Blue Screen of Death BSOD After Effects Media Encoder

[-Venishi-]

Hi, I've been getting BSODs when rendering from After Effects in Media Encoder since around May/June. 

When it happens: BSOD crashes on certain projects from After Effects, but not others. It only happens when actively rendering in Media Encoder, but mainly seems to happen while A) Scrubbing through the timeline, B) Opening a new file or C) Opening Blender, which I use often. It seems that more complex projects cause the crash, which simple video exports never do.

What happens: The error is VIDEO_MEMORY_MANAGEMENT_INTERNAL. The minidump file created during the crash indicates WATCHDOG.SYS as the problem. I would also add that the render times on certain projects is massive. I have records of a render from May 2022 taking two minutes, and the exact same render is currently taking two hours. Note: There's a specific After Effects project that causes the BSOD consistently, however I've had a co-worker run the renders on his computer with no issues.

My computer: Ryzen 3700X, RTX 2070 Super, Kingston 32GB 3000mhz, and it's happened on both Windows 10 and Windows 11

What's Been Tried Already:

• Reinstalling GPU driver (game ready and studio)
• Rolling back GPU to a driver from before the problem started (game ready and studio)
• Reinstalling AE and ME
• Rolling back AE and ME to a point before the problem started
• Running scans on all hardware
• Replacing GPU (tried out a 3700 ti)
• Testing RAM one at a time
• Replacing main C drive
• Replacing CPU
• Upgrade from Windows 10 to 11
• Clean install of Windows 11
• Disable Boosts in Bios
• Update Asus Chipset Drivers
• Turning on performance mode in Nvidia 3D settings
• Turning off GPU hardware acceleration in Windows
• Updating BIOS

The only thing left in the computer that hasn't been been tested with a replacement is the motherboard, so that's the next step. Animation is a big part of my job, and I've had to turn down several large animation projects over the past few months, not to mention the costs of having professionals look at my computer. It would be nice to know if anyone else has had this problem, and if there are any solutions out there.

[JohnColombo]

Hi @-Venishi-,

Thank you for reporting this issue, and thank you for all the information you've shared about what you've tried already. In all honesty, two factors seem to point to a larger issue than an After Effects bug: the issue still exists when you roll back After Effects and AME to versions that pre-date the problem starting, and that opening Blender also causes the issue.

Two things you could try to see they help ease the GPU load on your machine on the After Effects side:

• In File > Project Settings... > Video Rendering and Effects > choose "Mercury Software Only" to disable GPU acceleration of effects. This same option is available in the General section of the AME preferences.
• In Edit > Preferences > Display, disable "Hardware Accelerate Composition, Layers, and Footage Panels"

You didn't list your motherboard model, but if your motherboard has an integrated GPU, you might try disabling that so only your RTX 2070 Super is available for apps to use.

Please let us know if any of these suggestions are helpful.

Thanks for reporting this issue and for any further information you can provide, 

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

[-Venishi-]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I've tried Mercury Software Only, both in Media Encoder and in After Effects preferences. Sorry, that's something I should have included in my list.

And also, when I installed a newer, faster GPU, wouldn't that have fixed any GPU related issues?

My motherboard is an Asus tuf Gaming B550M-Plus Wifi, which doesn't have an integrated GPU. Also, I should mention that my computer is currently being looked at, and the most recent thing they replaced was the motherboard (same model), and the problem persisted.

That means every piece of hardware in the computer (except the PSU) has been taken out, replaced, and tested, either with the same model or a newer one. I get that it seems like a bigger problem than an After Effects bug, and points towards a hardware problem because it has run without issue on a different computer. But on the other hand, it definitely only happens when actively rendering in Media Encoder, which is much less demanding than some of the Blender renders or games that I run. Could it be some kind of incompatibility that Adobe has with GeForce cards or a combination of hardware I'm using?

[JohnColombo]

@-Venishi- It's hard to say if this is due to some incompatibility or not. To get more eyes on this from the Community Experts and Support folks, I've moved this thread to Discussions for additional troubleshooting possibilities.

