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iammichaeldavis10765866
Participating Frequently
July 27, 2012
Answered

What does "After Effects error: Not enough memory to initialize PSL. ( 83 :: 8 )" mean?

  • July 27, 2012
  • 3 replies
  • 25662 views

So, about a week ago I did a fresh install of 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate on a new PC, and subscribed to the Adobe Creative Cloud, installing After Effects CS6 and Photoshop CS6 from the Adobe Application Manager, then doing all updates (and I just checked right now at 10:35PM on July 26th, I have the latest versions of everything).

After Effects was working completely normal, then just now, I tried to import a Photoshop .psd and I got the error message:

After Effects error: Not enough memory to initialize PSL.

( 83 :: 8 )

Then After Effects crashed. So now it opens up normally, but when I try to import a .psd or open an After Effects project saved from an earlier version of After Effects (CS3 to CS5) I get the same error and a crash, every single time.

Searching the forums, I see people talking about this error when importing .psds into CS5, and they say that getting the latest updates solved the issue for them (which obviously can't help me). I'm running all legit software on a brand new computer with 32 GB of RAM which has passed all my physical stress tests so I know it's not hardware related.

The one thing I saw people suggest is to hold down Ctrl-Alt-Shift when starting the program. When I do this, Windows asks if I want to allow After Effects to make changes to the system, and when I say yes, I can import .psds and open the older AE files. When I close After Effects and reopen it without holding down the Ctrl-Alt-Shift keys, it goes right back to crashing.

Obviously the smart-ass answer is "then hold down Ctrl-Alt-Shift, dummy", and I'll do that for now, but is there any clue what the problem is?

I feel like kind of a chump because I decided to stop using my student versions of Adobe software (I haven't been a student for about four years) and pay the full price for the cloud membership and the latest creative suite, and it's full of bugs.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer StevRo

    Finally got to speak to Adobe customer support on the phone. They had me try a number of things that didn't work. First, at a command prompt with administrator privileges, she had me type:

    del %temp%\*.* /s /q

    To clear the temp files out. That didn't fix it. Next, she had me type these lines into the same command prompt:

    icacls "%userprofile%\AppData\Local" /T /C /grant "%username%":F

    icacls "%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming" /T /C /grant "%username%":F

    icacls "%userprofile%\AppData\Local" /T /C /grant system:F

    icacls "%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming" /T /C /grant system:F

    Also didn't change anything. Finally using RegEdit, we went to Computer/HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software and deleted the Adobe folder containing all Adobe registry keys. Also no help, so we restored my registry from a backup we had made. She said that was all her document had for her to try, and that I would need to make a new user account on the computer. When I did that, the new user can indeed open the troublesome projects and import .psds.

    It's not the greatest solution ever, but at least there is one, just in case anyone else has the same issues.


    Hi,

    if on windows machine, make sure the temp/tmp system environmental variables point to  %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp, if it is in a different location, you'll experience crashes in various Production Premium programs (bridge, prelude), not able to import psd in premiere or AE, photoshop gives some strange error on swapfile as it tries to open it up on root of C:.  You can run the individual programs elevated, though dynamic link won't work between programs like PPro/AE.

    Hope it helps.

    3 replies

    Participant
    April 23, 2013

    Well, the good news is that YOU CAN have your AE CS6 working, including dynamic link to AP, and at the time, you can have your user data whenever you want. You just have to create a "fake" temp folder in C:, like this "C:\Users\WHATEVERYOURUSERNAMEIS\AppData\Local\Temp".

    Check all the permissions and ownerships for your user name.

    Then, go to My PC, right click Properties / advanced.../ environment variables... and check that you have both TEMP and TMP pointing to "C:\Users\WHATEVERYOURUSERNAMEIS\AppData\Local\Temp" (hardcoded)

    Restart and there you have.

    Participant
    June 6, 2013

    Luix35... I'm confused by your explaination. I don't see how this allows me to have my temp files on another hard drive. Could you elaborate for people who like me who are as sharp as a marble?

    Thanks

    Participant
    June 10, 2013

    Well, mmMark....

