After Effects crash on startup error (0x0000005) — fix GPU drivers

Cause 1: Outdated or corrupted GPU drivers (happens 80% of the time)

Error 0x0000005 in After Effects almost always points to the graphics card driver. I've seen this on everything from a GeForce GTX 1060 to an RTX 4090, and on AMD cards like the RX 580 and RX 7900 series. The crash happens right when After Effects tries to initialize the GPU for rendering — the moment the splash screen appears and then disappears. You get the error code and nothing else.

Here's the fix. Do a clean install of the latest driver. A standard update often leaves old files that still cause the crash. A clean install removes everything and starts fresh.

1. Download the latest driver for your GPU from NVIDIA (geforce.com/drivers) or AMD (amd.com/support). Use the auto-detect tool if you're not sure of your card model. For old cards that are no longer supported, see Cause 2 below.
2. For NVIDIA: Run the installer. When it asks for installation type, click Custom (Advanced). Then check the box that says Perform a clean installation. Click Next. The screen will flicker, and you'll see a progress bar. After it finishes, you'll be prompted to restart. Restart now — don't put it off.
3. For AMD: Run the Adrenalin installer. Choose Factory Reset option. This wipes all previous settings and profiles. The screen will go black a few times during the process — that's normal. Reboot when it's done.
4. After reboot, open After Effects and try again. If it still crashes, move to Cause 2.

What you should see after applying the fix: After Effects splash screen shows up, the GPU acceleration kicks in (you might see a brief "Loading GPU" message), and the workspace opens within 10-15 seconds.

Cause 2: GPU not supported or driver too old (common on older cards)

This one hits people running older GPUs like the GTX 700 series or Radeon R9 cards. The latest After Effects (2023 or 2024) drops support for some older architectures. The error 0x0000005 appears because the driver can't talk to the GPU properly, even if it's updated.

Here's the workaround — force After Effects to use software rendering instead of GPU acceleration. It's slower, but the program will open.

1. Right-click the After Effects shortcut on your desktop or Start menu. Choose Properties.
2. Go to the Shortcut tab.
3. In the Target field, you'll see something like: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2024\Support Files\AfterFX.exe
4. Add a space at the end of the existing text, then type -gpu_sw_d3d11. The full line should look like this:

   C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2024\Support Files\AfterFX.exe -gpu_sw_d3d11

5. Click Apply, then OK.
6. Launch After Effects using that shortcut. It'll take longer to start, but the error 0x0000005 should be gone.

What you should see: The splash screen loads slower, and you'll get a small warning in the Info panel saying "GPU acceleration is disabled." Ignore that — you can enable it later if you upgrade the GPU. The main point is the app opens so you can work.

Cause 3: Corrupted preferences or cache (rare but easy to fix)

I've only seen this a handful of times, but it's worth checking because the fix is simple. Sometimes the preferences file gets corrupted by a bad crash or a failed update. The result is the same 0x0000005 error on startup.

1. Make sure After Effects is completely closed. Check Task Manager — if AfterFX.exe is still running, end it.
2. Press Windows Key + R and type the following, then press Enter:

   %appdata%\Adobe\After Effects

3. You'll see folders named something like 22.0 or 24.0 — pick the one that matches your version. If you're not sure which version you have, look at the folder numbers and guess based on the year (22 is 2022, 24 is 2024).
4. Inside that folder, find a file called Adobe After Effects Prefs.txt. Right-click it and rename it to Adobe After Effects Prefs.old. This forces After Effects to create a fresh preferences file next time it starts.
5. While you're there, delete everything inside the Media Cache folder. Just select all files and delete them. Don't delete the folder itself.
6. Close File Explorer and launch After Effects again.

What you should see: After Effects starts but your custom workspace, shortcuts, and preferences are gone — it'll look like a fresh install. That's normal. You can rebuild your settings once you know the crash is fixed. If the error still shows up, the problem isn't preferences.

Quick-reference summary table

Start with the GPU driver clean install. That's the fix in 8 out of 10 cases. If it doesn't help, try the launch flag trick. The cache and preferences reset is a long shot, but it's quick to try. And if none of these work, you might be looking at a system-wide issue — like a Windows update that broke something, or a corrupt Visual C++ runtime. But 9 times out of 10, it's the GPU driver. I'd put money on it.