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Question

Blue Screen of Death BSOD After Effects Media Encoder

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
September 27, 2022
18 replies
21459 views

Hi, I've been getting BSODs when rendering from After Effects in Media Encoder since around May/June.

When it happens: BSOD crashes on certain projects from After Effects, but not others. It only happens when actively rendering in Media Encoder, but mainly seems to happen while A) Scrubbing through the timeline, B) Opening a new file or C) Opening Blender, which I use often. It seems that more complex projects cause the crash, which simple video exports never do.

What happens: The error is VIDEO_MEMORY_MANAGEMENT_INTERNAL. The minidump file created during the crash indicates WATCHDOG.SYS as the problem. I would also add that the render times on certain projects is massive. I have records of a render from May 2022 taking two minutes, and the exact same render is currently taking two hours. Note: There's a specific After Effects project that causes the BSOD consistently, however I've had a co-worker run the renders on his computer with no issues.

My computer: Ryzen 3700X, RTX 2070 Super, Kingston 32GB 3000mhz, and it's happened on both Windows 10 and Windows 11

What's Been Tried Already:

Reinstalling GPU driver (game ready and studio)
Rolling back GPU to a driver from before the problem started (game ready and studio)
Reinstalling AE and ME
Rolling back AE and ME to a point before the problem started
Running scans on all hardware
Replacing GPU (tried out a 3700 ti)
Testing RAM one at a time
Replacing main C drive
Replacing CPU
Upgrade from Windows 10 to 11
Clean install of Windows 11
Disable Boosts in Bios
Update Asus Chipset Drivers
Turning on performance mode in Nvidia 3D settings
Turning off GPU hardware acceleration in Windows
Updating BIOS

The only thing left in the computer that hasn't been been tested with a replacement is the motherboard, so that's the next step. Animation is a big part of my job, and I've had to turn down several large animation projects over the past few months, not to mention the costs of having professionals look at my computer. It would be nice to know if anyone else has had this problem, and if there are any solutions out there.

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Mylenium

Legend

HDMI audio (including Display Port) is just a set of pins on the connection funneling the digital audio. If available, you would simply turn it off in the monitor or BIOS. Apparently on a monitor with no audio support it would just be inert from the outset. Again, just throwing out ideas as this seems rather exotic. I guess in the end we'll all be surprised what it is once soemone finds out. 😉

Mylenium

Legend

A thought that occured to me late last night: Have you checked your audio devices? Many of them use a mishmash of 32bit and 64bit components. It may also factor in with HDMI audio via your graphics card connections to the monitor.

Mylenium

-Venishi-Author

Participating Frequently

I haven't personally tested it without my speakers, headphones, webcam or microphone, all of which I guess count as audio devices. However as I mentioned, my computer is currently back at the manufacturer being tested, and they're replicating the problem without any of my home devices, whether USB, audio, or monitor.

As for the connection, which is Displayport, I guess I'm not sure how I would test for that. Switch to a different port on the GPU maybe?

W

WolfSZ78

Known Participant

Hi,

I've also been having this issue since May/June, however, it is A LOT more prevalent now. One of the crashes caused my entire project to become corrupt and bring up the "Missing Data" error message, luckily I had a backup - otherwise, I would've lost days and weeks of work.

I've run diagnostics, stress tests, and all the typical troubleshooting methods and it doesn't seem to be hardware. Trust me, that was the first thing I checked - especially since my setup is rather new, under warranty, and a pretty strong build.

This can happen entirely at random. It can happen when I have a bunch of programs open at once, or it can happen when nothing else is open but After Effects and AME. It can happen on very complex projects with lots of assets or just an export of a panning image that a client wants as a video. I can't find a rhyme or reason for what's causing it, and I've tried replicating the issue under identical circumstances, and nothing happens.

I'm not sure what's causing this, but I have found one consistency throughout each BSOD crash: It happens shortly after AME begins rendering, roughly 5-10 seconds. So, if Adobe is trying to recreate the crash on their end, make a quick 1-minute video with 5 images panning, maybe add a couple of blur effects, and export out of AME. Keep doing it until it happens. That is the only way I can think of recreating this error.

Microsoft says this can happen as a result of a corrupt file/files, if that's the case, somewhere between After Effects and AME the file is getting corrupted (maybe something wonky with the Dynamic Link Server?), and when AME goes to render it the whole system crashes.

Just trying to chime in with thoughts and ideas, hoping that it helps fix this issue!

W

WolfSZ78

Known Participant

I've found a very temporary and semi-helpful solution: if I get the BSOD crash with the "VIDEO_MEMORY_MANAGEMENT_INTERNAL" error message, and I can reopen the file once my PC restarts, I can do a Save As and almost have no issues. So far I have not had the issue reoccur on a project that I've done a Save As on AFTER the error/crash happened.

