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Question

I'm trying to build a prototype but items just disappear or stutter

  • August 17, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 35 views
Sean McAuley

Prototyping just isn’t working as expected I’ve tried refreshing the tab, dumping cache, I’ve broken it down and rebuild it 5 times. I’ve even threatened the thing. I can’t get it to work any ideas  or suggestions would be deeply appreciated 

1 reply

djv
Figmate
  • djv
  • Community Support
  • August 17, 2026

Hi ​@Sean McAuley, thanks for reaching out! 

I understand the confusion here, thanks to your screen recording. From what I can see, you're animating text fields in Motion. Motion and Prototype are two separate systems that don't automatically hand off to each other. That's almost certainly what's going on here rather than anything you built incorrectly. A few things to try:

  1. Open the Prototype tab and check "Play motion animations." There's a toggle in the interaction panel that controls whether Motion animations play in the prototype viewer at all. If it's off, your animated instances won't behave as expected in preview.
  2. Check where your first keyframe sits on the timeline. If your keyframes start after 0s, the layer holds its t=0 state until something triggers it, which would explain it being invisible until you hover. Try dragging your first keyframe to 0s, or adding one there with the layer's intended starting appearance.
  3. Try a fresh instance rather than the one you dragged in. We're tracking a bug where instances of an animated component don't inherit correctly from the main, specifically when keyframes begin after 0s, and when the instance sits inside an auto layout container. Recreating the instance from scratch is the best temporary solution.

One thing that is expected: scrubbing the Motion timeline won't drive the prototype viewer. They're independent, so the viewer plays the animation from the start rather than mirroring your timeline position. If none of this helps, let me know. I can try to get you connected with our support team to investigate further. 

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