After Effects 24.0 EXTREMELY slow

[Bruno T. Augusto]

I don't know if everyone is having this problem, but After Effects is absolutely impossible to work. I'm working using simple shapes, a gradient layer and a text layer. And After Effects is just slow with something so simple like that. Inside the program, the mouse movement gets really laggy, it takes forever to render. And I'm not using external files, I'm not using adjustment layers and I'm not using any Motion Blur.

I'm feeling After Effects is getting worse and worse on each version Adobe release. And there's no way the problem is my computer, since I'm using a Mac Studio with M1 Max, 64Gb RAM and 4T storage. I can't find a resonable explanation for all this lag on every project.

Honestly, I'm starting to think about migrating to another software, since Adobe seems to just ignore all the After Effects problems.

[jenkmeister]

I promise we are not just ignoring all the AE problems 🙂 

What version of MacOS are you on? 

Can you look at the MacOS Activity Manger when this slow down happens in AE and see if there are any other processes that are taking CPU cycles away? 

If you turn off Cache Frames When Idle (Composition Menu -> Preview -> Cache Frames When Idle), does this still occur? 

Do you have any third-party plugins installed/panels open? 

[Bruno T. Augusto]

I'm using MacOS Ventura 13.4.1

After Effects is consuming all the CPU and a little more. 

I tried do turn off cache frames, but didn't work. It is still very very slow and laggy.

And I use a few third party plugins. DecomposeText, from Aescripts. And the Maxon Universe bundle.

Don't know what this problem could be. But I'm having problems with After Effects for some years already, and it keeps getting worse and worse.

[GotChaDigi]

Having the same problem(s) on the Windows 11 platform.  Waiting for a 2nd call back today from second-level AE TS. 

Propagation and rendering is unbearably slow and freezes and crashes regularly.  Tried to use Beta versions too.  Looking for alternative solutions instead of Roto Brush within Adobe tools and outside UGH 

[jenkmeister]

@Bruno T. Augusto if you look at the idle rate, you're actually at 85% idle. AE using 113.2% just means it is using more than 1 core of your system. The next 3 tasks in that image are what concern me. They have used hours and hours of CPU time with nothing else coming close. The WindowsServer one in particular is used for rendering the OS in general. 

[jenkmeister]

@GotChaDigi If you do crash, please make sure to submit the crashes and we can look them up on our backend and see what's going on.

[GotChaDigi]

I uploaded the logs & crash files in a previous post: https://adobe.ly/46PJ316 .

Didn't get any responses since the upload.

[jenkmeister]

I've responded on the other post. And we'll leave this post for the Mac issue that @Bruno T. Augusto is reporting.

[Bruno T. Augusto]

I'll see what I can do with this WindowServer problem. But I think it might be because I have some windows open at the same time. I'll check it out!

I'm using this computer for less than a year and AE started to lag a lot since the last update on the 23 version. And the 24 version got much worse. Besides theses problems I reported, it continues to show an "out of memory" warning. Even in really really simple compositions. Like...an animated text with no background. I never had this king of problem before, even when I was still using my old iMac. But now, AE keeps crashing, showing warnings that just disappear and lagging a lot.

[Andrea25090572kx9b]

Same problem... I just updated to the new version and it is really very slow compared to the previous one, used a few hours before, always in a Win11 environment, and always in the same conditions (no other changes on the system).

[Frank_B]

@jenkmeisterIt's not just MacOS. I work on Windows 10, Ryzen 9 5950X 16-Core, 64GB RAM, Geforce RTX 3080. Adobe installed on NAND SSD, projects files are on 2nd NAND SSD.
I literally just came to Adobe forum to write the same comment as @Bruno T. Augusto .

After Effects is extremely slow like never before. As I see it at the moment, there's no rule when it happens. Can be selecting keyframes, can be switching from precomps to precomps,  a project can be simple with just a solid with text and AE will still freeze for a second or few (to process simple operations??).

I use the same workstation and SDD with Photoshop or Lightroom and there's no such issue.

EDIT / UPDATE:
This is very weird but the issue didn't occur as much yesterday. No updates, no changes in plugins or system. It's quite baffling. I'll try to find out the reason for it.
The bottom line, Ae is slower than it used to be.

[InfiniteWhale]

I'm sorry but you really are!  There are so so many things that people have been asking for for at least a decade - including bug fixes and features - and you just don't do them!  You just add features that nobody wanted and never really work (content aware fill) and keep piling the problems up.  Maybe stop releasing a new version every year and release one that actually works?  I'm more likely to keep paying Adobe that way 

[Fresh Squeezed Creative]

Having this issue also.
5950x, 128gb, 3080ti, gen4 ssd's, win10.

Also, my effect controls seem to jump to other, non active compositions in my timeline. Just for even more fun.
Love making less and less money thanks to the dead time this dog software constantly brings. What an absolute sh*tshow. Again.

