[Rodney Turner]

It may be a problem with a corrupt effect or corrupt movie. The problem may only affect After Effect when the comp window opens and the frame starts rendering. Hold down SHIFT when opening a project to supress windows opening (except for the Project window). You can also engage Caps Lock to stop the comp window from rendering, so you can delete any corrupt effect from a layer.

Thanks to cybmotion.com for the wording. I’ve often held down shift to open projects that crash when trying to open them, because AE hangs up when looking for footage across my network.

Rodney Turner