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Set playhead prototype action doesn't work

  • August 19, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 31 views
Frederic_Giroux1

Hi Figma team, 

I’m working on a prototype and the ‘Set playhead’ action doesn’t seem to work. Regardless of the timestamp I’m putting, the Figma motion animation continue as nothing happens. 

Best answer by Frederic_Giroux1

Hi ​@Tom Reem, thanks for your reply. It’s always good reminding this is a beta feature, which is already at a very nice place! 

I think I’ve found the issue to my problem, which might be a future improvement to the Motion and Prototype interaction. But first,  to answer your questions: 

  1. I tried many different time combinaison including the default 00:00.000000, which restart the motion animation, but nothing happens when clicking the trigger button regardless.
  2. The selected playback is set to Loop. 

Here’s my use case: I have a landing page with a carousel banner at the top, which includes 4 slides. The carousel is a component where I set the different interactions (navigation button + delay changing the slides automatically), which also includes a motion for each slide. The ‘Set playhead’ interaction was added on the navigation buttons in each variant slides to reset the playhead when changing slides, so the animation start from the beginning. The prototype-interaction-animation had this component as the selected item, which is what creates the issue → Since this component is within the landing page and there’s a single playhead for a page, it needs to point to the landing page playhead, not the component.

It is currently not possible to select another page as the animation target, but it would not really solve the issue anyway if this component is used in many screens. The interaction work if I change the animation target from the landing page itself, but I can only change it to the first variant, and this is not really suitable if this component is used in many screens. 

However, this might be solved in the future when Figma will introduce the ability for multiple motions to run independently from one another, which will be needed to allow motions with different duration to loop next to each other, in a landing page for example. 

Hope this helps the team understand current limitations and future needs! 

Thanks for following with users for constant improvement, this is really appreciated and it’s what makes you stand out from the competition I think! 

Frederic Giroux

    2 replies

    Tom Reem
    Figmate
    • Tom Reem
    • Figmate
    • August 19, 2026

    👋🏻 Hey ​@Frederic_Giroux1, welcome to the Figma Forum and thanks for reporting this!

    Worth noting up front that Motion is currently in open beta — features may change as we continue to make improvements. You can see what's included in the beta here: What Figma features are in beta?

    I tried reproducing this on my end, and there are a couple of things I'd like to check as I zero in:

    1. Can you confirm the time unit and duration? The timeline's Time unit control toggles between seconds and milliseconds, and new animations are 2000 ms long by default. If the timestamp you're entering falls outside the animation's Duration, that may explain it.
    2. Can you also check the Playback mode on that same timeline (Loop, Once, or Ping-pong)? That affects what you see after the playhead moves.

    Both controls are covered in: Use the Figma Motion timeline.

    If neither of those is it, could you tell me more about what you're working to achieve, along with the steps leading up to the unexpected behavior? A short video showing the behavior along with a screenshot of how the action is configured, and whether you're working in a browser or the Figma Desktop App would help.

    With that, I can test further on my end and check with our team on the expected behavior for this action. Thanks again!

    Frederic_Giroux1

    Hi ​@Tom Reem, thanks for your reply. It’s always good reminding this is a beta feature, which is already at a very nice place! 

    I think I’ve found the issue to my problem, which might be a future improvement to the Motion and Prototype interaction. But first,  to answer your questions: 

    1. I tried many different time combinaison including the default 00:00.000000, which restart the motion animation, but nothing happens when clicking the trigger button regardless.
    2. The selected playback is set to Loop. 

    Here’s my use case: I have a landing page with a carousel banner at the top, which includes 4 slides. The carousel is a component where I set the different interactions (navigation button + delay changing the slides automatically), which also includes a motion for each slide. The ‘Set playhead’ interaction was added on the navigation buttons in each variant slides to reset the playhead when changing slides, so the animation start from the beginning. The prototype-interaction-animation had this component as the selected item, which is what creates the issue → Since this component is within the landing page and there’s a single playhead for a page, it needs to point to the landing page playhead, not the component.

    It is currently not possible to select another page as the animation target, but it would not really solve the issue anyway if this component is used in many screens. The interaction work if I change the animation target from the landing page itself, but I can only change it to the first variant, and this is not really suitable if this component is used in many screens. 

    However, this might be solved in the future when Figma will introduce the ability for multiple motions to run independently from one another, which will be needed to allow motions with different duration to loop next to each other, in a landing page for example. 

    Hope this helps the team understand current limitations and future needs! 

    Thanks for following with users for constant improvement, this is really appreciated and it’s what makes you stand out from the competition I think! 

    Frederic Giroux

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