When you said pref file, were you referring to previous file?? If not, then I’m not sure what you are referring to and need directions to find it. But if so, I moved the last file I was working on to the desktop and tried opening that file in order to launch AE. It worked but took almost 45 minutes to open!
I then closed it to try again and haven’t been able to open it since.
Mac OS X 10.4.10
I don’t think I updated anything since yesterday (when the problem first started occurring)
I hope this helps but I AM STUCK! This is no fun.