[Mort Bender]

Hi Ryan!

I never found out what caused the problem. But I finished my project in CS4, and I never had any problems again.

So I am afraid that it is a CS3 problem, that arises under very certain circumstances – I am sorry I cannot be more helpful than that.

[Mort Bender]

Here is a more detailed description:

After Effects freezes my frames, not the same one each time, but randomly. Have noticed that it occurs when scrubbing back and forth. Then I can reload the project and earn a few seconds of working time, before the issue begins again, I can provoke it by scrubbing back and forth.

Even when rendering out the problem occurs. Sometimes it jumps between 2-3 random frames, then when I scrub – to another layer, a random frame from that layer shows up, frozen though. I use some (not a lot) plugins; keying, and color correction, as well as track mattes, and I have some pre-comping going on. I currently have 58 layers, of which about 15 i precomps. Here is the major puzzle. ONLY the footage freezes, my animated graphic elements (Illustrator) keeps going just fine, as does the sound from the freezing footage – the sounds continues perfectly along with animation. I have done larger projects with no problem on the same machines, so I do not think that RAM or processing power is an issue. I use footage 1024×756, 25 fps (PAL I am in europe. Original footage is Mini DV), exported in Animation codec, audio 48.000, 16 bit.

[Mort Bender]

* The project: simplify it! Break it into smaller projects if necessary! Prerender wherever you can!

– Did that!

* Footage: If the footage you imported into AE is any kind of the following — Native HDV, MPEG1, MPEG2, mp4, m2t, H.261 or H.264 — you need to convert it to a different codec. I’d use the Animation codec set to best quality.

– Am using Animation Codec.

* MP3 or AC3 audio: convert it to aiff or wav.

– Have no MP3 or AC3.

* Open GL: don’t use it under ANY circumstances. Just turn it off.

– Is turned off.

* If you’ve enabled the Disk Cache, DISABLE it… especially if you’re doing everything off one disk drive.

– Is disabled.

* Use AE default for memory usage (Max Mem Usage: 120%)

– I do.

* Turn off multiprocessing

– Not sure what this is?

* Set AE to purge every x number of frames. I’m not in front of my AE machine, and I can’t remember exactly where to find the command. I THINK you hold down the shift key and navigate to preferences. You could always consult AE Help (https://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/) for a straighter answer.

And not sure what this is either.
Could you please explain further?

Thanks for your answers.
I am currently trouble shooting QuickTime codecs. Not sure if that will produce a result, but I am trying.

[Mort Bender]

I get the exact same thing.

I am going mad… Seems like there is a few threads out there, all ends blind. No fix. I am doing my finals at Design College, if I do not get a fix, I do not graduate.

Anyone know something please share…