Troubleshooting

Startup and rendering

The app says it cannot render

Both GPU tiers failed. There is deliberately no software renderer — the app tells you instead of showing you a blank stage.

1. Update your graphics drivers from the GPU vendor, not Windows Update.
2. Check WebGL2 in a browser console:

   console.log(document.createElement('canvas').getContext('webgl2') ? 'ok' : 'MISSING')

3. If WebGL2 is missing, the machine cannot run Premation until the drivers are fixed. See System requirements.

It is slow

Check the tier badge in the viewport header — WebGL2 is the fallback and is slower than WebGPU.

Then, in order of effect:

• Turn on Draft 3D if the scene is 3D.
• Turn motion blur off while working.
• Reduce particle rate — remember it may be keyframed, so check the keys before you export.
• Lower layer quality switches.
• Turn on the FPS meter in the status bar to measure rather than guess.

It bounced me to the login screen

The companion server is not reachable. The dashboard and editor are behind an auth guard. If you only want the local editor, that is the part of the product that needs the server — see First launch.

Animation

My two keyframes overwrote each other

Almost always a time-axis mix-up: keyframes live on the layer-local axis, not on composition time minus clip start. If you hit this while writing a plugin or extending the app, use the engine’s remapped-time function. See Keyframes.

The whole text layer fades at once instead of per glyph

You have keyframed the animator’s transform offset rather than its range selector’s offset. Animate the selector. See Text animators.

Overlapping layers go see-through when I fade them

You are fading them individually, so the overlaps reveal. Pre-compose them and fade the pre-comp — nested compositions render to their own framebuffer and composite as one unit. See Compositing.

A hover or on-load animation is running at the wrong time

Check which trigger the animation is bound to, and that there is only one motion definition on the layer.

It rotates around the wrong point

Move the anchor point — the Pan Behind tool (Y) moves it without moving the layer, and the Anchor Point row in Transform takes exact values.

3D

The scene went flat when I turned on 3D

There is no light in the composition. A 3D layer with no light renders unlit. Insert → Light. See Lights & materials.

The 3D switch will not turn on for this layer

A layer can go 3D if it has a transform component. Solid layers are the historical exception, because the renderer pins them.

The camera tool does nothing

C is only live when the composition has a camera and at least one 3D layer. Otherwise it falls through harmlessly.

Layers are drawing in the wrong order

In a 3D composition, depth beats stack order. Check Position Z, not the layer tree. See 3D layers.

Rigging

The puppet or bone tool is greyed out

They need a riggable leaf — a single shape or image layer. For a group or a pre-comp, use Rig Logo for Animation from the command palette. See Rigging a logo.

The mesh came out as a rectangle

The mesh is generated from the layer’s alpha silhouette. Artwork on an opaque background has a rectangular silhouette. Remove the background.

Import

The SVG animates in the Assets panel but not on the canvas

The Assets thumbnail renders the raw file in an <img>, and the browser plays SMIL and CSS animation there for free. The thumbnail proves nothing about the importer. Add it to the scene and press U to see what was actually converted. See SVG import.

My Lottie export is missing most of the animation

Lottie export covers vector shapes and transform tracks only. Rasterised effects, GPU filters, 3D lighting and video have no Lottie representation. See Lottie.

Export

Video export says ffmpeg is missing

It is optional, and only video formats need it. Install it, or set FFMPEG_PATH. PNG/JPEG sequence, still frame, Lottie and project export all still work without it. See ffmpeg & codecs.

The export produced nothing

It should not have — every path asserts on a real frame count, and a zero-frame encode is an error rather than a black video. If you got a file with no content, that is a bug worth reporting.

Before exporting, scrub the export preview in the dialog: it renders real export frames and reports empty ones before anything is written.

The export does not match the preview

This should not be possible — the viewport, the export preview and the encoder all draw from the same snapshot builder. Two things that are expected:

• Library and template cards draw through Canvas2D and skip GPU-only effects. They preview geometry and timing, not every filter.
• Draft 3D is a viewport-only toggle; the export always renders at full fidelity, so the export will look better, not different.

The VU meter is empty

It only draws while playing, and it is hidden entirely if Web Audio never produced an analyser. An absent meter means “no audio path”, not “silence”.

Plugins

A plugin stopped

Check its row in Manage Plugins…. It has a log carrying the plugin’s own console output, every call the permission gate refused, and the crash that stopped it — kept after the plugin dies. There is a Restart button.

A plugin that wedges its own loop is terminated in about 12 seconds without the editor noticing.

A plugin says it lacks a permission

Consent is per permission and can be changed: Manage Plugins… → Permissions on the row, which restarts it with the new set. A grant is always intersected with the manifest, so it can never exceed what the plugin disclosed.

Still stuck