After Effects previews and composition screens blank

[carlothefullrufino]

Hello all,

I've scoured the forums trying to find an answer and so far, every solution I've discovered has not been fruitful.

I recently upgraded all of my apps to CC 2017. After Effects and Premiere are both having issues when closing a file. My biggest issue right now is that After Effects composition screens are blank, or showing bounding boxes of something. Playing a scene (either hitting space bar or clicking the play button) toggles the play button, but the time line marker does not move.

I'm working on a file that was converted after the upgrade.

I've manually reset the Preferences and checked all of the display options to be correct.

How can I fix this?

[Kyle Hamrick]

Resetting preferences was going to be my first suggestion, but sounds like you've already done so.
Have you cleared the disk cache? (Edit > Purge > All Memory & Disk Cache) I've found that's often a good first step in addressing any weirdness like this.

Are you having this issue in other projects, or only this one?

[carlothefullrufino]

It appears to be happening to every file. I've even created a new project file and the same issue is happening. Clearing the cache has no effect either.

[carlothefullrufino]

It appears it may have been the file when it "upgraded it". Cleared all caches, in both AE and the computer itself, deleted the new upgraded file. Reset all the preferences, checked all the Display options and made a new file. New file seems to work fine. I've lost the animation work of the old file, but it wasn't anything too heavy and can be re-created.

[Kyle Hamrick]

I've had issues like this before, though mostly with projects involving 3rd party plugins.

As a general rule, I try not to bring a project across versions unless I *have to*, just to eliminate even the possibility of getting stuck like this.

In the future, keep those previous versions!

[Szalam]

Out of curiosity, what happens if you change your zoom level from 12% to 100%?

[Kyle Hamrick]

This issue is only happening in 2017, is that right?
Did you keep your previous version, or did you let the installer delete the old ones? (If that's the case, you should be able to reinstall 2015.3 from your Creative Cloud app - scroll down for older versions.)

While it doesn't address your immediate question, I always make a point of holding onto previous versions (there's a little twirly & checkbox when installing that allows you to keep the previous version) just to make sure I'm not dead in the water if something like this pops up.

[carlothefullrufino]

I'm getting the old version right now, hopefully this'll help, at least for now until a new patch/update fixes this. I seem not to be the only one with the issue.

[Kyle Hamrick]

Have you tried previewing using the NumPad 0 key? Have you tried tinkering with settings in the Preview panel?
Hard to diagnose too specifically, just tossing out suggestions of where I'd look to troubleshoot this if it were happening to me.

[carlothefullrufino]

Hmm, just tried this. No effect. Hmm.