"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!?

[Keith Moreau]

@ocube I can't see the procedure that the MKlife discussed, are you saying to clear the sequence in and out points before encoding will fix the unknown error problem?

[ocube]

@Keith -

Yes, removing squence in and out points from the timeline solved the problem for me.

[npfilms]

So far in my couple of tests I've been able to run on troubled projects/sequences this simple solution of removing in and out points on the timeline has worked consistently.  This unbelievable solution has, at least for the time being, worked well.  Will update if it does not continue to be so in the future. @chrisc_305

It was so simple that I neglected to try it - THANK YOU!!!

[stretchdavea]

Cant get to the bottom of this. Seems to be a memory thing.

Forgive if this is already covered.

Error message comes up when renderer reaches graphic. In this big project, if I replace with a 50% sized graphic, we can render ok. I think(see below)

IF I open a new project and slap the LARGE version of the graphic on a timeline by itself it renders just fine.

There is an answer in this somewhere.

I have 27 gig of RAM allocated to premiere and checked activity monitor-plenty of free ram.

Hmmmm. The reason I dont like this sort of error is that I cant pre test any graphics that might cause issues as they seem to be just fine until the project grows. Now I have around 100 graphics clips in my hour long documentary. All graded. Many with motion applied.

OK. So I take motion off one clip. And it renders. Oh, so thats it...! I go back to the previous clip which I had REPLACED with a smaller 50% sized clip that had rendered just fine not five minutes previously. Remove all effects. Now it wont render.

Like the work around that Steve has given, but we are still working on the project and would like a rendered version to watch through before amending.

BTW this was happening on 7.0 and 7.1. Makes no difference.

I have now opened a brand new project. Imported the timeline(full of mislinked files BTW!) and the files causing the issue are good and render just fine.

So it isnt the file size. It isnt the FX. It isnt Motion. Corrupt project? Why just graphics clips? Must be memory issue. They are biggish files, but how big is too big? And why do they sometimes render and sometimes not?

More questions than answers, but hopefully I am getting closer to an answer, or will have helped one of you guys rule out some ideas. Might save you some time.

I have already spent hours upon hours on this, but I am not giving up. Yet.

Dave Armstrong

[JerryTaiwan]

I have recorded o na format 1920x1088,I have had the same problem amd I think I found a way to solve this.

First, add a new sequence with the same format you are outputting, say choose a DV wide screen if you want to output a 16:9 DVD.or any standard preset profile listed.

Then drag the edited sequence onto this newly added sequence,a screen will pop out ask if you want to change the setting, choose yes.

Ctrl+M to export . This works for me , hope will solve your problem.

[stretchdavea]

Thanks for that-I will try it out. You mean to nest the sequence in th enew sequence?

Does it matter what output format you chose?

This is still not good that we have to find a work around!

Thanks again

Dave

[JerryTaiwan]

Wow !

Sorry for late reply ! I just see this now and hope this will help the others ,too.

No matter what output format you're choosing, just make sure it's a Adobe Preset profile.

I believe this has something to do with the Cuda,especially you're outputting to a profile that's not match preset profile.

Let me know if you've solve the problem.

Jerry

[geofftechUK]

Did you ever get a solution to this? I have almost EXACTLT the same problem!

Asus87-Pro motherboard, 16Gb of memory with a clean install of Win7 64 bit.

trying to render even a simple cross disolved causes the "unknown" error the first time, then a complete crash of Premiere CC the second time.  it is nothing to do with the movie clip, have used plenty - ones that worked before on a previous build machine (older, slower processor).

all that has changed for me is the upgrade to an i7 processor. and it is DRIVING ME MAD. and i can't get any work done, and am literally close to tears in frustration.

any help!?

[JerryTaiwan]

This is my work around :

open a new preset profile that matches your output format.

Select your working sequence, drag to this newly opened seq, then a pop out screen ask if you wan to change the setting, choose yes.

Now you should be good to output this timeline.

[stretchdavea]

Thanks for that. The latest error I had, I managed to export ONLY after rendering the sequence. HOWEVER, I changed the to the OPEN CL rather than the CUDA driver. I think this may be part of it.

