After Effects error: could not allocate sound memory

[frankbuckster68]

I get an error in an timeline in After Effects CS5.5: "After Effects error: could not allocate sound memory ( 26 :: 392 )" It locks my timeline totally, and keep popping up every time I say "Ok".

Any solutions for this one?

______

Mac OS 10.7.3, 64GB RAM, 12-core MacPro

[Mylenium]

What footages are you using? Any specific audio equipment? Did you check your AE prefs and QT audio settings?

Mylenium

[frankbuckster68]

Footage is mainly ProRes422, DV-PAL and Uncompressed 4:2:2. Tried to convert all odd formats (MP4, AVI, WMV) to ProRes422 with no luck.

Working with different cache settings in AE right now...so far no luck on that.

Audio is mainly 48kHz, 16 bit and 24 bit, stereo. Audio only is AIF or WAV, some video files may contain other formats. Is that a common issue?

[Mylenium]

It's not common, that's why I'm asking... Did you by any chance install a QT component used by anotehr app? I remember at some point such an issue existing with some speech recognition software....

Mylenium

[frankbuckster68]

Good answer! No, I did not install anything during this project, simply just worked on it for 1+ week and suddenly yesterday the error message popped up.

My comp is growing bigger and bigger, It's around 120 layers / precomps in one timeline. This moment I rendered all audio out, to AIFF 48kHz to make sure it isn't a sample rate / audio format issue - but still the same Some guy suggested enabling Disk Cache, it was off (isn't that on by default?) but switching it on didn't help either.

I have started rebuilding my whole comp again, with a lot of pre-renders instead....time-consuming but hopefully it helps

Still, I would like to know what causes this problem!

[Mylenium]

Mmh, could it be that your media cache is simply full or your project exceeding its limits? that would be the last thing to investigate. Perhaps flushing the media cache from ther prefs will do miracles...

Mylenium

[frankbuckster68]

I have already flushed my cache, and having AE to conform all media again - no change I have increase the Disk Cache size to way above the project's previous size - no change.

Strange, huh?

[JP-49]

Hi,

Has Frankbuckster68 worked out his problem?

I am interested in because I think I have the same one.

Actually I'm using AE for the first time and I can't hear any sound track (MP3 or .AVI)

Here is the workspace I'm working on.

Thanks for help,

Jean-Paul

[JP-49]

Hi,

I've got it by now. I have understood that we mustn't use the space bar but the point key on the numeric keypad...!

Very sorry.

Jean-Paul

[Brizdale]

I'm having this issue and I can't get the stupid window to stop popping up. I'm completely unable to do anything in my timeline. I CAN click on one of the menu items at the top if I'm fast enough and I've tried purging "all" as well as cache and video memory (I've tried them all basically) and it makes no difference. The window just pops up again immediately. I've made my cache larger (way larger than should be needed) and nothing comes of that either. Why does AE have an error that prevents you from doing anything to fix it? I've closed the project, quit AE and restarted, to no avail. Am I going to have to trash my entire project and start over? Frustrating!

[Brizdale · Accepted solution]

Well, I solved it by using the menu command "Lift Work Area". I had never used it before but it removed the layer that was causing issues. Luckily it was one that I could just place right back into my timeline with very little work to redo. I have no idea if this was the proper way to do it or not, but it's pretty frustrating that it had to be done at all, and just as frustrating to discover that I couldn't find a solution ANYWHERE.

So basically I'm posting this for anyone else who winds up in my situation and can't find any real help.

Adobe: you've got to fix problems like this. Seriously. I love After Effects and have been using it for several years now. Admittedly I've never encounted this before, but you can't have a window pop up indefinitely, preventing you from doing anything about it. It's amazing that I was able to do anything at all. You've got about a fourth of a second to click on the menu bar before the next error window pops up, and a fourth of a second might be a generous estimate.

[chrism97997392]

Wow, I can't belive this works but it does! Thanks a bunch, I was completely puzzled.

[dapupe]

I've "solved".

The PROBLEM is QuickTime. Quicktime was not installed on my pc, no problem with AE. After installing QT i found the problem about audio memory. After uninstalling QT after effect returned to normal status.

I'm using AE CC and i've downloaded the latest version of QT.

So, this is a very big bug, and after some years Adobe still not done anything to solve it.

[Szalam]

What version of QuickTime did you use? QuickTime X is pretty poopy, but QuickTime 7 usually works well.

[jackf35034526]

I don't have quick time, yet this message still appears for me...

[Supernat10]

I also didn't have quicktime installed and saw this.  It happened on my first project on a new machine with new install.  The reason was that my work area was set to the full 2 hour length of the comp.  When I set the work area to a much smaller section, the error went away.  It was just trying to allocate memory for the entire work area to do a RAM preview, because I used the spacebar.  So in my case, I could reduce my work area, get more RAM, or use the period and 0 keys.

[Vlada69]

It is the issue with audio codec. Change in EDIT/TEMPLATES/Output module the one you work the most back to AVI (or any other codec that audio will work on) and make your composition small no more then 45 min.

[Daniela_Campos]

Hello, I had the same issue and i just set the composition time to a smaller lenght and it worked.

[shlomod44849193]

Awesome! This worked, thanks!!

[analogkid01]

This worked for me as well - my composition was set for 1 hour...I reduced it to 55 minutes, and the error went away.  ADOBE!!!!!!...

[Corniger]

I reduced it just by a minute amount, a few seconds. Worked!! 

[brads3v3n77]

So I just discovered that of you just reduce the work area (blue controls at the top of the multi-tracker that highlight the space you're working on) it works fine.  Obviously this means I can't preview the entire 1 hour 3 minute video but I don't want to anyways ha.  We rarely need to preview more than a small section at a time for anything anyways...So I'd consider it a easy workaround if not a total fix.  

[showner]

POSSIBLE SOLUTION:

PROBLEM: Used OBS to record a screen session on a PC. Extracted audio channel out with Adobe Audition which created it as a .WAV file. Imported mp4 and wav files into Adobe After Effects. Expanded audio section to look at waveform. System crashed with error despite clearing cache twice. Nothing.

SOLUTION:

1. Removed wave file from Adobe After Effects.
2. Saved project and closed app.
3. Converted WAV file to MP3 file 41000.
4. Opened Adobe After Effects,
5. imported MP3 file.
6. Expanded both to look at Waveform with no error.