After Effects MCP troubleshooting: start here
Nearly every problem with Prism is one of three links: the panel is not open, you are not signed in, or your AI client has not finished its own sign-in. Do the two must-dos, run the three checks, then find your symptom in the table.
The two things people skip
| Must-do | Why |
|---|---|
| Quit After Effects fully after installing the panel. Cmd+Q on a Mac, close the application on Windows. Closing the window or the panel is not enough. | After Effects reads its extensions folder at launch, so a panel installed while it is running does not appear until the next launch. A later update that only changes panel code needs the panel closed and reopened, not After Effects. |
| After adding the address, run your client's sign-in step. If the client was already open when you added the address and does not show Prism, quit it and open it again. | Pasting the address is not enough. The sign-in step is what links the client to your account, and most clients load their connections at launch. |
The sign-in step by client: ChatGPT Authenticate · Codex codex mcp login prism ·
Claude Code /mcp · Claude Desktop and claude.ai approve in the browser · Kimi, Qwen
and Antigravity sign in on the first call. Each client has its own page under
connect your AI client.
The three connection checks
https://live.oneprism.io/after-effects, the same for everyone, with nothing secret in it. It goes in the client's MCP server settings as a remote Streamable HTTP server, followed by the client's sign-in step above. The client-side mistakes are on the sign-in page.The quickest proof that all three hold: ask "Tell me about my current composition." When the AI reads your comp back, the chain is live.
The panel header tells you which link is down
Disconnected (click to connect) means the bridge has not started. Connecting… and Reconnecting… mean the panel is working on it and will keep trying on its own. Retry means the server could not be reached. No plan means the account is signed in but has no plan. Each state is explained on the connection page.
Find your symptom
| What you see | Page |
|---|---|
The panel is not in Window ▸ Extensions, opens blank, or shows host-not-loaded, host-not-readable, host-missing, host-stale, install-conflict or any install advisory | Install |
The panel's sign-in box shows offline, timed-out, port-unavailable or another code; your client relays "Sign in to use Prism." or "Your Prism session has expired."; it keeps asking you to sign in | Sign in |
not-connected, Reconnecting…, Retry, timeout "After Effects did not respond within {N}s", panel-busy, "Session not found", multiple-panels-connected, rate-limited | Connection |
TypeError "null is not an object", ReferenceError "Object is invalid", script-too-large, type-error, banned-feature, "no result envelope", ambiguous-outcome | Scripts |
comp-not-found, layer-not-found, not-a-text-layer, validation, scene-validation, svg-parse, "no curated tool covers this" | Tools |
| Any message starting "After Effects error:", such as "Can not call setValue() on a property with keyframes", plus thin or hollow text on After Effects 2026, locked layers and fonts | Quirks |
| "Out of Prism AI balance", "Open or create a composition first", the generation provider rejected the request, "Transcription timed out", the upload cap | Prism AI |
"You have used all 100 MCP actions included in your Prism Free plan this month", the warning at 80 percent, no-active-plan, "No Prism plan", billing-not-provisioned, usage that lags | Plan |
| Missing or offline footage, generated images that went offline later | Footage |
The Support section is empty, the download from your receipt says update at once, discover with a category filter returns nothing | Known issues |
Tools are listed, but nothing happens
If your AI client lists Prism's tools and a request runs without changing anything, the chain is connected and the issue is usually context.
| What you see | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Request completes, comp unchanged | No active composition, or the wrong one is active | Open the comp you want and bring it forward, then ask again. Naming the comp in your request also helps |
| AI describes a change it cannot make | The panel was closed mid-session | Reopen the panel. It reconnects on its own; wait for Connected, then ask again |
| Nothing returns at all | Signed out | Click Sign in to Prism in the panel |
Every request fails with the same host-… code | After Effects is not running Prism's script | Install errors: the panel names the state and its fix |
| Every result comes back empty, with no error | Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network is off | Press Turn it on in the panel's banner, or After Effects ▸ Preferences ▸ Scripting and Expressions. It is off on a fresh install and fails without erroring |
The active comp is the context the AI acts on (see compositions), so the comp you have open is the one that changes.
