Using Mac Headphone Jack Causes Playback Lag In After Effects (iMac Pro)

[vinegarshots]

This is a rather crazy bug I've discovered. Using After Effects in latest MacOS Catalina on my iMac Pro. 

When stopping timeline playback with the spacebar, there is a huge lag for the playhead to move to the end of the preview time. After much fiddling around, I managed to deduce the cause of this, and it has something to do with the audio. 

If I am using the iMac Pro headphone jack with headphones, the lag is present. However, if I unplug the headphones and plug them back in, the lag disappears.  I've recorded a screencap to show the behaviour first with headphones plugged in, and then after I've unplugged and immediately plugged them back in:

Obviously, I can't keep unplugging/plugging my headphones back in each time I need to start on a new project, so any insight into this is much appreciated. Interestingly enough, the same behavior occurs with my USB audio interface set to the output, too. If I unplug the USB cable and plug it back in, the delay goes away for that as well. The only thing that works without going through these steps is the built-in iMac Pro speakers...no lag ever when using them for output. 

[n.curless]

Thank you for sharing the workaround as it was driving me nuts on the most recent project I completed. It's a shame that my company spent over $5K for a specced out 2017 iMac Pro workstation only for the playback to be hindered by this neglected bug.