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

[Mylenium]

I know that there is definitely agigazillion patches for Ryzen processors and there are just as many for RTX cards. The boring and unsatisfying answer is of course that a crash in watchdog.sys, the kernel hypervisor, still points to a misconfiguration in your drivers and BIOS/ UEFI somewhere. In all of this, have you actually dug into your BIOS/ UEFI and checked the settings, in particular TPM and allowing loading unsigned code? This might offer a clue. then again of course this could just as well be PCI timing issues. perhaps the BIOS itself needs a patch? Just throwing out ideas, of course. It might also help if you could provide the minidump data and/ or screenshots of the relevant eent viewer entry.

Mylenium 

[-Venishi-]

Hi! I really appreciate the reply. These are the things I've tried in Bios so far, all recommended by the computer's manufacturer, as I'm not an expert:

• Disabled Core Performance Boost
• In AI Tweaker, set Performance Bias to None and Enhancement to Default
• Updated to Bios version 2803 from the Asus website. Is that what you mean by a patch?
• Enabled TPM 2.0 in order to upgrade to Windows 11 about halfway through all of this troubleshooting. I'm not sure what loading unsigned code means or how I could test that...

If you want to take a look at a recent Minidump file, I've uploaded one here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pq5j2pn1st694y2/091122-8421-01.dmp?dl=0

[Mylenium]

The minidump looks like it crashes in some 32bit component. Do you have any printers or oolder devices connected to the machine? Could even be an USB device.

Mylenium

[-Venishi-]

That's an interesting question! I don't have any older devices connected, everything I have is pretty new (microphone, mouse and keyboard, external drive, Wacom Tablet). In addition, my computer is currently back at the manufacturer being tested, and they're replicating the problem with what I assume are just a mouse and keyboard, in terms of USB devices.

[WolfSZ78]

Hi,

I've also been having this issue since May/June, however, it is A LOT more prevalent now. One of the crashes caused my entire project to become corrupt and bring up the "Missing Data" error message, luckily I had a backup - otherwise, I would've lost days and weeks of work. 

I've run diagnostics, stress tests, and all the typical troubleshooting methods and it doesn't seem to be hardware. Trust me, that was the first thing I checked - especially since my setup is rather new, under warranty, and a pretty strong build.  

This can happen entirely at random. It can happen when I have a bunch of programs open at once, or it can happen when nothing else is open but After Effects and AME. It can happen on very complex projects with lots of assets or just an export of a panning image that a client wants as a video. I can't find a rhyme or reason for what's causing it, and I've tried replicating the issue under identical circumstances, and nothing happens.

I'm not sure what's causing this, but I have found one consistency throughout each BSOD crash: It happens shortly after AME begins rendering, roughly 5-10 seconds. So, if Adobe is trying to recreate the crash on their end, make a quick 1-minute video with 5 images panning, maybe add a couple of blur effects, and export out of AME. Keep doing it until it happens. That is the only way I can think of recreating this error. 

Microsoft says this can happen as a result of a corrupt file/files, if that's the case, somewhere between After Effects and AME the file is getting corrupted (maybe something wonky with the Dynamic Link Server?), and when AME goes to render it the whole system crashes. 

Just trying to chime in with thoughts and ideas, hoping that it helps fix this issue!

[WolfSZ78]

I've found a very temporary and semi-helpful solution: if I get the BSOD crash with the "VIDEO_MEMORY_MANAGEMENT_INTERNAL" error message, and I can reopen the file once my PC restarts, I can do a Save As and almost have no issues. So far I have not had the issue reoccur on a project that I've done a Save As on AFTER the error/crash happened.

[-Venishi-]

Interesting! My case differs in a couple of ways, but it could still be linked. But for example, mine tends to crash anywhere between 1min and 10min, usually when I'm doing something else in After Effects like scrubbing through footage or opening a file, as opposed to sitting back while it renders. I've also never had any corrupted files.

But while the subject of similar cases is being discussed, I do think that the following thread sounds similar to my problem, although it's from 2019, not May/June of this year: Re: Media Encoder crashes when rendering H.264 for... - Adobe Support Community - 10726272

[Mylenium]

A thought that occured to me late last night: Have you checked your audio devices? Many of them use a mishmash of 32bit and 64bit components. It may also factor in with HDMI audio via your graphics card connections to the monitor.

Mylenium

[-Venishi-]

I haven't personally tested it without my speakers, headphones, webcam or microphone, all of which I guess count as audio devices. However as I mentioned, my computer is currently back at the manufacturer being tested, and they're replicating the problem without any of my home devices, whether USB, audio, or monitor.

