AE not working properly

[Creptoo59]

I'm having issues with after effects and I don't know why. Some of the things that are happening only happen to some things, but not everything. They are like glitches that get put into my renders. Here are some examples:

-I will precompose something and do effects in that pre comp, but when I go back to the original composition the changes in my pre-comp does not work the same. Tracking could be off, or things vibrate weird. When I go back to the pre-comp to check it out, everything works fine.

-I noticed an image was covering something it wasn't suppose to, so I went in to change the mask to uncover the item, but it did not work. It was like my changes to the mask did not have an effect on the animation or image at all. After messing with it a bit, the mask began to move strangely (like I added a wiggle or something, which I didn't). The strange movements became permanent and I couldn't change it.

Its just odd things that happen. I'm running on mac osx. Could it be that there are too many items in my project, causing glitches because my machine can't handle it or is it something else? Anyone have any idea what could be happening and how I can potentially fix these glitches? Would love to know.

[Dave_LaRonde]

FAQ: What information should I provide when asking a question on this forum?

[Peru Bob · Accepted solution]

Reset the preferences:

Reset preferences

To restore the default preference settings, press and hold the following keys while the application is starting.

• Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows)
• Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS)

from here:

Setting preferences in After Effects