-Venishi-Author

Participating Frequently

Interesting! My case differs in a couple of ways, but it could still be linked. But for example, mine tends to crash anywhere between 1min and 10min, usually when I'm doing something else in After Effects like scrubbing through footage or opening a file, as opposed to sitting back while it renders. I've also never had any corrupted files.

But while the subject of similar cases is being discussed, I do think that the following thread sounds similar to my problem, although it's from 2019, not May/June of this year: Re: Media Encoder crashes when rendering H.264 for... - Adobe Support Community - 10726272

Mylenium

Legend

The minidump looks like it crashes in some 32bit component. Do you have any printers or oolder devices connected to the machine? Could even be an USB device.

Mylenium

-Venishi-Author

Participating Frequently

That's an interesting question! I don't have any older devices connected, everything I have is pretty new (microphone, mouse and keyboard, external drive, Wacom Tablet). In addition, my computer is currently back at the manufacturer being tested, and they're replicating the problem with what I assume are just a mouse and keyboard, in terms of USB devices.

Mylenium

Legend

I know that there is definitely agigazillion patches for Ryzen processors and there are just as many for RTX cards. The boring and unsatisfying answer is of course that a crash in watchdog.sys, the kernel hypervisor, still points to a misconfiguration in your drivers and BIOS/ UEFI somewhere. In all of this, have you actually dug into your BIOS/ UEFI and checked the settings, in particular TPM and allowing loading unsigned code? This might offer a clue. then again of course this could just as well be PCI timing issues. perhaps the BIOS itself needs a patch? Just throwing out ideas, of course. It might also help if you could provide the minidump data and/ or screenshots of the relevant eent viewer entry.

Mylenium

-Venishi-Author

Participating Frequently

Hi! I really appreciate the reply. These are the things I've tried in Bios so far, all recommended by the computer's manufacturer, as I'm not an expert:

Disabled Core Performance Boost
In AI Tweaker, set Performance Bias to None and Enhancement to Default
Updated to Bios version 2803 from the Asus website. Is that what you mean by a patch?
Enabled TPM 2.0 in order to upgrade to Windows 11 about halfway through all of this troubleshooting. I'm not sure what loading unsigned code means or how I could test that...

If you want to take a look at a recent Minidump file, I've uploaded one here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pq5j2pn1st694y2/091122-8421-01.dmp?dl=0

JohnColombo17100380

Community Manager

@-Venishi- It's hard to say if this is due to some incompatibility or not. To get more eyes on this from the Community Experts and Support folks, I've moved this thread to Discussions for additional troubleshooting possibilities.

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

-Venishi-Author

Participating Frequently

Hi, thanks for the reply. I've tried Mercury Software Only, both in Media Encoder and in After Effects preferences. Sorry, that's something I should have included in my list.

And also, when I installed a newer, faster GPU, wouldn't that have fixed any GPU related issues?

My motherboard is an Asus tuf Gaming B550M-Plus Wifi, which doesn't have an integrated GPU. Also, I should mention that my computer is currently being looked at, and the most recent thing they replaced was the motherboard (same model), and the problem persisted.

That means every piece of hardware in the computer (except the PSU) has been taken out, replaced, and tested, either with the same model or a newer one. I get that it seems like a bigger problem than an After Effects bug, and points towards a hardware problem because it has run without issue on a different computer. But on the other hand, it definitely only happens when actively rendering in Media Encoder, which is much less demanding than some of the Blender renders or games that I run. Could it be some kind of incompatibility that Adobe has with GeForce cards or a combination of hardware I'm using?

JohnColombo17100380

Community Manager

Hi @-Venishi-,

Thank you for reporting this issue, and thank you for all the information you've shared about what you've tried already. In all honesty, two factors seem to point to a larger issue than an After Effects bug: the issue still exists when you roll back After Effects and AME to versions that pre-date the problem starting, and that opening Blender also causes the issue.

Two things you could try to see they help ease the GPU load on your machine on the After Effects side:

In File > Project Settings... > Video Rendering and Effects > choose "Mercury Software Only" to disable GPU acceleration of effects. This same option is available in the General section of the AME preferences.
In Edit > Preferences > Display, disable "Hardware Accelerate Composition, Layers, and Footage Panels"

You didn't list your motherboard model, but if your motherboard has an integrated GPU, you might try disabling that so only your RTX 2070 Super is available for apps to use.

Please let us know if any of these suggestions are helpful.

Thanks for reporting this issue and for any further information you can provide,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

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