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

Community Beginner ,
Jun 24, 2013 Jun 24, 2013

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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!?

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Adobe Employee , Jan 18, 2022 Jan 18, 2022

Hi,

This is an old post describing a generic problem. Create a new post with your system details, info about your media, and screenshots of any error dialog boxes you get. Crash reports also help. Feel free to attach those. Sorry for this issue, but with info, it can be solved.

 

Help documentation may assist this issue: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/error-compiling-movie-rendering-or.html

 

This post is locked.

 

Thanks,

Kevin

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Adobe Employee ,
Jun 28, 2013 Jun 28, 2013

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When I'm troubleshooting this kind of issue, I do one of the following

  • start with a simple sequence and add one variable at a time, rendering or exporting after each step
  • divide the sequence in two and render/export each half; if one half works and the other fails, then repeat with the half that failed.

Does your sequence contain any still images or frame sequences with dimensions greater than 1920x1080?

If you have GPU acceleration enabled, try switching to software-only. 

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New Here ,
Jul 10, 2013 Jul 10, 2013

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I really can't understand why this issue with pictures bigger then 1920*1080 has not been fixed yet. The program refuses to render or hangs with big jpegs since cs5. In my opinion a serious NLE should be able to handle these files..

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Explorer ,
Oct 17, 2013 Oct 17, 2013

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I've done all the troubleshooting there is to do with this error. I might possibly have figured out the cause of these errors, which are killing my productivity. Here's the scenario;

16 or so minute timeline with 12 layers of video stacked up on it. The video zooms into the screen and zooms out (only way to explain the techcnique) but is there in the background. There is also a heavy use of Dynamic Linked AE compositions and some pictures). Sound is pretty simple. When I go to render with Mercury Playback Engine enabled, the timeline render or the export dies. It doesn't matter which one I attempt.

I thought this might be a computer issue, so I switched to a clean machine that's being put in service. Both machines though have nVidia Quadro cards (different ones). Both computers have 32GB of ram and are using SSD drives with plenty of headroom.

When I turn the MPE off by going to software only, it will render at about the same speed as my computer did in 1999 and that was with a special render card.

This is pretty intolerable and I'm believeing that since the timeline will render and the video will export with the MPE through the video card turned off, that it must be a problem with the MPE. The video cards are listed on the acceptable card web page.

Any hope at all of getting this problem fixed...and lots of people I know have this...in the (very) near term. It's a huge bug in the software ecosystem that Adobe is trying to create with CC and really needs to be addressed. "Unknown error" indeed. The system knows what happened if the thread dies.

One other note: This particular video is NTSC widescreen (because of client issues) and there are no HD clips mixed in. It's purely old standard definition video.

Thanks!

steve

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Contributor ,
Oct 17, 2013 Oct 17, 2013

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One other thing to try.  I have had projects with a sequence setting of 29.97 FPS (drop frame) and the addition of a file at 30 FPS (non-drop frame) will cause the "unknown error" on export.  Using the "modify" option on the clip to chane it to 29.97 FPS often fixes the problem.

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Explorer ,
Oct 17, 2013 Oct 17, 2013

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Been there. No joy.

This is a pretty serious bug in the Creative Cloud. I can't deliver my work and that's a bad thing. I can export it as an .avi without using the MPE, but that takes hours. The resulting file size is well over 2GB, so not practical to upload.

Thanks for the idea though.

Steve

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Explorer ,
Oct 17, 2013 Oct 17, 2013

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Update: I've found a (very clumsy) work around for this problem.

1. Export the part of the timeline that's giving you trouble. Use the uncompressed avi settings and export both audio and video.

2. Open up a new AE composition in the size of the video you're going to send back to Premiere Pro. Save the composition. It doesn't matter if it's in a new project or an existing project. In my case, it was another composition (of 42) in the project for this video.

3. Dynamically link the composition to the Premiere Pro project.

4. Place it exactly where it needs to be on the timeline.

5. Render the files

6. Export

Overall, this takes less time than trying to export a 16 minute move in 'software only' mode of the Mercury Playback Engine.

Hope this helps anyone who has had these problems.

Steve

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New Here ,
Oct 20, 2015 Oct 20, 2015

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Hi, I had this same problem and for a few days I could not figure out why I kept getting this after trying multiple things to try and remedy this. I started rendering my timeline in sections to see if it was a specific clip. As I was doing this I noticed that the rendering was working now depending on the section that was being rendered. Long-story-short I realized soon after that it was an effect that I added that was causing this error message. The specific effect was the "RGB Color Corrector". Once I disabled it everything worked great! Hope this helped!

