After effects quits, crashes or makes a blue screen error during rendering on one specific machine

[Tamas_Koszegi]

There is a problem which is driving me crazy for months now.

We have multiple computers running After Effects, and there is a brand new PC with no expense spared components in it which just crashes really often (Intel Core i9-13900K with 128 GB DDR5 RAM, RTX 3060 Ti and a MSI MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK WIFI) and a All other, much lower quality PC-s manage to continue working on the same comp, same AE version, same Windows, without problems. Its not a comp specific or effect specific thin, it can happen anywhere, even in  safe mode (both Windows and After Effects)

I have tried updating drivers, stress tested each hardware compoment separately including RAM, CPU and GPU, installed it clean, run in safe mode, deleted 3rd party plugins, uninstalled RAM modules one by one, ran without GPU, updated BIOS, checked Event Logs, analized dump files, used driver verifier, tried basically all solutions found online without a result. I am working on this with the support of ChatGPT for weeks without any solution.

Usually the blue screen messages are:

1. SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (7e)
2. DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (d1)
3. SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION (3b)
4. IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (a)
5. APC_INDEX_MISMATCH
6. ATTEMPTED_EXECUTE_OF_NOEXECUTE_MEMORY
7. UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION
8. SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
9. IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

This shows into the direction of RAM / Driver problems, including memory access violations, potential driver issues, and system thread exceptions. I ran all RAM tests on earth and they all said everything is fine. Driver-wise I updated everything manually and with software help too.

Dump file analysis shows that the  faulting module is still within the kernel (ntkrnlmp.exe), pointing to a system-level issue. 

I just ran out of options and I have no idea what to do besides selling the computer piece by piece. Any ideas?

Dump files:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/164krg2Fd0UEiJrE3puBuMZuET3Gcuc1F?usp=sharing

[ToolfarmJP]

If you use an anti-virus application, you turn it off.

[Tamas_Koszegi]

Thank you , thats a great idea, but unfortunately I only have Defender, nothing else.

[Tamas_Koszegi]

So a very interesting thing happened. I was browsing Reddit and I came upon this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/11uftum/rtx_4090_i9_13900k_pc_build_crashing_with/?share_...

According to this, the i9 13900 K tends to crash in games using DirectX12 with memory access violations. Temporary workaround was to lower the P clock of the CPU to a certain level (someone writes 50, some 54) and the problem disappears. I have tried is myself and it WORKS! 

I have certain AE projects which are crashing for sure and I am using them as crash testers. Once lowering P Core frequency to 50 (I have not checked the others yet) the problem disappears. Now I would conclude immediately than this is a CPU issue, and all the people on Reddit are instantly blaming Intel, but at the same time Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool runs perfectly and shows no errors whatsoever.

The other problem that this is only a temporary workaround, as now the computer is artificially bottlenecked, but an interesting insight nonetheless.

[Tamas_Koszegi]

forget it, it crashes still 😄

[ShiveringCactus]

In my experience, my PC blue screens where there's a conflict with the Graphics Driver.  I was getting a regular issue with the preference for Hardware-accelerated Decoding in Preferences > Media checked. Unchecking this solved that issue.

You could also try rendering with software only and see if that causes a crash.  If it doesn't, then the issue is likely something to do with your graphics card.  If it still crashes, then it's not your GPU.

Does a network play any part of your set up or is everything local?

[Tamas_Koszegi]

Hi!

Thank you for the reply!

Unfortunately its not that. I have tried Software only, in the past it helped me out in many situations, not now though. I also took out the GPU for a couple of weeks to see how it goes, still to no avail.

Now this Preferences - Hardwave accelerated thing was new to me, but now I checked it, crashes still. But thanks for that, I already learned something 🙂

Yes, everything is local. 

I am just worried that if i buy a new PC and sell this, the issue will come back / also because all individual hardware tests pass, I can not really RMA it because I dont really have any grounds. (still might try, just which part?)

[tof00]

Hi,

i experiment EXACTLY the same issues with same tests

Setup :

Intel Core i9-13900K

128 GB DDR5 RAM

RTX 4090Ti

ASUSTeK ProArt Z690-CREATOR WIFI

It's hopeless...

[Ágnes349494596tks]

Hi!

First of all, thanks for coming here! i was beginning to think I am the only one.

So, now I know that this is a RAM handling issue, even though the RAM passes all the tests, OCCT, Memtest, Cinebench, After Effects will STILL manage to crash it. Since I posted here I bought a completely new CPU (14th gen i9, a completely new Mobo (Gigabyte Aorus Master X, which was expensive as crazy) and a set of new RAMs (192GB of GSkill Trident), and the problem STILL PREVAILS! With a completely new set of hardware the only culprit can be After Effects. Problem is I am an AE professional so I just NEED TO solve this problem or I can not work.
So far I figured that 14th Gen handles the issue a bit better, but as the IMC is the same, there is just marginal improvement there. I also figured that the MSI Tomahawk with the new BIOS update makes it a bit better too. However, the Aorus Master X, being such a flagship monster of a board, actually handles it much worse. Now i decided to just abuse the return policy on Alza and try out new parts until I find a combination which works, but it seriously causes big damage to my mental health. What is your finding? Also I wrote to Gigabyte support and they have no idea about it at all either.

