Summary
Part 1: When the preview won’t play
After spending hours working on your animated project, you’ll want to sit back and admire your efforts. Sometimes, however, nothing happens when you hit the Spacebar – the Playhead doesn’t move, no Timecode counts the Frames, and your animation shows no movement. There are a few potential solutions to the issue, but first, it is helpful to identify the cause.
Audio
It may sound strange, but many After Effect users have identified the issue as being related to the audio, not the visual. When working on animated content, it can be easy to overlook the audio track until it comes to playback. However, if After Effects is confused about how to play the audio, it won’t play anything.
Go to Preference > Audio Hardware > and make sure the default output is directing After Effects to the correct speakers.
Your Version of AE
Many users have also reported glitches with playback due to older or newer versions of the application. When you install newer versions of Adobe software, the older apps stay on your system.
Sometimes, new versions come with glitches, or old versions cause issues with the update. If you’ve migrated settings between versions, you may also run into problems.
If you believe the issue may be caused by your particular After Effects version, you can open Creative Cloud to view all apps installed on your device. You can check for updates and safely uninstall older versions of the App.
Part 2: Getting cached preview errors in After Effects
If you encounter the error message “cached preview needs 2 or more frames to playback”, it’s worth understanding how After Effects works.
To play the video previews in your project, After Effects creates temporary video files on your computer, known as cache files. Because these RAM cache files require a decent amount of space to operate, After Effects works most effectively on computers with large amounts of RAM.
If your computer has less than 8GB of RAM, you may find that there is not enough room in your RAM to load larger temporary video files. The result can be slow and lagging playback or no movement at all. Don’t worry – there are several things you can try to get your playback back up to speed.
Part 3: 11 troubleshooting methods for fixing playback issues in After Effects
Not all playback issues have the same cause, and while it is a bit of a cliche, the best place to start is with a simple turn it off and back on again. Shut down After Effects, restart your device, and reload your project. If you still have problems, check out these 11 playback troubleshooting methods.
1. Check the playback frame rate
You can select how many frames are skipped during playback in the Preview panel. Check that the Skip drop-down menu is set to 0, and try playing your Sequence again.
2. Check your sequence settings
Another issue that can affect any video editing software is the difference in frame rate between your media and your sequence. After Effects is usually pretty good at figuring this out, but you can still run into problems with larger clips or 4K footage.
If you don’t need your clips to be 4K, processing them would be a waste of your RAM. Try converting the clips to HD, which allows you to work with smaller file sizes.
3. Purge the RAM cache.
Purging the RAM cache removes all the temporary video files on your computer, giving it a fresh start. This is especially helpful if your computer has limited RAM. To do this, go to Edit > Purge > All Memory.
4. Empty Disk Cache
The Disk Cache stores preview files on your hard drive instead of your RAM, which allows After Effects to access and use them more quickly. Go to Preferences > Media and Disk Cache > Empty Disk Cache to clear the cache.
5. Clean Database & Cache
While in the same window, click Clean Database and Cache to clear the disk and database cache.
6. Change Disk Cache location
Having the disk cache on your computer can slow it down, as it will do multiple things simultaneously. Consider moving your disk cache to another hard drive, such as an external SSD, to improve performance. To do this, navigate to After Effects > Preferences > Media and Disk Cache. Then, select Choose Folder under Disk Cache and pick a new folder on a different hard drive.
7. End task of other applications
If your computer attempts to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, close other applications such as web browsers, Spotify, iTunes, and even Premiere Pro to prioritize After Effects.
8. Organize your project
Is your project a massive web of precomps and effects? Sometimes, the sheer volume of assets you’re working with can be enough to slow a project down. Try organizing your project by removing any unused assets and layers. You can also simplify your pre-comps and limit how they are used.
After Effects has a straightforward solution for reducing your project size and removing unused elements and assets. To begin the process, save a copy of your project so you can always return it to its previous state if you make a mistake.
Go to the Project Browser and find and select your MAIN COMP. Go to File > Dependencies > Remove Unused Footage. After Effects will now remove any asset in the project that hasn’t been used to create your chosen composition.
9. Optimize your effects
Effects can significantly impact a project, with some affecting it more than others. Processing-intensive effects such as blur, stabilizers, and color corrections can slow down your project. It’s important to review all your effects and remove any that are not necessary. You can also optimize your effects by replacing them with a different type, for example, replacing the lens blur effect with the fast box blur effect.
10. Adjust preview quality
After Effects has two types of preview resolutions – pause and play resolution. The video resolution drop-down under your composition window controls the pause resolution. The play resolution is controlled by the resolution control in your preview panel. You can quickly adjust the video resolution any time you play or preview your animation.
11. Update the graphics card driver
Remember to keep your drivers updated. This will help fix bugs in your system and make it compatible with newer software. If you’re using an older computer, After Effects might have issues with your graphics card. Updating the graphics card driver could help resolve any problems and make your After Effects experience smoother.
Wrapping up
After Effects can be demanding software that requires many complex processes at once. The After Effects preview not working can be a common and frustrating problem, but there’s a lot you can do to troubleshoot it. Some of the main steps include cleaning the cache, organizing and optimizing your project, and keeping your system updated to stay on top of any known issues.
If you need help with playing back audio in After Effects, check out our troubleshooting tutorial here. If you run into problems rendering, we also have this handy rendering troubleshooting tutorial.