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Explorer ,
Oct 20, 2015 Oct 20, 2015

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I had this problem, all the time, in every project. Some times it hangs on an effect, like a transistion or something, sometimes it just crash in a clip or a photo. Sometimes it can be resolved as u say, some times not, and since my projects are long, about an hour, it can hang on several spots. Also, if I try to export in maximum settings, it uasuall always fails.

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Participant ,
Oct 21, 2015 Oct 21, 2015

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Any software, especialliy one that calls itselfs professional, should never ever present an error called "unknown error". A software that does not create a proper error log with details why it happened and that does not allow the programmer immediately to understand where and why a programing error occured is not a software made by state of the art development practices. If those things occure the manufacturerer should pay compensations to teh customer for the multiple testing hours spend on those issues. Customers are customers and unpaid developers and testers! For every bug that is known and not fixed in a resonable time (couple of weeks) the customer should get a partly payback of the software cost, because the software doesn't have all the features that it was sold with. This would make it cheaper for the manufaturers to write better software from the beginnjing instead of using the customer to do eh work for free that the company should have paid someone for! If I would have been paid of for the time I spent on bugs not only with Adobe software I would be a millionaire.

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Engaged ,
Oct 21, 2015 Oct 21, 2015

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This problem has existed for years and STILL Adobe hasn't improved the error reporting to help narrow down the MULTIPLE bugs that are causing this problem.  Just curious, are you using the latest CC release of Premiere?

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Explorer ,
Oct 21, 2015 Oct 21, 2015

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I agree, Adobe wont fix nothing.

Yes I use the lates version, I have creative cloud.

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New Here ,
Oct 25, 2015 Oct 25, 2015

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It's the same for me. If i try to export a 4K Video with maximum settings it usually always fails. If i export with lower quality it works sometimes and sometimes not, even if i don´t change anything in the project.

I pay so much money every month for this software, a unknown error should not happen in well programmed software.

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Enthusiast ,
Jun 05, 2014 Jun 05, 2014

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THIS.

IS.

A.

NIGHTMARE!

In two years of using Premiere Pro CS6 and then CC, I have never experienced a bug so frustrating. I use the same settings, the same codec, the same media, the same cameras, the same computer for all my projects. And now, all of a sudden I can't export any edit because of this error. The first time I had this issue, I was editing a video to bring to a Wedding, and spent about 6 hours completely stressed as I watched the clock on the day of the Wedding as I was hitting this error over and over. I tried pretty much everything in this thread. Eventually, I rendered the sequence and then when it hit the error, I made changes to that edit and then it would continue rendering, until the next time it hits the error later in the timeline. Then I repeat and make arbitrary changes to that edit (like adjusting the clip before and after, etc.) and then when eventually it renders through it and I get to the end I can export the video. That day, after 6 hours, I was able to finally export the video and get on the road to the wedding only 10 minutes late. I chalked it up to "maybe this had to do with the fact that with that project I used a couple new cameras with different codecs, etc" But now my next project, the errors are back and this time my footage is the same media, the same codecs, the same cameras as I've always used for the last 4 years! I've tried changing the codec in the settings, turning off GPU, cleaned cache, etc. No luck. THE PROBLEM IS I'M NOW MAKING RANDOM ADJUSTMENTS TO EDITS THAT WERE SET PERFECTLY TO MUSIC, ETC.  I have to alter my edit to get through it. And this time my little alterations aren't always working. I've spent now 2 hours trying to get through this video and I'm about 3 minutes through an hour long video!!! The other issue is that before this last project I NEVER rendered anything at all. Ever. Now I'm having to render stuff. There are no special effects or anything unusual about any of the clips or timeline. It's the same as I've always done with hundreds of projects before it.

Bug report filed. I'm completely at a loss as to what to do here. The amount of time I'm wasting is unreal. What an absolute nightmare.

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New Here ,
Jun 05, 2014 Jun 05, 2014

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Hi,

I understand your trouble and frustration : I had the same for a long time.

The only way I experienced to solve this problem was :

- on "Error compiling movie - Unknown error" : save the project,

- close the project and PP CC or PP CS6,

- reopen PP CC or PP CS6, reload the project,

- resume the rendering.

In some case it may be useful to clean the project database by deleting

all files : Media files, Media Cache Files, Preview Files.

Another way is to render without MPE, but this solution may be very time

consuming.

Check if you have pictures larger than 3500x2500 and 300 dpi, then

reduce to 72 dpi (pan and zoom effect).

Good luck.

Le 05/06/2014 17:07, DMH79 a écrit :

>

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

rendering

created by DMH79 <https://forums.adobe.com/people/DMH79> in /Premiere

Pro/ - View the full discussion

<https://forums.adobe.com/message/6436423#6436423>

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Enthusiast ,
Jun 05, 2014 Jun 05, 2014

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Jacout13 wrote:

Hi,

I understand your trouble and frustration : I had the same for a long time.

