Premiere Elements 14 no longer renders work area

[Guest]

When I click the render button (or choose Timeline>Render Work Area) instead of rendering, it simply plays the video. A month ago it would render, but no longer.

System: Win7, 4th gen i5, 16GB RAM, 250GB SSD, 1TB HDD

Adobe Premiere Elements 14.1 (says up-to-date)

How do I fix this? Thank you!

[Bill Sprague · Accepted solution]

Does it need to render a preview?    

You might be able to "encourage" it to think rendering is necessary.   In the Timeling menu is a choice to Delete Rendered Files for All Projects.   That should trigger a need to make new rendered files. 

[Guest]

"Delete Rendered Files for All Projects" did it! Not sure why it was clogged up before, but now it works again. Thank you for such an easy fix!

[Guest]

So, the problem is back. "Delete Rendered Files for All Projects" no longer encourages the program to render the work area. It worked for a couple projects, but for the last two new ones, I cannot get it to render the work area. Any other tricks to get the work area rendering again?

[Bill Sprague]

Thanks for the "did it" reply.  We don't always get feedback.  It is rewarding when we do.

[Guest]

BTW, how much disk space does the "render work area" typically take up, say for a 60-minute video, 1080p? Are we talking 50MB or 500MB?

[Bill Sprague]

With my old computer, I maintained 50 GB of free space and I was worried that was "cramped".   My new computer has ten times that.  You can certainly try your project with 50 or 500 MB of space.  If it works you're good!  If not, no harm done.  

[Bill Sprague]

You can manually delete the preview files using the operating system.  They are in a folder called "Adobe Premiere Elements Video Previews"