    As far as I remember this issue, it occured to me, and to many others, because we wanted to change Windows's default user location. Say that you want to have ALL your data in a separate drive D: instead of Windows system drive (typically C:). Just in case you want to reinstall your operating system, for instance.

    You can do this without any problem by fiddling a little with the Windows registry an then creating a new user account that will be created wherever you want. By doing this, you are also creating a default temp directory (let's say D:\MyUserName\AppData\Local\Temp) that will be used by nearly all the aplications.

    The problem with After Effects is that it will keep trying to use Window's default temp directory, which is (should be) in C:\. But it is no longer there, because you changed it to your custom location.
    So, basically, the solution is telling After Effects "So, you want a temp directory in c:\? there you have it, just for you. The rest of us will work in D:"... It's a patch, I know, but is easy and harmless, and just to allow AE to start.

    Nevertheless, once AE has started , you can go to preferences and specify where you want your scratch disks and so on... so, all you sensible data would go wherever you want.

    I hope that  After Effects staff will take note of this issue and solve it in future versions.

    iammichaeldavis10765866
    Participating Frequently
    July 31, 2012

    Now, I get the same ( 83 :: 8 ) error listed above, followed by a new dialog window that reads:

    After Effects error: Crash in progress. Last logged message was: <4488> <DynamicLink> <5> C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CS6\Adobe Premiere Pro.exe

    Then, when I click OK, I get:

    After Effects can't continue: sorry, After Effects has crashed. For After Effects Help and Support, go to http://www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_support. If you still can't resolve the issue, please contact Adobe Technical Support (2).

    ( 0 :: 42 )

    Clicking OK to that gives me a chance to save the latest project, then the standard Windows 7 crash dialog window opens, the one that gives me the choice of "Check online for a solution and close the program" or just "Close the program" and lets me View problem details, which are:

    Problem signature:

      Problem Event Name:          APPCRASH

      Application Name:          AfterFX.exe

      Application Version:          11.0.0.378

      Application Timestamp:          4f6d63ab

      Fault Module Name:          StackHash_a85b

      Fault Module Version:          6.1.7601.17725

      Fault Module Timestamp:          4ec4aa8e

      Exception Code:          c0000374

      Exception Offset:          00000000000c40f2

      OS Version:          6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1

      Locale ID:          1033

      Additional Information 1:          a85b

      Additional Information 2:          a85ba096cc6b6acabe6eaf35bf34dc60

      Additional Information 3:          f862

      Additional Information 4:          f86227a9dfa15a47cdb6c94bb0d08360


    Mylenium
    Legend
    July 27, 2012

    Holding down the keys resets the prefs. Se that thread for the exact same suggestion:

    http://forums.adobe.com/thread/950688?tstart=30

    If it doesn't stick, you have a permissions problem or some tool is blocking the file or restoring an old, damaged one. And the permissions issue may exist on a more general level when AE fails to initiaklize the PS component. I had some detailed blurb on theat on my error code database a lifetime ago, but the site is long dead, so I can't point you to any links...

    Mylenium

    iammichaeldavis10765866
    Participating Frequently
    July 27, 2012

    I had read that they were supposed to reset the preferences, but for me nothing seems to get reset (my workspace is still my custom workspace, and the Media & Disk Cache and Memory & Multiprocessing settings that I have changed are still changed) it just allows me to open projects. It turns out I can't RAM preview or render like this, however. When I reset After Effects, again without holding down Ctrl-Alt-Shift, I can open native CS6 projects that do not have .psds referenced in them, and can render them, and can RAM preview.

    Rebooting hasn't helped either, for the record

    iammichaeldavis10765866
    Participating Frequently
    July 31, 2012

    Have you actually verified the prefs files have been deleted (and workspace files, for that matter, too)? Check your user Folder:

    C:\Users\Michael\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects etc.

    Mylenium


    I just uninstalled again, and checked for that folder (C:\Users\Davis\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects), and it was still there, so I manually deleted it, rebooted, ran CCleaner, then reinstalled After Effects. No luck, same exact issue.