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After Effects Slow to Open and Hangs
Has anybody had this issue…
I’ve been given a project, which when I open it, it takes about 10 mins to open and then a further 10-20 mins for the comps to be visible in the comp viewer window. From there on I get the dreaded spinning wheel near enough on every comp I try and double-click in to, basically it’s unworkable.
The project works fine on the co-worker’s machine (iMac) and it seems to work fine on my old laptop (Windows) but when I try to open it on my MacBookPro it really struggles, which is baffling as the laptop was new in January and cost me a fair whack. Myself and the other guy are using the most recent After Effects version.
The project itself is a reasonably simple project as it stands. There are quite a lot of individual elements but not a crazy amount, nothing that I haven’t dealt with before and there are no effects or plugins used in it. I’m an experienced After Effects user and I know that this project is not a project that should be struggling to work.
Any hints on what could be causing this would be greatly appreciated.
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6 Replies
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Have you tried resetting your Ae preferences? Close After Effects, then hold Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Cmd+Opt+Shift (macOS) while starting Ae.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Thanks for replying Walter.
Should you see anything when you press the Cmd+Opt+Shift combination or does it reset the preferences without you seeing anything change?
Anyway, I’ve done that and nothing has changed. The project still takes forever to open.
DOH!
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Yes, you should get a “Are you sure you want to delete your preferences file?” dialog box. You have to get the key combo down immediately after clicking, before the splash screen loads.
Have you rebooted recently?
If you hold “Shift” while the project loads, Ae will load the project with all comps/timelines closed. Does that help any?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Hi Walter
Thanks for clearing the key combo up. I managed to do that and it does improve things when the preference file is deleted.
The project still takes too long to open for what it is but it takes a minute rather than 10 + mins and the comp viewer takes 1 minute to appear/settle so that again is better than the 10-20+ mins. However it’s still too long for what the project is.
Also when I then close that project down and open After Effects again and open that project, the project goes back to taking 10 mins + to open.
Weird.
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What does the project consist of?
I work with resources from soup to nuts and I always get a head-scratcher from time to time.
Worse ones are PSDs and AI/EPS files.
However, if you have a strange codec (video mostly) and your computer isn’t able to play them, that could be the culprit.
But not always the case, even AE projects get corrupted. -
I think I’ve inadvertently found the cause of the problem. When working on another job, having been given a project from the same client, the same issue was occurring but slightly different. The project opened but not as fast as it should. There were a couple of comps that have only text in there and these comps would hang and be unworkable.
Turns out, it was a problem with the font. I deleted the font that was being used and reinstalled it and voila. Cooking on gas now.
Thanks for your feedback guys.
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