9 Replies Latest reply: May 14, 2011 7:29 PM by John T Smith RSS

    Why is Premiere 6 giving a "Error writing file (disk full?)" message?

    digiday Community Member

      Hello helpful experts,

       

      I'm using Premiere 6 on a Windows 7 machine.

       

      I have a file imported in to the timeline and it is set to play in reverse via the speed setting being set to -100 and it plays back in the preview window correctly, in reverse, when I click the play button.

       

      But when I do a  "File>Export Timeline>Movie" command I get an error message saying "An error occurred while making the movie. Error writing file (disk full?)"... but my hard drive is not nearly full, with over 30 gigs left open on it... and my RAM usage gadget shows over half of my RAM capacity is unused.

       

      Now previously, weeks ago on a different project, I was getting this same error message for a while when I would hit enter to preview my movie on the timeline (but that worked itself out somehow and eventually stopped giving me that error message).  But when I went to save and export, then I would not get the error message... now, it is just the opposite... I'm now getting the error message when trying to do an export and save the movie.

       

      And also now when I hit enter to preview, as opposed to just clicking the play button on the preview window, Premiere is going through the process of saving the movie since it is saving a temporary preview file... hopefully, since I'm getting this error message, I can find the temporary preview file and save it as my exported AVI file.

       

      But I still shouldn't be getting this error message when trying to save, or when trying to preview, as I did for a while a couple of weeks ago.

       

      Does anyone know about the erroneous error message that says, "An error occurred while making the movie. Error writing file (disk full?)"

       

      Thanks,

       

      numetro

        • 1. Re: Why is Premiere 6 giving a "Error writing file (disk full?)" message?
          John T Smith CommunityMVP

          Depending on your hard drive size, P6 may be confused... since drives were not as large when it was written

           

          For Win7 64bit Pro or Ultimate (or Enterprise?) this is ONE example of using Virtual XP http://forums.adobe.com/thread/702693?tstart=0

           

          This is saved from an OLD message that may help

          File size limits by disk format type
          Fat = 2 Gig maximum file size
          Fat32 = 4 Gig
          NTFS = ?Terrabytes?

          Message saved from Premiere forum
          John Acocks - 07:52am Apr 17, 2003 Pacific
          I am unable to complete captures because I get a message
          that says "capture stopped because disk was full." What
          does this mean?

          Daniel Conklin - 08:02am Apr 17, 2003 Pacific (#1 of 2)   
          If you are using a Pinnacle card, a possible solution to
          this is to right click on the recycle bin, and set the
          percentage on your media drive to less than 2%.

          There a several other possible causes as well, but you
          need to supply some info about your system. How are you
          capturing and what format is your video? How big is
          your hard drive?

           

          Jeff Schell - 09:57am Apr 17, 2003 Pacific (#2 of 2)   
          this is one of my favorite error messages. Basically,
          you've chosen an incorrect setting in your DV settings.
          (Odds are you have DV settings). If so, read on:

          1. The DV format is very rigid. Meaning that if you
             make changes to the format, it cannot export as
             requested, because your movie file must match every
             single spec exactly.
          2. When Premiere goes to export a project, the DV codec
             says "Whoa. I can't do anything, because the settings
             don't match."
          3. Then Premiere comes back to you and has to report an
             error. (Don't shoot the messenger). Unfortunately,
             Premiere doesn't know why it wasn't able to export a
             movie. So it says to you, "Um... I can't make the movie.
             Um... maybe your hard drives are full?"

          It's a complete guess. And has nothing to do with your harddrives.
          Check your project settings and/or your export settings. Make
          sure you have chosen one of the "presets" that will specify
          every correct setting for you. Make sure it is one of the DV
          presets, if you are using DV video, or make sure it is one of
          the presets supplied by your capture card manufacturer (in this
          case I'm going to guess Pinnacle or Matrox.)

          To choose a preset, go to Project > Settings Viewer, and then
          click on the project settings column, and then click 'load' to
          load a correct preset. Do the same with export settings.

          • 2. Re: Why is Premiere 6 giving a "Error writing file (disk full?)" message?
            Bill Hunt CommunityMVP

            but my hard drive is not nearly full, with over 30 gigs left open on it.

             

            Well, 30 GB is just about enough for Pr to run. If you have dynamically managed Virtual Memory (Page File), then it is probably not enough.

             

            When you are checking Properties, it is likely that a dynamically managed Page File has shrunk, but expands, when you are busy editing.

             

            I would clean up your HDD space, defragment often, and test.

             

            Good luck,

             

            Hunt

            • 3. Re: Why is Premiere 6 giving a "Error writing file (disk full?)" message?
              digiday Community Member

              Hi Bill and John,

               

              Thanks for your replies.

               

              The error message is erroneous since I was able to save the same video with a different codec without getting the error message... that was what fixed the problem before and I didn't know it... this time I was able to equate it with the successful saving.

               

              But then I got horizontal interlaced lines from a 4 gigabyte file for 7 minutes of video that took and hour and a half to render on a 2 GHZ machine with 50 gigs open on a 160 gig hard drive... the problem isn't the machine, it is how Premiere deals with saving.

               

              For the extended explanation, see this other link about the interlaced lines that appeared in my final video...

              http://forums.adobe.com/message/3677822#3677822

               

              Once I was able to save correctly, then Premiere 6 gave me another 4 gig file that played one frame per second... nice.

               

              Thanks,

               

              digi

              • 4. Re: Why is Premiere 6 giving a "Error writing file (disk full?)" message?
                Bill Hunt CommunityMVP

                The error message is erroneous since I was able to save the same video with a different codec without getting the error message.

                 

                Perhaps, if the resultant file size was identical, or larger, than the one, that gave you issues. Otherwise, it would "apples to oranges."

                 

                Since you did not complete the first Export, you can only go on the "estimated file size," but how did that compare to the successful one? A Bit-Rate change can have a major impact of resultant file sizes.

                 

                Good luck,

                 

                Hunt

                • 5. Re: Why is Premiere 6 giving a "Error writing file (disk full?)" message?
                  digiday Community Member

                  Hi Bill,

                   

                  Both attempts, the one with the erroneous error message and the successful save that resulted in a file that played one frame per second in spite of a 30 fps setting, were both from the same base file... apples and apples.

                   

                  How would I know what the file size is from a saving attempt that never completed and was stopped by the error message in question ??

                   

                  Thanks,

                   

                  digi

                  • 6. Re: Why is Premiere 6 giving a "Error writing file (disk full?)" message?
                    Ann Bens CommunityMVP

                    The temp files are writen to C drive.

                    How much space is left on the C drive?

                    • 7. Re: Why is Premiere 6 giving a "Error writing file (disk full?)" message?
                      digiday Community Member

                      50 gigs.

                       

                      Problem was solved when using a different codec.

                       

                      Thanks,

                       

                      digi

                      • 8. Re: Why is Premiere 6 giving a "Error writing file (disk full?)" message?
                        digiday Community Member

                        Problem was the it was an erroneous message and the file saved with a different codec... but Bill gives some good advice about keeping lots of hard drive space open (30 gigs!)... but I have auto defragment that runs once a week.

                        • 9. Re: Why is Premiere 6 giving a "Error writing file (disk full?)" message?
                          John T Smith CommunityMVP

                          >erroneous message and the file saved with a different codec

                           

                          Which is basically what the message I saved from 2003 said (in different words) in that the P6 error message was due to a settings problem, and P6 came back with an error message that was not the real problem

                           

                          Change the settings... or, in your case the codec, and the problem went away