After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1) Bug-Fix Update Is Now Available

The After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1) bug-fix update is now available. This update fixes multiple bugs, including audio looping at the end of compositions when exported via Adobe Media Encoder.

This update also introduces native import and export support for the QuickTime Animation codec, and native import support for the PNG video codec and AAC audio codec inside of QuickTime files. This means you no longer need QuickTime installed on Windows in order to use QuickTime files with the Animation, PNG, or AAC codecs, part of our ongoing effort to provide native support for as many codecs as possible. These codecs are also natively supported in the updates to Premiere Pro CC 2015.4 (10.4), Adobe Media Encoder CC 2015.4 (10.4), Audition CC 2015.2 (9.2.1), and Prelude CC 2015.4 (5.0.1).

You can install the update through the Creative Cloud desktop application, or you can check for new updates from within any Adobe application by choosing Help > Updates. Please note that it can take 24 hours or more for all of our global data centers to receive the update; if the update isn’t available for you right now, please check back later.

For details of what was added, changed, and fixed in After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8), see this page. For details of all of the other updates for Adobe professional video and audio applications, see this page.

Please, if you want to ask questions about this update, come on over to the After Effects user-to-user forum, rather than leaving comments on this blog post. (It’s much harder to have conversations in the comments of a blog post.) If you’d like to submit feature requests or bug reports, you can do so here.

bug fixes in After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1)

The After Effects CC 2015 (13.8.1) bug-fix update addresses these bugs:

• After Effects no longer crashes (kernel panic) macOS 10.11 when started on certain Mac hardware with Nvidia GPU’s. A result of this change is that Mercury GPU Acceleration using Metal is not available for Mac hardware with Nvidia GPU’s. Mercury GPU Acceleration using OpenCL remains available.
• H.264 and AVC footage no longer decode with random red frames on Windows computers with certain Intel HD graphics configurations. If you experienced this problem, red frames can still appear for previously cached footage until you clear the caches: click both the Empty Disk Cache and Clean Database & Cache buttons in Preferences > Media & Disk Cache.
• Audio no longer unexpectedly loops incorrect samples towards the end of an After Effects composition, when exported via Adobe Media Encoder or dynamically linked to Premiere Pro.
• Audio-only previews no longer fail to start if Cache Before Playback is enabled.
• Audio-only previews now loop the preview-time indicator (PTI) to the start of the preview range as expected, in sync with audio playback.
• Audio no longer unexpectedly loops during previews with the Skip Frames option enabled, if Cache Before Playback is enabled and you interrupt caching before the full range is cached.
• Text template compositions in Premiere Pro no longer render some frames incorrectly.
• The Info panel no longer opens unexpectedly if closed when, for example, you move the mouse pointer over the Composition panel.
• Guides and grids draw at the expected width on Apple Retina displays.
• Math equations are again evaluated when exiting numerical input fields in dialog boxes, or when OK’ing the dialog.
• Adobe Bridge CC starts as expected when you choose File > Browse in Bridge, File > Reveal in Bridge, or Animation > Browse Presets.
• Text, shape, or Illustrator layers no longer draw with unexpected thin horizontal lines.
• Anti-aliasing has been corrected on text and shape layers.
• Lights with a cone angle larger than 175° no longer cause After Effects to crash on Windows.
• Stopping the render queue no longer experiences a long delay in certain situations before the render process stops on macOS.
• Exporting a composition no longer has a small probability in certain scenarios of replacing random frames with the wrong frame from the cache.
• Resizing a viewer panel is less likely to cause incorrect pixels to be drawn in the expanded or reduced regions of the panel.
• Proxies are now recognized when sending footage to After Effects from Premiere Pro.
• After Effects no longer crashes if you quit while Premiere Pro was rendering a dynamically linked composition.
• After Effects no longer crashes when you set a color management profile for an output module.
• Fixed a cause of crashes that occurred when the viewer panel was redrawn in certain cases, such as when panning with the Hand tool.
• Fixed a cause of crashes that occurred when expressions were enabled in the project.
• Fixed a cause of crashes that occurred when After Effects was quit.
• Fixed a cause of crashes that occurred when After Effects was running in headless mode and quit.
• Fixed a cause of crashes that occurred when After Effects decodes an incorrectly encoded alpha channel in Apple ProRes 4444 files written by certain third party encoders.

