unmarked the answer as correct. The reason for listing it as a correct answer is in my post above.

-Rameez

[howeskris1]

I was having this problem and seemed to have resolved it. Im not sure if its this but here goes…

My guess if that its possibly something to do with iCloud and purgable space. 

 (Apple menu > About this Mac > Storage) said I had 500gb free. However, Dropbox kept sending me notifications that Id nearly ran out of HD space - very confusing as storage says I had 500gb free. If you go into (Applications > Utilites > Disk Ultility>Macintosh HD - Data) it will tell you whether most of your HD is being used by purgable files. I had infact only a few GB free - not 500gb. 

To free up the purgable space I used CleanMyMac. Under Maintence there's a command to 'free purgable space'. After doing this the cursor stoppped lagging - all back to normal within the timeline.

There are a few other commands under the Maintenace function (see attached screen grab). But my guess is its something to do with the lack of HD space. Obviously 'Reindex Spotilight' is there so could be that too or maybe its something else in the list. 

[Rameez_Khan]

Thanks for letting us know, howeskris1.

I'll add your comment to the bug. Maybe this will help the team to narrow it down.

Thanks,

Rameez

[crispe123]

I bought Clean My Mac X and tried this, it didn't make any difference to the prevalence of the bug for me. 

This bug seems much more widespread than the few posts in this forum from the anecdotal evidence I've seen. Animator friends I've asked also have the same issue.

I really hope it can be fixed soon. It's the most workflow crippling bug I've experienced in After Effects in all the many years that I've been using it.

[crispe123]

I've so far not had this issue since updating to 17.1. Maybe it's a coincidence.

The timeline is more sluggish, more in line with CC2019, but its better than having the marquee selection time out.