"Error Compiling Movie: Unknown Error" - HELPFUL TIP!

[JMLfilm]

I just spent the whole weekend banging on this problem, and the solution was so obvious and yet also not that I thought it was worth posting here for future reference as it seems like this is a common problem in one regard or another.

I was using a project I'd exported out of a dozen times, and sequences that had also been exported numerous times, and suddenly this weekend every time I tried to export a quicktime using ANY codec, of ANY length, the export would crash and I'd get the mysterious 'unknown error'.

I removed nested sequences, I cut out effects, I tried removing pieces I thought might be causing it to stick, I imported sequences into a new project, copied and pasted into new sequences - all to no avail.

Until I realized, using old Spidey Senses from building computers in the 90's - that my FILE NAME had a "." [period] in it, carried over from the names of the sequences.

I had been working with a cut I was calling PREVIEW 1, and was using sequences I was calling v4 - but when I did revisions to those sequences I renamed them v4.1, and the Preview Cut v1 became PREVIEW v1.1, v1.2, v1.3.

I changed the names of the sequences to be v1_1, and - - everything is working totally fine with no errors whatsoever.  Nests, effects, everything working flawlessly.

I can see many people easily making this mistake and hitting this most frustrating of errors both for rendering and for exporting, especially when Mac's seem to generally be OK with using "."s in file names.  It can start a chain reaction of misery that is not necessarily intuitive to resolve.

It is REALLY DUMB that there isn't a simple message when exporting to an illegal file name that it doesn't just stop you right there and say "hey moron, that's an illegal file name and you should know that, try again and be smarter about it next time!"

Hope this helps some of you!!

[Kevin-Monahan]

Thanks, I have heard this reported by our support queue, as well.

Kevin

[Reelife_Folktography]

i'm hoping this is my problem... changing names now...

[savannahf4703313]

Oh my God. Thank you for this post!

[YingYang]

thank you sooo much for sharing this.  It solved my problem of exporting

[bessamemucho11]

yoooooooooooooou are amaaaaaaaaaazing dude

[RKstudios]

My computer was displaying the same error message, and when I checked the suggested portion of the project, I discovered that one of the clips had the warp stabilizer effect applied, but it hadn't analyzed the clip yet. After letting it analyze and stabilize the clip, it rendered perfectly.

[Kevin-Monahan · Accepted solution]

JML Film,

We do have removing punctuation as a troubleshooting step for exporting troubles in the following doc: How to fix issues that cause errors when rendering or exporting

Thanks,
Kevin

[jayz92998992]

Thank you!!!!

[alfonso abdong38474239]

hola tengo un error parecido
ya trate mucho de renderizar en otros formatos y me sucede lo mismo
quisiera saber si alguien de aquí sabe de alguna solución para ese error
ya lo exporte de mil maneras y anda ya le cambie el formato y nada

alguien que me pueda ayudar.

[Elyoc]

I just had the same issue, same error code, and tried all the above to no avail. 

3.5hrs later,  all Cache cleared, new project opened and imported, nests un-nested, several re-starts and many, many, many deep breaths... I did a Navdia update (which was only done a few weeks back) and it rolled back my software on my driver and as if by magic, it worked again!  so for me this error code was not an Adobe Issue but a faulty driver update!  

Highly frustraiting waste of a days work.