Whatever the case, its not good enough!! The fact that we have cross platform errors as posted by geofftechUK is an indication that workarounds may be many! That makes it much harder to pinpoint what the hell is going on.! My colleage fount that removing all audio worked. She then had to bring the exported video back in and reexport.

Have a bug report in, but I think this will just keep on recurring. Down to Adobe I feel....

Dave

[stretchdavea]

our replies crossed-interesting you feel its a cuda issue too. As I say, I changed to OPEN CL, but I think that is MAC? You dont want to render without an accelerator, or you could be rendering til Christmas!

[geofftechUK]

Nope, none of this works for me.  I have an OpenCL driver, but not CUDA but it makes no difference. Neither does having a preset sequence.

At 88% in to the render (whether on the original project timeline, or a new one from a preset -      with or without the OpenCL renderer being used) it hangs (first time), and then crashes (the second), on footage & projects that if I copy to my laptop it works fine on.   This is extremely ridculous.

Also, i don't want a 'workaround' i want it fixed.  There is a bug in Premiere.    

[JerryTaiwan]

Sorry can't help further.

this is a question for Adobe.

[JerryTaiwan]

Try to delete the old peaking file generated .

It solve my problem once or two.

[geofftechUK]

Jerry, thx! appreciated... but i installed WIndows 7 on a brand new formatted hard disk.  i install Premiere CC, and start a new project, new sequence, import video.   Do a transition between two clips that causes a 'red line render', and when I render... Crashes! always at 90% into the tender.  so there isn't a 'previous' peaking file!    this is a very severe bug in Premiere...

[screenname_abc]

Hi,

I have been having this problem and still am having this problem. Here are some tips that do fix it.  I have found lots of issues... ways of fixxing it.  You just can't tell when it is going to happen but try all of these and maybe it will work for you.

1 - Save project.  Close Premiere.  Reboot your system.  Don't open anything else just premiere.  Select in point and out point and hit render.  Easy, yes but sometimes this works for me.

2 - Save project.  Close Premiere.  Go to the folder your edit project is saved in and delete the Adobe Preview Files folder.  Open Premiere, it will notice there are preview files missing.  "Skip All".  Then select entire project and hit render.

3 - If it is throwing up the error message at the exact same point go into your bins and check that there are no files that are not linked.  This is hard to explain but I had a bin that had some bitmaps and I deleted the bmps.  Then when I wa hitting render it kept doing it exact same space.  In my bin it was just showing as the files not being linked (which I hought wouldn't be a problem, but I had to actually delete everything form the bin that wasn't linked to actual footage.  That solved a major problem for me.  I had been trying for about 2 days to do that.

4 - Delete your LUTs if you are using them and ONLY put add them at the very final stage.  It is not good to do the edit with them on as it takes much longer to render.  I delete the LUTs and then hit render and it worked.

5 - Go to your garden, get a brick... smash that into the screen and go to bed!!!  It doesn't fix the problem but will maybe make you feel a bit better!

I am working on a 75 minute documentary for broadcast.  REALLY NOT COOL ADOBE!!!  NEEDS TO BE FIXED NOW!!!  this is not pro software.  I simply can't render the whole project off and I switched from Avid for this.  BAAADDDD!!!! Avid may have its problems but at least you can finish the project.  6 hours I spent tonight just trying to render a preview of 75 min project.  Crashes about 70%.

I also find... 75 minute project.  When I open the project it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to generate all the peak files etc etc.....  I litterally cannot do anything until all the files have loaded in.  I hav about 1000 files.  It takes ages.  I have to sit, wait, not touch anything.. for agaes and ages and ages...  That also needs to be fixed. 

Good luck guys...

and Adobe...

So many people posting this since Sept 2013 and we are not into March 2014.  NOT COOL!!!!!

Sorry I have been using CAPS... very angry

Peace and good luck!!!

PS... Maybe smaller projects (music videos etc) it works fine, I don't encounter this problem at all.

PPS.... Keep the timeline tidy.  Don't layer up unless you need to.

[stretchdavea]

Thanks for all of these tips.  I have been close to throwing in the towel with premiere so many times, however there are so many good things that are just great. HOWEVER, if you cant output your project, then you may as well have not bothered in the first place.