A result looks wrong
Every action is one undo step, so a wrong result is never a dead end. Press undo once, then re-ask with specifics: which layer, what timing, what values. The AI reads the true state of your comp, so name what is wrong and it changes that, in one exchange.
How to read an error
Every failure Prism reports has the same three parts, whether it lands in your AI client or in the panel.
| Part | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| code | A short slug naming the class of failure. Find it in the table above | not-connected, timeout, host-not-loaded |
| message | What happened, in one or two sentences | "After Effects MCP is not connected. Open the panel in After Effects (Window → Extensions → After Effects MCP) and sign in, wait for the Connected state, then retry. Nothing was run and the project is unchanged." |
| fix | What to do next. A few older responses call this line suggestedRecovery | "Wait 60s and retry." |
Two habits save the most time. Read the fix before doing anything else: when it says do not re-run, do not re-run, because the script usually completed and re-running duplicates layers. And when the message says "Nothing was run and the project is unchanged.", the project really is unchanged.
In the panel the same error appears in the Support section as one line,
[ERROR] code — message Fix: fix, and each tool call is logged as tool-ok or
tool-failed with its code and duration. After three failed calls in three
minutes the header shows "Several tool calls failed. Open Support for the details."
Your AI client can also ask Prism directly: the prism_support tool's diagnose
action returns what is broken, why, and the fix, and it keeps working while the
panel is disconnected.
Copy the diagnostic
The panel's Prism Support section lists every problem Prism detected with its
fix, plus everything it did this session. Copy puts the whole thing on your
clipboard as a block headed === Prism diagnostic ===: panel version, server,
After Effects and OS versions, connection and plan state, install location,
duplicates, host state, then the log. Tokens are redacted, so it is safe to paste
into your AI client or an email.
On panel 1.5.1 the Support section may be empty
A defect in panel 1.5.1 stops the Support log from rendering, so the section can show nothing even while errors are happening. It is fixed in the next panel release. Until then the panel version plus the error text your AI client relayed is enough for us.
When to email
Email support@oneprism.io when the page for your symptom did not fix it, when a
message tells you to (host-result-lost repeating, exchange-failed,
auth-unavailable that persists, unknown-tier), or when something is
unexplained. Include the panel version from the footer ("After Effects MCP v…"),
the Copy diagnostic from the Support section when it works, and what you asked
for. Support by email is open on every plan. For your plan, your usage or a fresh
panel download, your dashboard has the current build.
Common questions
Only if it was already open when you added the address and does not show Prism afterwards. Save the address, run the client's sign-in step, and if Prism still does not appear, quit the client and open it again: most clients load their connections at launch.
Yes, fully: Cmd+Q on a Mac, close the application on Windows. After Effects reads its extensions folder at launch. A later update that only changes panel code needs the panel closed and reopened, not After Effects.
Ask your AI client to tell you about your current composition. If it reads the comp back, the panel, your sign-in and the client's sign-in are all live.
Yes. Email support is open on every plan. Free is 100 MCP actions a month; the allowance is the difference between plans, not whether you can write to us.
In the panel, under Prism Support. Copy takes the whole log with a header describing your setup. On panel 1.5.1 that section may render empty; the fix is in the next panel release.
The panel version from the footer and the exact text your AI client showed, pasted as is. That is enough to find the cause.
Related
Remotion and HyperFrames
Remotion and HyperFrames render code to a video file. After Effects keeps layers you can revise or hand off, and Prism, our MCP server, lets your AI build them.
Install
Fix the panel missing from Extensions, a blank panel, and every host state: host-not-loaded, host-not-readable, host-missing, host-stale and install-conflict.