Adobe Media Encoder 2020 won't connect to Dynamic Link

[LindseyWheatley]

Since I have updated both After Effects and Media Encoder to the 2020 version I am having a hard time getting my file to complete. When I go to Add to Media Encoder Que it does nothing.  I will then just drag and drop the saved After Effects File into Media Encoder Que, it then just sits there and says its "Connecting To Dynamic Link Server" where I get four different outcomes. 

1. It just continues to try to connect, never does
2.  After what seems like an eternity it connects, I click on the composition, then click the green arrow and it "fails" 
3.  I click on the composition, then click the green arrow and encodes and the MP4 video is extremely dark to where I can't use it. 
4.  1 out of 20 times it works. (Which had yet to happen today and I've been working on it for 5 hours now) 

I've cleaned the cache, not sure what else to do or try.  HELP!  

[nishu_kush]

Hi there,

Welcome to the community and sorry for your issue. Could you follow the steps below and provide us the log file so that we can share it with the product team for further investigation:

1. Quit all Adobe apps.
2. Press Windows + R, type appdata and click on OK.
3. Navigate to Roaming > Adobe > After Effects > 17.0 > logs.
4. Create a blank .txt file named LiveLink Log.txt and save it (must be exactly this, with a space between “LiveLink” and “Log”).
5. Now launch AE and send your composition to Media Encoder.
6. Navigate to the logs folder again. You should see two files in that folder now. If you do, share the LiveLink Log.txt with us. That will help our engineers identify where AE fails to send the comp to AME.

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks,

Nishu

[CirodiMedici1979]

Hello there Nishu_Kush, can you provide the same instructions but for Mac platform, I'm having the same issue, I already tried EVERYTHING literally (all help topics in Adobe Help and Forums) and it does not work, please help out, I think this may be an issue Adobe needs to fix ASAP, I managed to do a workaround to convert the file to the format I wanted but that's just wasting some time. Please help, I'm sure there are a lot of people having the exact same issue.

Thank you!!

[jrmazzini]

Hi Nishu, 

I am experiencing the same issue and am also on a Mac. Can you provide instruction on how to fix? 

Thanks,

[nishu_kush]

Hi all,

I appreciate your patience. Please check out this post for an update on the issue.

Let us know if it helps.

Thanks,

Nishu

[markusk95855682]

I have the same problem. Installed hot fixes, latest AE release. Just sucks, can't generate anything in a middle of a project

[nishu_kush]

Hi all,

After Effects version 17.1 has been released with a fix for this issue. Please install the update and if the feature works for you.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Nishu

[makingtime07]

I just updated to the newest Media Encoder and get this error frequently, it starts to work after a couple of tries but sometimes after waiting a while as it pauses on 'Connecting to Dynamic Link server'.

[nishu_kush]

Thanks for reaching out. Sometimes firewall and antiviruses interfere with Dynamic Link. Would you mind disabling them and see if it helps with the issue?

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Nishu

[Bas M]

Hi! I have the same issue. And I also updated to the newest version (17.1)

When I send the render directly from AE to the AME queue nothing seems to happen. When I then try to open to project directly from AME it keeps hanging at 'Connecting to Dynamic Link server'.

I found this workaround:

Restart the computer and directly open AME. Open up the AE project from AME now it does connect to the project and allows me to add sequences to the AME render queue. I can now even send renders directly from AE to the AME render queue.

Hope this will help anyone, and hope this get's fixed!

Cheers,

Bas

[Rick Gerard]

If you are having any Dynamic Link problems the very first thing to do is open After Effects Preferences/Memory panel and set memory reserved to 8 GB if you have 16 or more available, or split the available memory between AE and other apps. I have found that most of the dynamic link failing to connect can be solved by simply allocating more memory. 

Preferences = Alt/Option + Ctrl/Cmnd + ;

[thesalione]

hello 

i try doing this but cant chang it , after closing the AE it chang back to 16 gb ram 

[SilvioNobrega · Accepted solution]

This worked for me:

System Preferences - Security and Privacy - Full Disk Acess - add Adobe Media Encoder 2020

[tim824]

This worked for me as well.  Thanks SilvioNobrega for posting!

[Cîmpanu5C3B]

Hi Silvio,

Where do I find system preferences? 🙂

Thanks!

[blakeg61187]

This also worked for me. Thanks!

[WoogTX]

Where are System Preferences?  I'm on Win10 if that matters.

[tomdd]

It's only on Mac, sorry

[AmadeusAmadeus.de]

Thank you so very much! Took me an hour an a half to find that very easy solution. 

[KiNG 12 [AbuBaKr]]

I am facing same issue but i know why i am facing it. I changed the location of AME few weeks ago and after that mi am not able to add que directly from AE to AME. Any Sollution? BTW I am on Windows 10

[phic15020179]

So here is what you can try:

- System Preferences - Security and Privacy - Full Disk Acess - add Adobe Media Encoder 2020

- Make sure you are working in a local drive. The new AE dosent like if you keep source files in an external hard drive. I have all my files synced in Dropbox in an external HD so I can save space on mac BUT when working on AE files I have to ensure that ALL files are on my mac HD otherwise it gvies me problems. Same goes with plugins. I keep all pluging in my Documents folder. I had lots of issues with the new AE.... what a headache!

but now, it's all working! Try that out!... keep everything local AE related!

hope this helps!

cheers

[HollandJames]

This worked for me! Thanks so much!

[phic15020179]

Glad to hear!!

Enjoy!

[Ahmad Faiz Bin5C84]

It's funny that mine solved simply by making more space to the drive that I am about to save the video. 

[Job van Dort]

Same issue for me. It happend with previous updates as well. So frustrating!

I contacted Adobe and gave them permission to remotely access my computer. It was all back to normal within 10 minutes.

It had everything to do with clearing media caches and resetting preferences of both AE and AME.