I agree that on smaller projects I dont seem to have as many issues, although on the last project I only had a 10 minute piece to output. It was graded and I had been using direct link.

We just dont have tiime to play bug sleuth. I enjoy problem solving at the best of times, but we all have stupid things like deadlines & clients that dont really care about our software woes.

Dave

[geofftechUK]

So, after another longer-than-an-hour phonecall with an Adobe Tech last night, we found two things:

1. My new Win7 build had a different audio device, and Premiere didn't like it.  Reinstalling the latest audio drivers got a sequence to render which previously wouldn't.   Tip for video : Check your audio!

2. It still didn't work in some cases, until.. we went to 'Sequence' and change the Edit Mode to be 'Custom' and then at the bottom, change the Preview File Format to Microsoft AVI (the default sequence has choseen IFrame only MPEG).    It doesn't seem to matter what coded you then selected  - they call worked.  WIth this, all my sequences then rendered!

The tech told me that this was the case for .M2T files (which i usally record and work with), but I later found that a project with footage shot on a Nikon D5100 with all .MOV files also wouldn't render, until I changed the sequence settings to Microsoft AVI... yes, for .MOV files!  So it's not .M2T specific.

Also, none of this explains why all these projects and sequences worked fine on my old Intel Core 2 machnes, but upgrading to an new motherboard with Intel i7 chip made this all break.

But there you go people.. on a Windows machine, try setting the the Preview File Format to 'Microsoft AVI' and see what it does for you...

[screenname_abc]

---"Tip for video : Check your audio!"----

haha... nice... I have been editing for 20 years and that's a first

[screenname_abc]

I am on an old Core 2 duo I think, Win 7.. It's an old machine, 8GB Ram, Quadro 4000.  Mainly using .MOV from Canon 5D and/or .MTS (I forget the file name exactly) from Sony FS700.  It happens on both sorts of files for me.

I do all my project as custom and it still works.  I like the idea of changing the preview file format.  Not tried that.  Thanks

[geofftechUK]

I too think that something changed back in Septembe with an update, 6 months on and it's still not fixed.  Adobe -> YOU NEED TO FIX TH

Good luck, _abc!  Let me know if the Preview File Format work.  it's been a minor miracle for me.. currently going through every projects i'm working on right now (about 8 paying projects, and everyone is chasing me because i'm now so behind!) and so far, so good

Also : buying a new modern soundcard!

[tvtruth]

I just had this same issue and found an amazingly quick workaround. I moved one of the video tracks that I suspected of being the offender from V4 to V2 and the error message went away and it rendered just fine. Not sure why swapping this order of what was on the tracks worked but it did!

[JMC27]

I'm having a similar issue as well, and this isn't the first time.  Usually when I get this error it goes hand in hand with a video clip that seems "corrupt" in premiere.  When you hit a certain frame of it the video freezes, audio stops, and you get a somewhat unresponsive computer until you move your curser to a spot on that clip BEFORE the "bad" frame.  I'm not even able to export this latest sequence that I'm having the issue with (rendered or not).  We've had issues like this before where we would check the clip elsewhere in a viewer and it would play through just fine.  Running out of ideas here.

[Jacout13]

Hello,

I have the same problem with PP CS6  and right now with PP CC.

After "monitoring the rendering with free software GPU-Z 0.7.7, I discovered that the "Error while compiling movie - Unknown error" appeared when the "UTIL" settings was displayed (PËRFCAP REASON).

This crash might be caused by CUDA (it never appeared with "Soft render only").

The only way I use to resume the rendering is :

- save the project,

- close PP CS6  or PP CC,

- open Pp CC or PP CS6,

- load the project,

- resume the rendering.

Adobe support has no solution or ignore the problem.

[screenname_abc]

ADOBE - YOU NEED TO SORT THIS OUT!!!

CAN SOMEONE FROM ADOBE PLEASE RESPOND!!!

WHAT IS YOUR PLANNED FIX?

IS THERE A REFUND or COMPENSATION FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE PAID FOR CC FOR OVER A YEAR AND ARE BLIGHTED WITH THIS?

FIX IT ADOBE!!!