[Tamas_Koszegi]

Sorry, I used my colleague's account to reply, but its still me, the OP.

[tof00]

In addition,

I notice that everytime i used 3d layers in AE, it crash.

even with basic comp.

(never at the same frame).

[Tamas_Koszegi]

Are you sure this is the same problem as ours? What does the dump file say? 

[jonathans94913674]

I'm dealing with the same issue. 14900k. So far the only thing I've found to work is to turn off multi-frame rendering. 

[Tamas_Koszegi]

Yeah that also makes crashes less frequent to me, but not 100%, and also I can not use this all the time, I need to render 24/7. Can you tell me your specs please? I am looking for mobo + RAM combinations to see. 

[jonathans94913674]

Gigabyte Z790 UD AC

CORSAIR VENGEANCE DDR5 64GB (2x32GB) 5600MHz CL40

RTX 4070 12gb

I suspected disabling multi-frame rendering probably wouldn't 100% solve the problem, but I've been stable so far. I'll probably do some more testing after I'm done with this project. I've been rendering everything on my AMD rig with no issues. Considerably slower if multi-frame rendering is on than the i9, but way faster when single-frame rendering on the i9. 

[jonathans94913674]

I also tried turning off the XMP profile to see if it's a memory speed issue. No change. I'm going to try to turn off the e-cores this week to see if there's any difference. 

[Tamas_Koszegi]

It does have something to do with memory speed mismatch, I just dont get what. But yes, turning XMP off or even going lower to 3000 Mhz does not solve it at all. At this point, after months of testing and actually buying a whole new computer the only thing I can say is that: "something is bothering the IMC, which happens more with some boards than others, which got marginally improved for the 14th gen". Wow, thats really not much! I have absolutely no idea what to do and it drives me crazy. Also I found that the MSI Tomahawk new BIOS handles it a bit better than the Gigabyte Aorus X ... again, not much. It also has nothing to do with QVL-s either.

[jonathans94913674]

I haven't had any crashes since disabling the e-cores, but I have rendered a ton of stuff either. I'm going to keep testing, but so far so good for me. Multi-frame rendering enabled. 

[Tamas_Koszegi]

This is extremely interesting, I will try it out! But isnt disabling e-cores are like shooting yourself in the leg? I mean why on earth to have an i9 if you can not use it. Or is it not that apparent? How slower is it? BTW just a side note, I sent back my 13th gen i9 based on these claims and Intel refunded me fully, so I can buy an other 14th gen, which is a BIT (not much) better.

[jonathans94913674]

I can't speak to that exact question, but in my opinion this is only a workaround and until apps like AAF and Premiere are optimized to work dual-type core CPUs. I have a friend who works in software dev and he said the e-cores cause them all sorts of headaches. I haven't done any comparisons yet, but I would imagine it's not that much slower. I haven't noticed any slow downs.

[Tamas_Koszegi]

Thanks for the tip, I will check this out myself as well, I always approached this as an IMC / RAM timing issue, never thought about e-cores. If you have any more updates on the situation, please keep me informed!

[jonathans94913674]

Update: I'm in the process of rendering 9 comps, 3 finished so far with no crashes. 🙌🏼 4k60 with 3d layers; I think I was getting about 8 fps rendering with e-cores enabled and I'm getting about 6.5-7 with them disabled. So there is somewhat of a loss. Is that like a 16% decrease in performance? But beats constant crashing! Hoping Adobe will see this thread and get to the bottom of it if it's something that can be fixed in software. 

[HunchoDreams]

Disabling Multi-Frame Rendering solved an issue with me using ProRes Raw. Sucks since I really do enjoy the speed boost that it provides.

[Tamas_Koszegi]

Yeah I just really can not disable multi frame rendering, I am animating led screens for TV shows and events and sometimes I have extremely limited time to render a huge surface out, I really would need a "proper" solution... maybe one day I will get one 😄

[AlexBalcombe]

I'm also having similar problems, and made a post about it. I have a new PC and it crashes only with Premiere and After Effects quite frequently. Any 3D work in After Effects is basically a no-go.

I have a lot of crash dumps that usually hint to something memory related (code 0xc0000005 pops up a lot)

It must be Adobe's software not functioning with newer hardware because I have a laptop and desktop from 2019 which handles the project files I'm working on completely fine.

Similar to others here I just don't have the time to replace and return individual parts and figure out what's causing it. Have tried so many things to no avail.

- Reinstalled Windows completely fresh, with just 2 Adobe products installed, still crashes

- Replaced the RAM sticks, still crashes

- Switched to Software-only rendering, still crashes (so it's not the GPU? New games run fine)

- Have toggled a bunch of CPU settings off in the BIOS in an attempt to increase stability, but I'm no expert.

Windows 10 Pro

Premiere 24.1

i9-14900k

64GB DDR5 RAM 6400MHz CL32 (Corsair Vengeance)

RTX 4070 Ti 12GB (TUF Gaming OC)

Z790 AORUS MASTER X 1.1 Motherboard

Sorry I can't help much but if someone here figures it out I want to know asap.