How to Fix Cache Corruption in After Effects

Cache corruption in Adobe After Effects frequently causes unexpected preview glitches, playback stuttering, failed renders, and application freezes. This guide covers the common causes of cache corruption—ranging from abrupt crashes to insufficient disk space—and provides step-by-step instructions to clear and repair your cache database to restore optimal software performance.

Causes of Cache Corruption

After Effects continuously writes temporary preview frames and audio files to your storage drive to speed up workflow. This cache data can become corrupted due to several factors:

  • Abrupt Crashes or Power Failures: If After Effects or your operating system shuts down while frames are actively being written to disk, incomplete or broken data files are created.
  • Insufficient Storage Space: When the designated cache drive fills to capacity, After Effects cannot complete caching sequences properly, leading to overwritten or broken index files.
  • Corrupted Source Media or Plugins: Faulty third-party plugins, outdated codecs, or damaged video files can trigger errors during frame generation, saving corrupted data directly into the cache.
  • Outdated Software and Drivers: Incompatibilities between After Effects, your GPU drivers, or recent operating system updates can lead to erratic read/write behavior.

How to Fix Cache Corruption

1. Purge Cache Within After Effects

If the application opens normally, use the built-in purge commands to remove temporary files:

  1. Open After Effects.
  2. Navigate to Edit > Purge > All Memory & Disk Cache.
  3. A dialogue box will indicate how much space will be freed. Click OK to confirm.
  4. To clear raw image data as well, go to Edit > Purge > All Memory.

2. Clean the Media Cache Database

After Effects shares a media database with other Adobe applications to manage conform files and audio peak data:

  1. Go to Edit > Preferences > Media & Disk Cache (Windows) or After Effects > Settings > Media & Disk Cache (macOS).
  2. Under the Conformed Media Cache section, click Clean Database & Cache.
  3. Restart After Effects to allow the database to rebuild cleanly.

3. Manually Delete Cache Files

If After Effects freezes on startup or the built-in purge fails, delete the cache folders manually:

  • Windows:
    1. Close After Effects.
    2. Navigate to C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common\
    3. Delete the contents of the Media Cache and Media Cache Files folders.
    4. Navigate to your dedicated disk cache location (configured in preferences) and delete the folder named Adobe After Effects Disk Cache.
  • macOS:
    1. Close After Effects.
    2. In Finder, click Go > Go to Folder and enter ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/.
    3. Delete the contents inside Media Cache and Media Cache Files.
    4. Locate your custom disk cache folder and delete the Adobe After Effects Disk Cache directory.

4. Relocate the Cache and Adjust Size

To prevent future corruption caused by drive bottlenecks:

  1. Open Preferences > Media & Disk Cache.
  2. Under Disk Cache, click Choose Folder... and assign a dedicated, fast drive (preferably an internal NVMe SSD) separate from your operating system drive.
  3. Set the Maximum Disk Cache Size to leave at least 20% of your drive’s total capacity free for general operating system processes.

5. Reset After Effects Preferences

Persistent caching errors can stem from corrupted application preferences rather than the cache files themselves:

  1. Close After Effects.
  2. Hold Ctrl + Alt + Shift (Windows) or Command + Option + Shift (macOS) while launching After Effects.
  3. Click Yes when prompted to delete your settings file.