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Participant
January 23, 2025
Question

Php : The Common Extensibility Platform (CEP) suite couldn't be loaded

  • January 23, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 187 views

Hi,

 

 

 

I'm using AE in command line. Running through powershell, it works fine

But running through an apache web server, it crashes with the error "The Common Extensibility Platform (CEP) suite couldn't be loaded.".

 

 

 

 

 

$command = '"C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" C:\\Users\\blabla\\script_that_calls_AE.js';

 

exec($command)

 

 

 

 

Why is that?

 

Thanks

1 reply

Legend
January 23, 2025

This is likely the problem of permissions — and it's a very difficult challenge to overcome if you're doing this on Microsoft Windows.

If on Windows, The PHP and the NodeJS process needs to have elevated privleges to run an application that interacts with the desktop.  It's not as simple as using the exec() method in node.  You will need to specify the user account to run After Effects, in addition to other details about running child processes in NodeJS.

You can always call on PsExec from PHP to run the $command.  That tool will allow you to specify alot of things you can tell Windows to do.

 

On macOS, it's an entirely different story and has the same issues.

 

—Arie