"Error compiling movie. Unknown Error." OR program crash when rendering

[ERP12]

When rendering in Premiere Pro CC I get the messge "Error compiling movie. Unknown Error." OR the program crashes.

-Adobe Premiere Pro CC V 7.0.0 (342)

-ASUS Z87-A, Intel Core i7 4 core, 16gb RAM

-450gb+ disc space

-Also installed: After Effects, Adobe Media Encoder

-All recent updates installed

-Windows7 64bit

-I am using all programs through Creative Cloud

-Footage is AVCHD 720p but doesn't work with .mts or .mp4 files

-I am trying to render speed and simple cross dissolves. Neither are working

-This has happened before on a friend's desktop. I was using his machine to edit on while I was in the process of building mine. He got the same error when I was trying to export. I restarted and the issue was fine. Restarting on my machine has not solved the issue. This leads me to think it is a bug in the program?

-I have been running After Effects and it has worked flawlessly.

Help!?

[jpelc]

I will have to keep that in mind the next time I have this issue. Most of the time it has been on 23.976 fps DSLR footage and I believe the sequence had the same frame rate as well

[donniek87301663]

I am having the same problem with rendering working with RED files. I can't get a simple crossover to render without "error compile movie" message. Read and tried every scenario on this forum and still stuck. HOW IS ADOBE NOT ADDRESSING THIS ISSUE FOR MONTHS? REALLY! I believe this is the end of the road for premiere and I. Wonder how many clients Adobe will lose due to their neglect to resolve this issue? Why are you hiding behind this forum waiting for customers to resolve the issue for you? I am only a trial user with 2 days left and I honestly didn't even get a chance to use your faulty product. WOW! Bad rep for this all over the Internet and still no answer from you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARE U LISTENING TO YOUR POTENTIAL AND EXISTING CLIENTS???

[Annika König]

Hello,

I don't know if this helps, but we had the same issues working in XDCAM HD422 PAL sequences with mxfs. When exporting we make sure that smart rendering is disabled. For a little more speed we enable use previews. To absolutely be sure that there is no smart rendering do the following:

go to the console by hitting cmd+f12

change these two options to "true" (write the word "true" when it says "false"):

DisableSmartRendering_FAST_SR_Option

DisableSmartRenderingCS601

It seems to be a problem with Main Concept. I heard that there should be a fix soon.

[donniek87301663]

I'm not having a problem exporting video files at all. The problem that I am having is rendering any transitions or effects within the time line once I apply them. It will start to render the effect slow then it seems to speed up and then give the preview error compiling movie. However I will try your solution. Does adobe have a number to call and trouble shoot these situations, I really want to buy this product but I have big jobs lined up and can't wait.

[tariqmediaeasier]

I have spent countless hours finding a solution to this problem, and here it is:::

1) File > Export > Media (Export settings window opens)

2) IMPORTANT, Select 'Queue' button (Adobe Media Encoder launches)

3) Add whatever preset or custom settings to your file. IMPORTANT - At the bottom of the Queue window is a dropdown button labeled 'Renderer', it is vital for this to work that you change this to 'Mercury Playback Engine Software Only'

4) Now render to a location with plenty of free space

It's a lot slower but will work and get you out of trouble X

[davids54320253]

What seems to work for me is manually rendering the sequences. Premiere will give an error if for some stupid reason it can't render a sequence, clip, selection, effect, etc. So you can do process of elimination fairly easily to find out what's grinding Premiere's gears.

[leifn57768593]

I could try to manually render the sequence, it that works. That would give one hour of uncompressed avi files, that is huge. I am to use pre rendered files for my export, I want good quality, but AVI seems to be overkill. I export in h.264 1080p, ist there any other format for the preview renders I can use that wont be so huge, but still keep enough qualtity?

[helenl88998141]

I had same problem. Couldnt export without it throwing up the unknown error at varying percentages of completion. Spent hours trying to fix. What finally worked was updating my software on macbook pro. THere's a fix for apps like premiere pro handling xml's better.  So try updating your software.

[leifn57768593]

Helene. Thanks, I have PC, and premiere pro is up to date.... if it is premiere pro u mean that u did update?

[helenl88998141]

No not a premiere pro update but a system update. On macs there's a software update you can do to update your computers functionality. The update that I did said it was a fix so several hd formats including xml. Check your version of quicktime is current and anything else you may use with premiere. Good luck. Premiere is one clunky beast.

[Steve@TheMills.org]

I am a novice at PP CC. In my limited experience, crashes in rendering occur for many reasons. I have never had it crash from the images being too large. Most of my videos include very high risk photos (3K by 5K) that I pan and zoom. But, by rendering smaller segments of the project, I'll find a single video that crashes the system. Once, it was a corrupt or incompatible source video file. I processed it with Handbrake, replaced it and it worked. Just  now, I had a GoPro video with correction of color, levels and shadows that it could not handle. Removed these things and it compiles fine.