about native import and export of Animation codec QuickTime files

After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1), Premiere Pro CC 2015.4 (10.4), Adobe Media Encoder CC 2015.4 (10.4), Audition CC 2015.2 (9.2.1), and Prelude CC 2015.4 (5.0.1) can now import and export QuickTime files that use the Animation codec without assistance from QuickTime 7 on Windows, or from the Adobe QT32 Server process on macOS.

Native import of Animation currently only supports I-frame only movies (no compression key frames set).

Native export of Animation currently only supports I-frame only movies (no compression key frames set) at 100% quality.

Native export of Animation only supports the Uncompressed audio codec. Attempting to export a QuickTime file with the Animation codec and compressed audio codecs will fail with an error message, “Compressor format error”.

about native import of PNG codec QuickTime files

After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1), Premiere Pro CC 2015.4 (10.4), and Adobe Media Encoder CC 2015.4 (10.4) can now import QuickTime files that use the PNG codec, without assistance from QuickTime 7 on Windows, or the Adobe QT32 Server process on macOS.

about native import of AAC audio codec QuickTime files

After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1), Premiere Pro CC 2015.4 (10.4), Adobe Media Encoder CC 2015.4 (10.4), Audition CC 2015.2 (9.2.1), and Prelude CC 2015.4 (5.0.1) can now import QuickTime files that use the AAC audio codec without assistance from QuickTime 7 on Windows, or from the Adobe QT32 Server process on macOS.

Native import of AAC in container formats other than QuickTime was added in a previous release.

Native import of AAC does not support AAC LD (low delay) or AAC ELD (enhanced low delay).

known issues in After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1)

The following may affect your experience using the new functionality in After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1):

• Exporting a QuickTime file with the Animation codec will fail if the audio codec is not set to Uncompressed, with an error message, “Compressor format error”. To work around this, set the audio codec to Uncompressed.
• Compressed audio codecs other than AAC in a QuickTime file are not natively supported. On a Windows computer without QuickTime 7 installed, importing a QuickTime file with compressed audio codecs other than AAC (e.g., Apple Lossless, IMA 4:1, etc.) may fail to import (error “file is damaged or unsupported”) or fail to play back correctly.
• Some of the bugs fixed in After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1) may not appear to be fixed for your existing compositions or footage until previously cached frames are cleared from disk caches. Specifically, this applies to the bug fixes for red frames in H.264/AVC files, audio looped at the end of a composition in Adobe Media Encoder or Premiere Pro, and wrong frames rendered by text template compositions. You may need to do the following (try these steps in order):
  • In After Effects, in Preferences > Media & Disk Cache, click Clean Database & Cache, under Conformed Media Cache.
  • In After Effects, in Preferences > Media & Disk Cache, click Empty Disk Cache, under Disk Cache.
  • In Premiere Pro, choose Sequence > Delete Render Files, or Delete Render Files In to Out, or Delete Work Area Render Files.
  • Manually delete the files in both the Media Cache and Media Cache File folders:
    • macOS: /Users/user name/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Media Cache and /Media Cache Files
    • Windows: C:Usersuser nameAppDataRoamingAdobeCommonMedia Cache and Media Cache Files
• Apple’s Metal technology is not available for Mercury GPU Acceleration in After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1) on Mac computers with an Nvidia GPU. We are investigating with Nvidia the cause of system crashes due to a kernel panic with some combinations of Mac computers and Nvidia GPU, and plan to re-enable Metal support in a future release. Mercury GPU Acceleration using OpenCL remains available on Mac computers with Nvidia GPU’s.