Animation preview does not play

Symptoms

If one or more of these match what you are seeing, you are on the right page.

• •Playback covers only part of the timeline
• •The first pass stutters and the second is smooth
• •The frame rate indicator sits well below the project frame rate
• •Playback runs but the canvas does not update

Causes and fixes

Ordered from most to least likely. Work down the list — each cause is paired with what to do about it.

1. 1

   The work area is limiting playback.

   Loop playback plays only within the In–Out range. Press Ctrl+Alt+F to fit the view to the full project, and reset the In and Out points with I and O at the positions you want.

2. 2

   The frames are not cached.

   Run Animation → Pre-render Preview to cache the work area in the background. The green bar in the timeline ruler shows what is cached; cached frames play at full project frame rate regardless of complexity.

3. 3

   Preview quality is too high for the composition.

   Drop to Half or Quarter in the transport bar. This affects live playback only — export is unaffected.

4. 4

   The playhead is at the end of the range.

   Press Home to return to frame 0, or Shift+Space to stop and return to the In Point.

5. 5

   The cache is stale after heavy edits.

   Run Animation → Clear Preview Cache to free the memory, then pre-render again.

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