Why does "time span" in my render queue occasionally default to "custom" instead of work area only?

[noahshipman]

This drives me crazy. Every now and then when I render something out of AE's native render queue, I find that the export has only rendered part of my comp. The vast majority of the time it renders fine, but then sometimes a few frames have cut off from either the beginning or the ending of my comp, and other times it's only around half the comp that has rendered. I've discovered that the problem is that in my render settings, sometimes "time span" has defaulted to "Custom..." rather than "work area only". When I change it back, it renders properly.

This is quite annoying, because whenever it deciedes to default to this it feels rather arbitrary, and it is also so subtle that I often don't catch it until after I've sent it off to the client or something. Is there a reason it does this, and is there a way to prevent it so that I don't have to double check each and every time I render? It happens maybe 1 in 100 times. It's led to some very, very frustrating outcomes

[Rick Gerard]

The Render Queue can remember the last setting for the Output Module and the Render Settings used in the same project. Try using the presets for both instead of customizing the settings. 

If the presets are fouled up try resetting your Preferences.

[noahshipman]

Hi Rick, I have never customized the settings. It is not my doing. I never go into the settings when I render things -- I usually just trust that it has defaulted to "work area" like it usually does. My problem is that it occasionally defaults to "custom" instead of work area, and I cannot understand what triggers this. The "custom" time span it decides to render is essentially arbitrary to me, not anthing that I intentionally designated -- it could be the my comp minus the first few frames, half of it, whatever. I do not understand. Ideally, I would just be able to render things without having to double check each time what it's actually rendering. I may try resetting my preferences