Message text:

After Effects error: Adding to movie – disk is full (-34)

Message interpretation:

The movie could not be saved because the disk you are saving it to does not have any space anymore.

Possible causes:

The message is pretty clear in that it already points out the cause that ultimately makes the program throw an error. However, on deeper inspection this can be related to different things. Of course the first and most obvious is, that the disks are physically full. A second, less apparent reason is, that only specific directories on the disk are full. Especially when using Render multiple Frames simultanoulsy, After Effects will generate temporary data in your user home directory. If the folder is full, and no more data can be stored in it, the rendering may fail. This must not be, because the program itself stores so many files, but otehr programs that use the same directory. Similarly, the Media Cache and Disk Cache may prevent successful completion of renders, if they are full. In workgroup environments, you may be restricted by a disk quota, either on your local machine or the server. As an last item, a common reason is simply disk fragmentation.

Resolution or workaround:

First, check whether the location you are saving to, really is full. If so, choose a different directory. As a next step, check all your temporary data directories. Use tools like CCleaner or e.g. Windows‘ own disk cleanup utility to remove any unnecessary files. In addition, manually verify your user home directory and its sub-directories. The locations of these directories are explained on this page. Of course by all means run a defragmentation tool, if you suspect this being the cause. As an last item, increase the available space alotted to your user by changing the quota or lifting it completely. You may need to contact your system/ network administrator to do that.

Message text:

After Effects: For reliable output with H.264 compression, please choose it directly from the Output Module Format menu instead of via QuickTime.

Message interpretation:

For best quality output, choose Adobe‘s own H.264 encoder.

Possible causes:

This is a friendly warning if you want to output content to the H.264 format to safe you trouble later on. Particularly if you plan on moving the files to an authoring environment for BluRay discs, want to use it in Flash and other alternate players or plan on converting it with other tools, using the Quicktime version may impair quality and compatibility. Using the native exporters avoids these problems and in addition may produce better quality from the get go. the improved performance of those modules may also pay off if you have to encode large amounts of footage.

Resolution or workaround:

Not applicable.

Message text:

After Effects error: Starting to write to movie: bad QuickTime data reference (-2050).

Message interpretation:

A Quicktime file could not be written.

Possible causes:

Looking up the Quicktime exit code revealed, that this is caused by file names or directory paths being too long.

Resolution or workaround:

Shorten the file name and save to a different location.

Message text:

After Effects warning: A compressor used in an output module template could not be found. The animation compressor will be used instead.

Message interpretation:

A CoDec defined for an Output Module does not exist on the current system. Therefore the render settings will be reset to the default.

Possible causes:

You opened a project that was initially created on another computer. It already has outputs defined on the Render Queue. Those are however using formats and CoDecs not available on the current system. This applies to platform-specific CoDecs such as the ones coming with Final Cut Pro, commercial third-party CoDecs such as Cineform HD and ones tied to specific video hardware.

Resolution or workaround:

Define different output settings on your local system, replacing the original ones, or simply delete all entries from the Render Queue.

Message text:

After Effects error: The file format module could not parse the file.

Message interpretation:

After Effects does not understand the image format you are trying to import.

Possible causes:

Either the file is damaged or is not the format it pretends to be. Its headers may be for the wrong file type or file sub-type and it’s not possible to identify it correctly. This can for example happen if you transfer files from Mac systems without giving much thought to their file type and no extension is added.

Resolution or workaround:

Add the correct extension to the file and try to verify its file type in another program.

Message text:

After Effects error: Photoshop file format error — unexpected end-of-file (-39).

Message interpretation:

The image file is truncated prematurely.

Possible causes:

When saving a file it is possible that the process is terminated prematurely either because of a crash or a miscalculation of the file size on the disk by the saver module. On some file types this can be noticed as missing or black pixels, while the rest of the image is still being displayed. Less robust formats will be completely unusable afterwards.

Resolution or workaround:

Opening the file in another program like Adobe Photoshop and saving it from there in the same or another image format might allow you to use the data.

Message text:

After Effects error: Photoshop file format error — unexpected end-of-file (-39).

Message interpretation:

The image file is truncated prematurely.

Possible causes:

When saving a file it is possible that the process is terminated prematurely either because of a crash or a miscalculation of the file size on the disk by the saver module. On some file types this can be noticed as missing or black pixels, while the rest of the image is still being displayed. Less robust formats will be completely unusable afterwards.

Resolution or workaround:

Opening the file in another program like Adobe Photoshop and saving it from there in the same or another image format might allow you to use the data.

Message text:

After Effects error: Photoshop file format error (-1).

Message interpretation:

An image you tried to load is damaged or the wrong format.

Possible causes:

This is the most generic error of this kind. There is no specific source for problems or error handling procedures.

Resolution or workaround:

Opening the file in another program like Adobe Photoshop and saving it from there in the same or another image format might allow you to use the data.

Message text:

After Effects error: Getting media sizes movie — file not found (-43).

Message interpretation:

A clip that is supposed to be there could not be found in the output location.

Possible causes:

Some compression methods require to reserve disc space before actually writing data to the clip. Insufficient reserved space or a complete failure to create the file will result in an error. Sometimes this can also be caused by excessive disc activity from other programs, e.g. if your output is on a drive that also acts as a swap space for the operating system and the resulting side effects like strong fragmentation and low transfer bandwidth for other programs.

Resolution or workaround:

Try to render to a different space on the same disc or a different disc entirely. If that’s not possible, at least optimize the target disc by defragmenting it and fixing potential problems. Adjusting your operating systems preferences for swap disk and trash bin can also help.

Message text:

After Effects error: Opening movie – you do not have permission to open this file (-54).

Message interpretation:

The file could not be correctly written due to insufficient permissions/ user priviliges.

Possible causes:

This problem massively showed up all over the place with the 7.4 update for Quicktime on the Mac. So far, the source of the problem is unknown but it stands to reason that the fixes in this update to prevent buffer overflows and file hijacking trigger a security mechanism that will lock the file based on a timeout even with correct priviliges.

Under normal circumstances the error would only appear, if indeed the permissions were not set right. This normally is only an issue if files are accessed via a network or exchanged between different systems with different user accounts and as result there’s a mismatch between the security settings.

Possible causes:

For the 7.4 update, only a rollback to a previous version will solve the problem. This can be done be completely re-installing the whole system. If that is no option, you need to manually fix the install. This requires you to extract the program files using tools such as Pacifist or otherwise you won’t be able to install older files over newer versions.

In case the permissions are not matched, adjust them by configuring the user accounts accordingly. It is recommended to have the same user names on any computer and use identical login passwords so any connection to the server or another computer within the local network environment does not loose connections. Make sure to set the read/write/execute attributes for each file and directory and file so they can be accessed by any user that needs to.