Unable to render/export After Effects comps through Media Encoder

[Rameez_Khan]

We have received several reports where users are not able to export/render After Effects comps to Media Encoder. The After Effects team is investigating this issue and it seems to be related to certain effect plugins.

Which version of After Effects and Media Encoder are affected?

After Effects 17.0.6

Media Encoder 14.1

NOTE: If you're using an older version of After Effects and are running into this issue, please see this post.

Which effects are involved?

Initially, this bug was thought to only impact third-party plugins but a diagnosis of the issue showed that native effect plugins can cause the issue as well. Here are some of the effects that are affected:

Deep Glow - Plugin Everything

Sure Target - Video Copilot

ReelSmart Motion Blur - RE:Vision Effects

Optical Flares - Video Copilot

Trapcode Form - Red Giant

Linear Color Key - After Effects

Are there any workarounds?

As of now, here is what you can do:

• Remove third-party plugins
• Rollback to the previous version of After Effects - 17.0.5 and Media Encoder - 14.0.4

Here is the link to the original discussion.

[P.M.B]

If by chance you don't want to uninstall plugins and can't reinstall you can always render to an intemediate format using AEs renderer and then convert the file in ME.   Hopefully though everyone has at least one previous version of AE installed on their system at all times.  If not they definitely should. You can have more than one verison installed.  

[jamesb71228512]

being " required " to have a old version installed cuz adobe does not quality test their updates for a program i PAY a monthly fee is not the way to go. they either have to test things before pushing out a update and check/double check. i dont feel required to have a old version installed just because they F'ed up the latest release of X product.

[P.M.B]

You're not required to do anything.  It was simply a suggestion for people who need to get finished products to their clients.  We all know how it SHOULD be and what we SHOULDNT have to do.  At some point I have to put aside my indignation and do what I need to do to get paid.

[DanSinnerG]

I am sorely disappointed at the mods on this forum. What I said hardly constituted "abuse"

[Rameez_Khan]

Hi jamesb71228512,

Sorry for your disappointment.

It's not required to have an older version installed but as Gutterfish said, this is the advice that we keep hearing from experienced users all the time. It's not true that we don't quality test our apps prior to release. I am not sure if you know this but not only do we quality check our apps internally but we have a pre-release community of experienced After Effects users that help in testing. There are so many different hardware and software configurations out there that it becomes really difficult to repro every single case in-house. That said, this is not an excuse.

If you might have noticed, After Effects has been getting patch releases almost every month for the last few months showcasing how agile the team is in squashing bugs. They don't want users to wait for a major release to get those bugs fixed. I am hopeful that this bug gets fixed in the upcoming release.

Thanks,

Rameez

[default1vb4o9m0sa3v]

Still happening in AE v18.2.0 & AME v15.2.

Except I don't have any 3rd party or native effects. Just a simple transform timeline animation. Really frustrating for what should be a simple task.

[Rameez_Khan]

Thanks for adding your suggestion, Gutterfish. I completely agree with your point.

[joelf57292415]

Hi, I know the versions of After Effects and Media Encoder are meant to be synced up to work correctly. If I'm using After effects CC2019 (version 16.0.1) what version of Media Encoder am I supposed to try? I've tried multiple older versions, and they all still give the same error. 

[P.M.B]

I believe the most recent version of ME 2019 is 13.1.5.   I thnk in file explorer it should be Media Encoder 2019...to correspond with After Effects 2019. 

[sup3222]

.

[sup3222]

.

[Alex_tps]

Please don't drop your son. It might hurt him.

Also - chill. It's not like you can't work anymore. Install 17.0.5 (it's not like 17.0.6 has some crazy game changing features that you can no longer live without), or simply export form AE to Prores, and feed that Prores to AME. I'm sure we will get a fix soon. 

[sup3222]

.

[P.M.B]

They're aware and trying to fix it.  Spamming won't get any results.  At least not any you'll be happy about 😉  

[Crewman1]

Install previous Ae & AME versions.  Does that mean 2019 or previous 2020?

[Alex_tps]

I just installed previous 2020 of AE - 17.0.5. It worked for me. 

[Crewman1]

My bad, it worked with Ae (17.05, Mar 2020) and AME (14.01,Jan 2020)

[Rameez_Khan]

I meant the 2020 version. Sorry, I should have been precise. I'll edit the post and include that information.

Thanks,

Rameez

[DanSinnerG]

See, these "Adobe Community Professionals" come in here and reply with snark to people but don't even bother to contribute upfront any clarifications like this one - even though it may be relatively easy to test out by using the creative cloud app

[erics64]

I dont think I can go backwards, Im running a 2019 Mac Pro.

Which older versions work on Catalina?

[Rameez_Khan]

Hi erics64,

You just have to go back one dot version - from 17.0.6 to 17.0.5.

Thanks,

Rameez

[ActuallyKillian]

Hi,
I Think I've found a temp work around till they send an update.
I did what I needed to do in AE and saved the project. Then in Media Encoder I went to  FILE - ADD AFTER EFFECT COMPOSITON  and selected the AE project, it recognised the project and I could save the project as a video. 
Worth giving it a try. 
Hope it resolves the issue for you. 

[erics64]

Yea I tried that before and it didnt work.
I just tried it again and got the odd pop-up below.

[donbarrum]

I'm glad to see that this is a common problem, I'm also unable to render pretty much anything except the most simple projects through AME right now and getting this message: "Could not read from the source. Please check if it has moved or been deleted."