Errors with expressions in After Effects

If you use templates from versions prior to CC19, you may encounter expression incompatibilities or other bugs that can also occur in higher versions.

Reasons

Main reasons:

  • The template was created for legacy expressions (Legacy JavaScript)
  • Random/temporary bug in the program itself

Possible reasons:

  • Non-universalized expressions
  • The creator of the package made a mistake in the expressions

Solutions

Option 1: The template was created for legacy expressions (Legacy JavaScript)

This usually applies to templates that were created before version CC19 - that is, older templates.

Open the File -> Project Settings, tab Expressions, and select the Legacy ExtendScript instead of JavaScript (new syntax).

Set Legacy Engine

Apply the settings and try using the templates again (if errors occur again, then try restarting After Effects after making changes).

Option 2: Random/temporary bug in the program itself

Sometimes problems with expressions can occur and be random - this is a bug in the After Effects program that still occurs sometimes.

If you encounter it, just save your project (as it - with errors), close it and open it again - the errors in the expressions will disappear.

Option 3: Non-universalized expressions

If the author of the package has not universalized the expressions for different language versions of the program, an error may occur.

You can easily fix this using the English version of the program, or tell the author about it and ask him to universalize the expressions used.

Option 4: The creator of the package made a mistake in the expressions

If the above tips did not help you at all, then it is possible that the problem really is in the incorrectness of the expressions used.

To do this, you should contact the author of the package and inform him about this so that he can fix it.

Tip: Tell the package author where exactly the error occurs (composition names or other details), and don’t forget to attach a screenshot or screen recording so that he can quickly understand the essence of the error.