AME CS5.5 hangs on "Reading XMP"

Hi All, Yet another solution, if you're still stumped like me after reading this thread. I ran into this issue on CS6 AND even CC 2017 when working with timelapsed footage. CS6 would simply hang with no details as to why it hung on "reading XMP". In CC 2017, however, it showed that is was hanging on "audio preview 5 of 61".  I have a bunch of clips that are extremely sped up and evidently Premiere can't handle processing the audio or audio waves of those clips, EVEN IF you have that track muted for obvious reasons. It was attempting to render out 61 little audio preview clips that were sped up too fast for it, I assume. Once I deleted those since I didn't need them, exported like a charm. Hope this helps!

Hey guys,

Mine seems to be solved with above tips (@DaveTrayers post)

But also i moused over the option "use rendered files" and it writes it only applies when exporting from Premiere, not AME.

So, unticked that too with the other preferences on XMP from Dave and voila!

Thx a lot !!!

edit : It was not that simple it turned out... and i post for anyone that keeps having the problem.

My sequence contained one image of 6000x4000 and 3 clips out of around 200 that had a 5.1 sound instead of stereo.

my "reading XMP" error would appear when audio was to be exported with the video.

If i were to export without audio, AME would work fine, but if i were to only export audio even without video, it would freeze the same way (even as mp3, even as .wav)

I kept beating about the bush to try to find an alternative because this project relies on synchronization of audio to video and i could not risk a lengthy export to fail on synchronizing later.

So..

resized that image, changed all audio to stereo, it still wouldn't work and "normalize audio track" would also freeze inside PPr. CS6.

Overall, nothing solved the problem!

but i did find a guaranteed workaround.

You need to manually delete all rendered files and start AME and open your project sequence through there (Import Premiere sequence)

because if you open up PPR it immediately starts conforming files.

That way, AME will start conforming files first and when it completes it will not hang on "reading XMP".

Export time became 25 hours (for a 2hr 1080p .H264) because it has no rendered files completely but ... it worked!

12 more hours for my project to be exported .... wish me luck :-)

I hope this helps someone!

i am writing this 4 days after my deadline!!

I'm having the same problem with a fully up-to-date fresh install of CC on a Mac 2x2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Zeon with 12GB RAM running 10.8.4.

Passing from AECC

"Reading XMP" hang hang hang. I even turned off all metadata options and made an "all off" metadata output preset. Not cool. This is with any composition (even just AE solids) and any image sequence output template. Works fine from AE's Render Queue.

I've tried all of the "solutions" mentioned here.

Having the exact same problem with AME CC (Mac OS 10.8.4). Hangs indefinitely and no way to cancel except to Force Quit. My sequence does not contain any still images.

Also now having the same issue with Media Encoder not start, just reading XMP file.....5.5.2

And updates on this issue ??

I also have this problem, which seemed to start with CS 5.5, AME 5.5 or 5.5.1. I'm on Mac OS 10.7.2, and it seems to happen 25%-50% of the time.

When it gets into this state AME cannot be quit, it has to be force quit. Rebooting the Mac will temporarily cure it until the next time it happens, which is often.

It doesn't happen with exporting directly from Premiere Pro CS 5.5.2. I usually am using AME 5.5.1 to encode H.264 for Vimeo or Youtube, either SD or HD quality. This is a siginficant problem and I'm wondering if there is a way to reset something to clear something out for AME to stop from hanging.

I also have this problem, it is a rather significant defect in the software that makes the normal production flow unusable.  I depend on a lot of high resolution stills in making sports and other videos, where I pan and zoom photos to leverage different portions of the image.  Using low res photos is not a real option, it drives video quality degradation.  A fix would be great, since it used to work in CS4.

Having the same issue. I never had this before with CS5, 4, 3.....

We need to encode 274 video for next week!!! (1 TB) I think we are in serous trouble. Impossible to encode with AME 5.5.1.12(64bit)

I will try to find the problem tonight and let you know...

I develop AME plugins and have a hunch as to what's happening. (far to technical to elaborate on though)

Try exporting to another video type - does it do it still?

What video format is your source (AVCHD, MPEG, HDV, DV etc etc)?

Do you have Quicktime installed?

I have a suspicion that you have a piece of source footage that doesn't have the appropriate decoder. (Premiere and direct AME video decoding works _slightly_ differently)