The only way I experienced to solve this problem was :

- on "Error compiling movie - Unknown error" : save the project,

- close the project and PP CC or PP CS6,

- reopen PP CC or PP CS6, reload the project,

- resume the rendering.

In some case it may be useful to clean the project database by deleting

all files : Media files, Media Cache Files, Preview Files.

Another way is to render without MPE, but this solution may be very time

consuming.

Check if you have pictures larger than 3500x2500 and 300 dpi, then

reduce to 72 dpi (pan and zoom effect).

Good luck.

Unfortunately, I've tried all that to no avail. And there are no pics in the video. Nothing is any different than any other Wedding I've edited in the last 2 years on Premiere Pro CC. The troubling thing is...why now? Why all of a sudden? I uninstalled PPro CC as well to no avail. The only thing is to go tweak my edits where the render stops but even now I'm at an edit that won't seem to "fix". And what stinks is that I DON'T WANT TO CHANGE MY EDITS! They are their for a reason. And again, I've NEVER rendered any project before and I do the same type of projects with the same type of media from the same cameras over and over and over from the last several years...never with any issue. Thank you for your feedback. I really do appreciate it. I'm just at a total loss on this one.

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Enthusiast ,
Jun 05, 2014 Jun 05, 2014

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and now...I just tried loading the project up on a completely different computer running PPro CC, and the same issue happened at the same point. I'm going to scream. Unreal that there are issues like this.

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Enthusiast ,
Jun 05, 2014 Jun 05, 2014

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...update #2...I eventually just sucked it up and changed about 15 edits throughout the video where the render would stop and give the error. Stinks because I liked the edit the way it was before! But I was able to export it. And now...as if the editing gods are all raining down their wrath upon me today...each of the various flavors of exports (H264, ProRes422, Bluray, DVD) all have some sort of audio issue that wasn't present on the timeline. Like random distortion at random points. The audio was not clipping at all on the timeline so I have no idea what's going on here. Not to get too far off this topic, but it's been a rough 8 hours with not one video cleanly exported yet. Ugh.

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 11, 2015 Jun 11, 2015

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Switching off the CUDA card to Software only worked for me.

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Participant ,
Jun 26, 2015 Jun 26, 2015

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These compiling errors are killing me, too.  I have a nest with footage and a psd file that is 1540x1147.  It's 8 bit.  It's RGB.  I need the alpha channel so it's PSD (and tried it as tiff, too), and it won't render if it's in a nest.  If I remove it from the nest and paste those layers into the timeline, it will render.  So obviously this is a software problem and issues with nesting. 

Unfortunately, I like to nest as I can comp 3 shots together that are different sizes and then put a move on it on the nest, but it has created issues so I'll just avoid using nests for now until Adobe can fix this issue.  I've submitted a bug request, btw.

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New Here ,
May 07, 2016 May 07, 2016

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I have applied a eclipse mask with a Blur Effect on an adjustment layer, but when I render out the clip, the whole shot is blurred, and the mask seemed to have disappeared~

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Contributor ,
Jun 29, 2013 Jun 29, 2013

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When I have had this happen in CS5.5, I am usually mixing video file formats on the timeline and one of the clips makes the system unhappy when I try to do an export.  What's weird is I might be able to export an h.264 file, but not an mpeg-2 DVD file.

So if you are working with, say, AVCHD files and you've added an .mov file from someone's consumer camcorder, try exporting just that section and see if you get the error.  If so, you might need to use a program like Handbrake to convert the problem file.

J. D.

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LEGEND ,
Jun 29, 2013 Jun 29, 2013

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I would also take a look at this Adobe KB Article: http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/error-compiling-movie-rendering-or.html

Good luck,

Hunt

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New Here ,
Sep 06, 2013 Sep 06, 2013

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I tried all of the options listed in: http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/error-compiling-movie-rendering-or.html, it did not work.

My problem/solution was more simple, and therefore more difficult to figure out. There was some problem with the IN and OUT points in my timeline and as soon as I set it to render the Entire Sequence, it rendered properly.

// MEDIA | samurai //

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Explorer ,
Jan 02, 2016 Jan 02, 2016

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theMKlife‌

You are a life saver. I've spent the better part of the last 3hours trying to get a job to render, I was just about to call Adobe when I saw your comment. It sounded so simplistic I almost discarded it but for my desperation, Took clear the "IN and OUT" points from the timeline and 'viola' its rendering.

Thanks a bunch.

ocube

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