Unable to export to encode After Effects CC 2020 17.0.5 file to Media Encoder 2020 14.0.4

[fc67643137]

I'm at wit's end. Worked fine until 17.05.0 and 14.0.4. My Imac is late 2013 (OS 10.15.4). Can't figure this out. Have reinstalled, empted caches, etc. Nothing works. Error msg when "Export-Add to AME Render Queue": 

"Adobe Media Encoder has encountered an unexpected error and cannot continue."

When I drop and drag AE file to AME the encoding fails with this msg (with no clues on how to address):

title filename.mp4
- Preset Used: Match Source - High bitrate
- Video:
- Audio:
- Bitrate:
- Encoding Time: 00:00:00
03/31/2020 09:12:55 AM : Encoding Failed
------------------------------------------------------------

Could not read from the source. Please check if it has moved or been deleted.

------------------------------------------------------------

- Source File: After Effects/filefolder/filename/tmpAEtoAMEProject-PP title name.aep
- Output File: After Effects/filename/filename_AME/PP title name.mp4
- Preset Used: Match Source - High bitrate
- Video:
- Audio:
- Bitrate:
- Encoding Time: 00:00:00
03/31/2020 09:15:04 AM : Encoding Failed

Your help is appreciated.

[Byron Cortez]

Show us the entire Ae interface with a screenshot please.

[fc67643137]

Hi Byron, 

Thanks for your help. Wish you could be  more specific. I don't see how this attachment helps:

AE interface to export to AME

[Byron Cortez]

I wanted to see how your Work Area Bar was and other possible causes of the issue. When you reinstall, did you delete Ae Preferences? You have to. Did you delete it?

[fc67643137]

Hi Byron,

Thanks again for your attentive help on this! I deleted all preferences, un-installed AE, then re-installed. It did not work. But I found a workaround to directly exporting file to Media Encoder. I exported to AE render queue, set/selected output source and then rendered as Quicktime .mov. Then I was able to drag and drop that file into Media Encoder and render it to H.264. Although a tad cumbersome, it works. 

[wtmlnz]

I'm having the same issue. I emptied by disk cache and cleaned my database and cache, uninstalled, reinstalled and my Media Encoder is still not working.

How do you "delete Ae Preferences" on a mac?

[loljo]

Hi, I wanted to share a workaround I found today that doesn't require exporting a lossless file in AE and then reexporting a h.264 file in media encoder. My reason for not wanting to approach the problem that way was the result of getting a 4 minute AE sequence video as a 70 GB video file. Troubleshooting included making sure Premiere was still working with Media Encoder as well as starting a blank AE project and exporting a basic sequence with an animated title in Media Encoder and having that work too. I think the problem was my AE file was so massive, intricate, and had so many elements come and go (I deleted files from my computer that were no longer being used resulting in an error message telling me I had unlinked footage, even though said footage wasn't being used in the sequences I was trying to export and eventually cleaned up my project so those missing files were no longer in the AE project) that by the time it was done, it was overwhelming for Media Encoder. Despite doing those types of troubleshooting as well as reinstalling software, nothing seemed to work. It doesn't sound very technical as an explanation but at this point, I don't know what else to.

The solution: I opened up a clean Premiere project and simply dragged my sequence from the AE project bin and placed it into Premiere. I made a sequence from that imported AE Sequence, then I put that Premiere sequence into Media Encoder and was able to successfully export my AE Sequence to H.264. It's important that you keep AE and Premiere open during the export as closing one seems to mess up the link.

My AE sequence was very effects-heavy so the 4-minute video render is still running with about 5 hours to go on my 2018 iMac Pro but 40 minutes in as I'm writing this I can see my export rendering correctly in the preview window. Lesson learned to be organized and efficient with how you approach AE projects, but anyone who's been editing long enough knows things get messy. Hope this helps.

[fc67643137]

Thank you for this work-around. Although I have not tried it yet, it seems like a logical solution.

[loljo]

Hi, I wanted to share a workaround I found today that doesn't require exporting a lossless file in AE and then reexporting a h.264 file in media encoder. My reason for not wanting to approach the problem that way was the result of getting a 4 minute AE sequence video as a 70 GB video file. Troubleshooting included making sure Premiere was still working with Media Encoder as well as starting a blank AE project and exporting a basic sequence with an animated title in Media Encoder and having that work too. I think the problem was my AE file was so massive, intricate, and had so many elements come and go (I deleted files from my computer that were no longer being used resulting in an error message telling me I had unlinked footage, even though said footage wasn't being used in the sequences I was trying to export and eventually cleaned up my project so those missing files were no longer in the AE project) that by the time it was done, it was overwhelming for Media Encoder. Despite doing those types of troubleshooting as well as reinstalling software, nothing seemed to work. It doesn't sound very technical as an explanation but at this point, I don't know what else to.

The solution: I opened up a clean Premiere project and simply dragged my AE sequence from the project bin and placed it into Premiere. I made a sequence from that imported AE Sequence, then I put that Premiere sequence into Media Encoder and was able to successfully export my AE Sequence to H.264. It's important that you keep AE and Premiere open during the export as closing one seems to mess up the link.

My AE sequence was very effects-heavy so the 4-minute video render is still running with about 5 hours to go on my 2018 iMac Pro but 40 minutes in as I'm writing this I can see my export rendering correctly in the preview window. Lesson learned to be organized and efficient with how you approach AE projects, but as anyone who's been editing long enough knows things get messy. Hope this helps.

[stevenprobets]

I have the same issue but only when I upgraded to the lastest versions AE 17.0.6 and ME 14.1 - I rolled back and no longer have this issue.

Sorry it doesn't you specifically but thought it might be worth mentioning.