I just updated to AE 2021 (18.0) and track mattes are suddenly not working in the timeline. It's an incredibly basic thing, I have footage on layer 2 and I want to use layer 1 (directly above it) as the matte. Pretty straightforward. But when I set layer 2 to Alpha Matte, nothing happens. It does turn Layer 1 off, as it's supposed to, but Layer 2 is still visible even outside the bounds of Layer 1. I can move Layer 2 around the frame and it's not being masked at all by layer 1, it just shows the entire unmasked layer.

See the attached screenshots as an example using simple shape layers. In the first image, Layer 1 is the matte layer, in red. Layer 2 is the footage layer, in green. In the second image, I've set the TrkMat of Layer 2 to Alpha Matte, which turns off Layer 1 of course. But Layer 2 is still visible in its entirety. We should just be seeing it where it intersects Layer 1.

Both layers are at 100% opacity and show as solid white alphas against black in the Show Channel button.

It doesn't have anything to do with the footage or the comp, the bug presents itself even in a clean comp with simple shape layers. Track matte will not mask the layer in any way. This also happens with Luma Matte or Alpha/Luma Reverse Matte. The track matte simply has no effect.

I'm on a desktop Mac, OS 11.2.3 and Adobe AE 18.0. I've restarted and relaunched the app and the problem persists.

I re-installed AE 2020 (17.7.0) and that works fine, so it's definitely a bug particular to the latest version.

Especially when dealing with multiple layers and parameters within each layer, it is frustrating to have to manually navigate to open and view each keyframe. Wouldn't it be nice to have a shortcut key command that automatically expands parameters within each layer that have used keyframes? That way I can quickly go to the parameters I need adjusting quickly. I understand there are shortcuts that lead to individual parameters (ie, "T" or opacity), but usually one would animate multiple parameters alongside each other. To have one shortcut that opens only the parameters that contain keyframes as a starting point for navigation would increase efficiency tremendously.

Why did you get rid of it in the first place??? We were used to it. It worked!

You added all these nifty camera tools, like orbit around cursor or scene. Which would be fine. Except I want to change something and now it doesn't work the way I'm used to. Like using my center mouse button, which was super useful.

So I have to spend time looking at your documentation. Which is TERRRIBLE by the way. It's super confusing and I don't understand which is the most like the old behavior.

Stop breaking things we're used to even if there's a "better" way. Maybe there's a "better" keyboard than the QWERTY one we're all used to, but there's a reason we haven't changed it in nearly 150 years.

Turning on the 3D Reference Axis in 2020 causes an automatic crash.

For days I've been trying to figure out why some of my older projects were crashing in 2020 when I opened a comp, and I just realized it's because the 3D Reference Axis was on in those comps.

To recreate the problem, simply add a Camera layer to any comp, and turn on the 3D Reference Axis.

I'm on an iMac running Big Sur, but I get the same results on Catalina, and on a PC running Windows 10.

Please fix ASAP. I have products that clients can't open. It's especially urgent because people on Big Sur like myself can not open the projects in CC 2019, since AE CC 2019 is not compatible with Big Sur (Another MAJOR issue!)