aerender SYNTAX ERROR: Illegal argument flag: -reuse

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
January 27, 2022
4 replies
1783 views

When doing renders from the command line it seems that I can not get the -reuse flag to work anymore after After Effects version 2021.

Is this functionality no longer supported? Or am I doing something wrong?

It works when I have an instsance open of After effects 2021 or earlier and use this command:

"/Applications/Adobe After Effects 2021/aerender" -project "/Users/macbook/test.aep" -comp "main_comp" -OMtemplate "h264mp4" -output "/Users/macbook/test.mp4" -reuse

But when I try this with After Effects 2022 or the llatest beta version:

"/Applications/Adobe After Effects 2022/aerender" -project "/Users/macbook/test.aep" -comp "main_comp" -OMtemplate "h264mp4" -output "/Users/macbook/test.mp4" -reuse

It doesn't render and gives me this error:

"aerender SYNTAX ERROR: Illegal argument flag: -reuse"

Any help would be greatly appeciated.

Error or problem

Correct answer JohnColombo17100380

Hi @renenijman,

This issue has been fixed in After Effects 22.6 and later versions. If you continue to encounter an error when using the "-reuse" flag, please follow the instructions I posted here to reset the Apple Event permissions for the Terminal.

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

JohnColombo17100380

Correct answer

Community Manager

Hi @renenijman,

This issue has been fixed in After Effects 22.6 and later versions. If you continue to encounter an error when using the "-reuse" flag, please follow the instructions I posted here to reset the Apple Event permissions for the Terminal.

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

M

mustage_8565

Participant

still seeing this problem on the newer versions.

PROGRESS: Launching After Effects...
aerender SYNTAX ERROR: Illegal argument flag: -reuse

C:\Users\Administrator>"C:/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe After Effects 2025/Support Files/aerender.exe" -version
aerender version 25.5x4

nishu_kush

Community Manager

Hi there, sorry to hear about the issue.

What's the exact version of After Effects that you are using? Have you tried the steps suggested by John Colombo?

Let us know.

Thanks,
Nishu

R

renenijmanAuthor

Participating Frequently

A temporary workaround for me seems to be that I can have the terminal script use an older version of aerender (in my case 2019) with the -reuse flag and if I then have an instance of 2022 open, it will reuse that instance.

I fear feel this might not always work down the road, so a fix would be highly appreciated.