[Steve@TheMills.org]

high "res" photos...

[leifn57768593]

A high end software must be able to use hig res photos??

[mixlevi]

My solution was:

i had nested sequences, the master sequence was setup for dslr footages, the nested ones was for gopro-s. i had one nested with a lots of gopro footages. i separated them into new sequences (only one footage in one sequence) and it worked!

(sry for my bad english)

[leifn57768593]

Ok, thanks. But I cant do that, its a one hour movie..... a mix of photos and videos

[zc169492]

This only happened when I updated to Premiere CC 2015. My project was working properly - updated and saved over project for some reason and cannot revert. Never had exporting issues until the update. Spent all morning talking to Adobe Tech Support. He told me that I would need to export XML and replace all links in new project.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi ZC,

This only happened when I updated to Premiere CC 2015. My project was working properly - updated and saved over project for some reason and cannot revert. Never had exporting issues until the update. Spent all morning talking to Adobe Tech Support. He told me that I would need to export XML and replace all links in new project.

It is not recommended editing protocol to update your project file format midway through a project. See this blog post I recently wrote, it's more my opinion that an Adobe troubleshooting doc: Updating and backing up project files: best practices

Hope this assists you with safeguarding all your projects.

Kevin

[zc169492]

My problem: Could not export sequence - would get stuck at 4% and then eventually the 'error compile' message would pop up.

Solution: corrupt footage where export got stuck, in my case it was the first clip (@ 4%). Removed footage from project and imported again.

[GrizzlyAK]

I found the same thing to be true zc. After wasting hours going through each clip to find the culprit (which I didn't), I just copied the entire timeline, and pasted it into a new sequence, with no other changes, and it worked just fine. So, in this case, I'd say it rules out the expectation that it is a clip that has become corrupted (how does that happen anyway on a non-destructive editing system) or is bad, and rather that this is a case of the internal timeline logic getting hosed inside Pr.

[Kevin-Monahan]

I found the same thing to be true zc. After wasting hours going through each clip to find the culprit (which I didn't), I just copied the entire timeline, and pasted it into a new sequence, with no other changes, and it worked just fine.

Hi G.A.K.
Actually, that's true. Sometimes a sequence becomes corrupt and copy/pasting it into a new one can solve issues. Thanks for reminding me of that common troubleshooting technique for export.

It rules out the expectation that it is a clip that has become corrupted (how does that happen anyway on a non-destructive editing system) or is bad, and rather that this is a case of the internal timeline logic getting hosed inside Pr.

You're right. It may be faster to check for sequence corruption rather than individual clip corruption when troubleshooting. BTW, I don't know why clips become corrupt. They just do for a variety of reasons.

Thanks for the comment.

Regards,
Kevin

[escaped.light]

Is there a number I can give my client to phone Adobe?

I don't want to explain to him myself why my $800/Year professional software suite is unable to complete the project he's already paid me for and that I told him was nearly complete.

Also explain to him how this problem has been reported for nearly Two years without so much as an adequate solution offered and how my hands have seemingly been tied by you.

I'm livid right now, and if I have to search another Hundred posts to find another attempted solution, I am likely to put my fist through my monitor.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi E.L.,

Is there a number I can give my client to phone Adobe?

Are you (and your client) a Creative Cloud customer? If so, use the contact wizard to find the correct phone number for your region and product: Contact Customer Care

You also get a chat going with our agent here, then ask to be transferred to the "video queue" phone line (note, you get put into a phone queue here, so response may take some time. Our staff is reduced this week because of our company-wide shut down, so response time may be longer this week). BTW, which version of Premiere Pro are you using?

I don't want to explain to him myself why my $800/Year professional software suite is unable to complete the project he's already paid me for and that I told him was nearly complete.

For this error, you have to inspect the timeline while encoding to discover the potential file that is throwing the error. This can be a corrupt clip, title, preview file, etc. that needs to be replaced before you can export. This is a common issue that happens from time to time which requires troubleshooting on your part. Sorry.

Also explain to him how this problem has been reported for nearly Two years without so much as an adequate solution offered and how my hands have seemingly been tied by you.

We have no control over a file which becomes corrupt on your computer hard drive in the course of editing and exporting. There are a number of reasons why an exporting error might happen. There is no "adequate solution" because of the nature of NLE editing. There are a lot of reasons a bad clip can trigger an export warning.

I'm livid right now, and if I have to search another Hundred posts to find another attempted solution, I am likely to put my fist through my monitor.

Don't do that. Contact support. They'll help you through this. The video queue is open M-F 7AM to 7PM PST. Give them a call. Again, sorry that you're experiencing this frustrating error.