As for the connection, which is Displayport, I guess I'm not sure how I would test for that. Switch to a different port on the GPU maybe?

[Mylenium]

HDMI audio (including Display Port) is just a set of pins on the connection funneling the digital audio. If available, you would simply turn it off in the monitor or BIOS. Apparently on a monitor with no audio support it would just be inert from the outset. Again, just throwing out ideas as this seems rather exotic. I guess in the end we'll all be surprised what it is once soemone finds out. 😉

Mylenium

[-Venishi-]

The latest: We tried an AMD GPU and so far haven't been able to replicate the BSOD crash, although the extra long render times (another symptom of what I believed was the same problem) are still here. Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas about why on earth Intel GPUs (I've tried two) would be causing the BSOD, while AMD GPUs wouldn't??

[-Venishi-]

Meant to say ***NVIDIA*** not Intel, sorry early morning brain.

[-Venishi-]

My computer's manufacturer has now completed tests with every piece of hardware replaced, and has concluded that this is indeed a software problem on Adobe's end. Specifically some kind of interaction with NVIDIA cards, not AMD cards (although the AMD cards still suffered the slow renders even if they didn't suffer the BSOD crashes). I'll be getting my computer back soon, and will probably buy an AMD card. But if anyone has anything to add in the meantime, let me know. The issue is definitely not solved, because switching from the recommended GPU manufacturer is not a fix, it's a workaround, and an expensive and seemingly nonsensical workaround at that.

[Arno25260632qsht]

Our whole office is having the same issue...

We're all working with the same exact pc setups and all get these blue screens when media encoder is active. All our pc's have an Nvidia geforce RTX 2060 SUPER graphics card... except one, which has an AMD card and works fine with media encoder and rendering!

I hope this issue gets resolved soon!

[-Venishi-]

The latest update on my end: I talked to NVIDIA support, and they finally "escalated" my case to their engineering team, who were able to replicate the problem on their end. They are apparently working on a solution that could be included in some future driver release. 

I should note that after some testing, we found a driver that didn't seem to cause the BSOD, which was 472.84. They  recommended using their NVIDIA Cleanup Tool to uninstall the existing drivers first. If you want more info on that let me know. It's only a temporary solution anyway, and gives you big angry "driver not supported" messages in Adobe programs.

It's a shame that there's such a big problem that only occurs with NVIDIA cards, when they're the ones that Adobe recommends! I've spent an insane amount of time, and a significant chunk of money trying to get this fixed. Adobe should be working with NVIDIA on this. I hope they are.

[Teeheeee]

Omg thank you so much for this... I tried everything to try and get this fixed. I have been getting same bsod whilst exporting on after effects. I have an GTX 1660 super, ryzen 5600, 32gb (then upgraded to 64gb as I thought maybe not enough ram but it was still crashing at the time). Now with the GPU 472.84 driver, so far so good. Let's see how it goes.

[Tom26324312oyp2]

I'm also having the BSOD with using AFX & media encoder 2023 - this seems like a decent thread and the root of the problem has seemed to have been etablished via the drivers.  Any idea of timeline when the fix will be added to the a driver release?

[-Venishi-]

Nvidia's response as of Dec 1st: "Unfortunately your case is still under investigation. I do not have any estimates on when a fix will be available."

[Matthew23202776x5xr]

I'm so glad I found this thread. Same issue. I have a brand new PC that I built. Ryzen 9, NVIDIA RTX 3070ti, 64 GB RAM, (switched my ram sticks out) and anytime I have a high load of graphics on export with either Premiere or AFter Effects this BSOD happens. I'll scale back to the old driver.

[Tom26324312oyp2]

Hi, just done a quick revert back to 526.86 which is dated 10 Nov 2022 (see image), as I remembered rendering out a 2hr mp4 around this release date and done a quick test tonight and seems to be stable (touch wood), no BSOD!!  I did have some issues having some green overlays whilst scrubbing the timeline and rendering around this time but fixed that by disabling the "enable hardware accelerated decoding (requires restart" checkbox (see image) in both after effect and media encoder preferences.  No idea if this will be of any help to you, but just thought to give you a heads up.  Cheers

[Matthew23202776x5xr]

Any updates on this? Just had it happen again while scrubbing a timeline. So annoying.