Only "Updated" to this crap because a persistent 17:18 error occured in my '23 install that made playback impossible. Re-installed that dog several times, reset everything yada yada to no avail too.

Yet another bullsh*t "We promise we aren't ignoring the problems" while aDerpie rides all the way to the bank with our hard earned money.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH. 

[Fresh Squeezed Creative]

Hey Everyone,

Today I contacted adobe billing with my gripes about After Effects performance vs subscription costs. I basically told tem how long I have been using the software and that I am very dissatisfied with the performance of recent years, how much additional time things are taking, etc - and was given a recent promotional discount.
Basically halving my subscription.

I suggest you all do the same.

If enough of us do this, well, perhaps speaking with our wallets is a better idea than trying to flog a dead horse here in the forums.

[Serbeksetin]

Hi everyone! 

A few minutes before, i finished a Motion Graphic animation and was a pain all the lag and constant slow playback, it's too fustrating having a good setup (ryzen 9, m.2 ssd, 3090 ultra, 64 ram) and AE don't work properly.

Recently, i was moving a Solid with a text... and suddendly all the interface started to lag and slowed down everything! I don't understand... my old macbook pro from 2012 with AE work so much better than this new s**ty version. I  hope some company does an Ae application to compete with adobe, because i have seen this problem in the forum for a long time and adobe just won't do nothing. I really feel scammed with all the money i'm putting on their wallet.
Please, listen to the community, repair and put some efford to solve this trashy program.
PS: Searching for an alternative, i found "Project Avalanche" wich is based in Unreal Engine... so... it's just a matter of time to transfer this laggy workflow to a another much better one.

[KasparFlueckiger]

Same Problem with Text lagging. I can't work like this.

I working on Apple M1 Ultra, 64 GB, Ventura 13.5.2. The AE-Version 2022 run much faster, than 2024.

Adobe PLEASE! Do something.

[jenkmeister]

@KasparFlueckiger Can you provide us with a project or a video of your experience so we can try to help?

[KasparFlueckiger]

Can't work with Text. See Video below.

[Serbeksetin]

That's what happens to me in this precise moment, and with just a simple expression of a counter number...

[jenkmeister]

Thanks for the video. A few things to check:

1) are you on a multi monitor setup? There have been reports of monitors that are using different refresh rates causing some lag in UI responsiveness. You could try disconnecting one monitor to see. 

2) the video shows you are using mercury cpu mode (the rocket being disabled). Try enabling that. 

3) in preferences -> preview there is the option to enable hardware accelerated panels. Is that on or off? Can you try the other setting. 

[InfiniteWhale]

I have done this - not to get money off, because I genuinely wanted to cancel my subscription.  Even at half the price I just feel like I can't put up with Adobe's lack of standards any more. 

[KasparFlueckiger]

Hello Jenkmeister. Hope you had a good start to the new year

1) I only work with one monitor
2) Mercury Software only or Mercury cpu have no influence on speed
3) I tried both options in the preferences. No difference.

I found the error

I'm working on a German OSX with German Adobe software. But I changed the language in After Effects.

I changed the ending of the following file:
Contents / Dictionaries / de_DE / after_effects_de_DE.dat
Contents / Dictionaries / de_DE / after_effects_de_DE.dat.ORI.dat

That's why working with text is so slow.

Do you know another method to display only the After Effects software in English?

Thank you for a tip.

[jond7728639]

Please update your graphics driver. This worked for me 

[emilianol40850476]

I habe the same problem

[little fat girl]

I've been using AE for 30 years. Performance/stability issues have been pretty bad since the subscription service started. 

The way I cope is to use older versions.  I'm now using AE 2020. I would recommend sticking with that for now. I had been using AE 2017 for the last few years. The new features are never worth the crashes in newer versions. I get new capabilities from plugins and they are backward compatible. 

[Daniel32319782u7gj]

I'm disappointd to say I'm slightly relieved that it's not just me who's experiencing these same issues.
I just bought this new Macbook pro laptop about 4/5 months ago, after effects was running fine at first, then things started to slow down. I did a little research and a lot of the same thing popped up, reccomending I delete my unused cache files to free space and declutter the software. 
I did this, and if anything, it got worse...
Unfortunetely I work as a freelance vido editor and I primarily spend a lot of my time animating custom infographics for high paying clients. 
It has been incredibly frustrating as of late, things are taking twice as long as they should, i run into a thousand problems a day with the software, just last night I was exporting a 15 second animation that would of taken (at most) 10 minutes, but it took me 35 minutes to export... (albiet I was rendering and exporting in 4k, but i still don't believe a fresh high quality laptop should take 35 minutes to export a 15 second animation...)
My business has slowed, I fear I might lose some of my clients, as I've had to push back a lot of my due dates because of how long things are taking to render.

Today i'm working on a 1080p clip and it's also taking twice as long to export and render... this is impossible