Thanks,
Kevin

[vanlazarus2013]

Hi Kevin,

Unfortunately, this Unknown Error while compiling bug is caused by many reasons.  Perhaps ONE of them may be corrupt media, but I assure you that when I've attempted to troubleshoot this bug when I encountered it, it was most certainly NOT corrupt media because the bug danced around like a moth in a tornado.  When I changed or removed one media element on the timeline that seemed to be causing it, the unknown error hit at another point in the timeline.  The last few times I've encountered this bug, I switched AME to Software Only, and while I endured 5 times longer render times, at least it rendered!

The biggest problem here is the Adobe error reporting.  One vague and completely unhelpful error message: Unknown error, is a complete waste of everyone's time and does nothing to narrow down this extensive bug with many possible causes.  It is completely infuriating and strikes at seemingly random moments.  I still get it occasionally on my feature project... and then it GOES AWAY, without changing any media.

While your efforts to help people that encounter it here are appreciated, it would be FAR more useful for some of the engineers to start reporting some useful error codes when a problem is encountered during render.  Even an Error 234328 is more useful than a completely pointless Unknown Error.  Certainly the code knows what it is doing at the point it fails, and can at least report what it was doing and on what media when it failed.  I don't understand how this crippling (and Adobe brand damaging) bug has dragged on for more than 2 years! 

I've been exactly where Escaped.Light is now a number of times... and see the army of people before him on this thread... and still see NOTHING done in the code to address this horrible bug.  We just had another version of Premiere CC come and go without at least a visible attempt to narrow down this problem.  This is just simply not the behavior of professional software, and if you think that this is acceptable in professional software, then Adobe's standard of 'professional' needs to be raised.

Michael

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi there, Michael,

Unfortunately, this Unknown Error while compiling bug is caused by many reasons.  Perhaps ONE of them may be corrupt media, but I assure you that when I've attempted to troubleshoot this bug when I encountered it, it was most certainly NOT corrupt media because the bug danced around like a moth in a tornado.  When I changed or removed one media element on the timeline that seemed to be causing it, the unknown error hit at another point in the timeline.  The last few times I've encountered this bug, I switched AME to Software Only, and while I endured 5 times longer render times, at least it rendered.

I agree that corrupt clips (or corrupt sequences) are only the most common culprits of this error and, therefore, should be looked at first. With those steps exhausted, we can look at issues caused by deeper problems. In some cases, updating project files from one major version to the next can also cause a lot of issues, as the entire project can become corrupted and incapable of exporting normally.

I agree that the detective work required to get out of this problem can sometimes be very frustrating, indeed!

The biggest problem here is the Adobe error reporting.  One vague and completely unhelpful error message: Unknown error, is a complete waste of everyone's time and does nothing to narrow down this extensive bug with many possible causes.  It is completely infuriating and strikes at seemingly random moments.  I still get it occasionally on my feature project... and then it GOES AWAY, without changing any media.

I agree with you very much, in this regard. Errors should be more precise and I am always raising that issue with the engineering team. It would make life a lot easier if this one error were more helpful. Join me in creating a feature request/bug report for this specific case: http://adobe.ly/ReportBug

While your efforts to help people that encounter it here are appreciated, it would be FAR more useful for some of the engineers to start reporting some useful error codes when a problem is encountered during render.  Even an Error 234328 is more useful than a completely pointless Unknown Error.  Certainly the code knows what it is doing at the point it fails, and can at least report what it was doing and on what media when it failed.  I don't understand how this crippling (and Adobe brand damaging) bug has dragged on for more than 2 years!

I agree. I will make a renewed effort to get some progress in this regard. Thanks for your comments.

and still see NOTHING done in the code to address this horrible bug.

Corrupt clips, sequences, and projects preventing exports will always be an issue. I don't think any NLE is perfect in this regard. The bigger issue is the one you mentioned. Better error messaging so users won't be left in the dark and can make adjustments to assist future exports.

Best regards,

Kevin

[simonspear]

I completely agree with previous comments that this is not ONE bug but MANY bugs which have all been labled as an 'unknown error'.

Like many of you on this thread this happens to me repeatedly, on random projects, for random reasons and I have spent literally WEEKS trying to troubleshoot this over the last few years.  I normally end up finding a solution (so don't give up!), but who is going to compensate me for the loss of productivity?   Who is going to explain to my clients that their deliverable is late due to buggy software?  It just makes us the users look unprofessional when all we have done is to trust Adobe to produce a reliable piece of software.

So all you banging your heads against your desks or just about to throw your computer out of the window - DON'T GIVE UP!  There will be a solution.  To Adobe - SHAME ON YOU for allowing this to continue for so many years.  All software has bugs and quirks, but to not give a meaningful bug report and instead to put the onus onto your customers to go through an often lengthy troubleshooting process is unforgivable.

and don't even get me started on the constant random crashes on the new MacPro......