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ingvarai
ingvarai
Known Participant
September 8, 2009
Question

AE hangs at "Initializing Media Core"

  • September 8, 2009
  • 13 replies
  • 104386 views

I have successfully installed the Production Premium suite. In the beginning, all apps ran fine. I automatically updated the suite, and AE now is version 9.0.2. I could use all applications in the suite, including After Effects.

Then something happened. First I updated my NVIDIA driver (GeForce 7600GT), then I installed Reg Giant Key Correct Pro. After that, AE just won't start anymore. When loading, it stops at "Initializing Media Core".

I have uninstalled RedGiant Key Correct Pro.

I have rolled back my NVIDIA driver.

I have uninstalled my NVIDIA driver.

I have reinstalled After Affects from the DVD.

I have updated AE once more (the DVD has version 9.0, the update is 9.0.2)

I have always rebooted when uninstalling / installing.

No matter what I do - AE is stuck shortly after it loads, at "Initializing Media Core", and I have to kill it using Task Manager in Windows.

I run Vista 64bit with 8Gb RAM, and  NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT.

ingvarai

This topic has been closed for replies.

13 replies

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A
Anonymous
February 26, 2011

I found a way to solve this problem easily!

While you are stuck at "initializing media core", you can end the process of the quicktime server. afterwhich, adobe cs5 will proceed as usual

windows 7, x64

    O
    OtCoopa
    New Participant
    November 20, 2015

    yeppo it works this way for me

    ingvarai
    ingvaraiAuthor
    Known Participant
    September 8, 2009

    Case closed!

    Here is my approach:

    I logged in as another user, then After Effects started with no problem (I should have done this before testing anything else!)

    I switched back to my standard user, and inspected the user data.

    Here is the folder C:\Users\MyName\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects\9.0

    Here is the file which causes the error: Adobe After Effects 9.0 MC Prefs

    This is an XML file, without the xml extension

    Here is the culprit, the offending line:

    <ML.Audio.ASIOHost.DriverName>ASIO 2.0 - ESI 1010</ML.Audio.ASIOHost.DriverName>

    ESI 1010 is my breakout sound card, and ASIO is a common popular sound driver (very low latency).

    Conclusion:

    I did too many things at the time, Updating NVIDIA, Installing Key Correct Pro - AND - edited the sound preferences in AE. I apologize to Red Giant for suspecting their software!

    Comments:

    I wonder why AE can't tackle this. By installing CS4 Production Premium, my hard drive's real estate was set back 20Gb (!). Still this application is not equipped with software that will circumvent these kind of problems when loading, no message telling me that "Sound driver preferences are bad - default preferences are used instead". It just hangs!!

    ingvarai

    Mylenium
    Mylenium
    Brainiac
    September 8, 2009

    AE uses WDM sound. It should be able to handle ASIO in a WDM wrapper, but it cannot handel it natively. I think Premiere and Sounbooth do, though. So in essence AE crashed due to attempting to initialize the card incorrectly. I'm sure this can be remedied by enabling some compatibility switch in the audio config, also, but if removing the line does the trick, success can hardly be argued. As they say: Fortune favors the bold!

    Mylenium

    ingvarai
    ingvaraiAuthor
    Known Participant
    September 8, 2009

    I did it wrong when trying to tweak the sound settings in AE. I am used to this, other applications do not recognize my ESI 1010. AE, however, does, and it uses WDM and my ESI 1010, in accordance with the settings. Total silence reigns at the moment though, so I'll have to find out why AE is so quiet.

    Anyhows - thanks to all of you who responded, without this response I would probably not have come up with the idea of switching user. Having switched user, and seeing that AE started fine, the rest was a matter of time to narrow down the problem.


    ingvarai

    A
    Anonymous
    September 8, 2009

    I know that Magic Bullet is a Red Giant product which installs a Media Core component which produces this problem.

    Maybe Key Correct Pro does that too (or you have Magic Bullet?) Make sure you uninstall using an installer rather than delete the plug-ins manually.

    If it's not that, then you could have a third party codec that could be causing problems.

    Mylenium
    Mylenium
    Brainiac
    September 8, 2009

    Maybe Key Correct Pro does that too

    No, not that I'm aware of. There was a compatibility fix for CS4, but the plug-in itself is not hardware accelerated and should not interfere with MediaCore. Magic Bullet products (Looks, Colorista, Frames, Steady) however might. It's definitely worth checking. In addition, I recommend checking the Media Cache. perhaps there are just some damaged conform files in there.

    Mylenium

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