Message text:

After Effects: Not enough memory to create shadow map vertices. (146K requested, 1980K available)

Message interpretation:

In a 3D composition no shadows could be generated due to insufficient memory.

Possible causes:

Since After Effects uses a quite specific custom depth sorting method, it is dependent on a lot of memory for temporary buffers to calculate which part of a layer obscures another layer and produce the respective clipping and cutouts. This also applies to shadows, which are calculated as shadow maps. This method can be best envisioned as a camera at the light position taking a snapshot, processing this snapshot and then projecting it back onto the scene. Because it works this way, each light that casts shadows can considerably increase the memory usage. In addition, this process gets more complicated, the more complex the sahpe casting a shadow is. In the example, a text layer was used, requiring to detect small contours and holes in the shadow map and due to the complexity causing an error.

Resolution or workaround:

First, try to reduce the absolute size of all shadow maps in your composition. This can be done by going into the composition settings and on the Advanced tab defining a custom shadow map size. Especially when you want to use soft shadows, you will often not need the full resolution of e.g. a HD comp as the shadow map size. Secondly, make sure that your lights only cast shadows where they are really of use and visible. There is no point in letting point lights cast shadows, when these shadows are mostly out of frame. The same applies to spotlights – don’t let their light cones become larger than is required to encompass the shadow casting element. You can always add more lights that do not have shadows to add the rest of your scene illumination. Of course also turn off shadows completely on lights that are not producing visible shadows, anyway.

Message text:

After Effects error: RLA: unexpected end of file.

Message interpretation:

An RLA file contained one or more damaged data chunks.

Possible causes:

Since RLA files are usually produced in 3D programs and different programs use different implementations of what normally should be the same, it can happen, that specific combinations of options result in files that are not compatible with After Effects. in addition, when dealing with large numbers of such files being rendered across a network, it is possible that they are damaged when being written to disk or collected in a centralised location.

Resolution or workaround:

If possible, attempt to re-render the files. Disable all the options that AE does not support and could potentially cause issues. When you re-render, consider choosing more robust and flexible file formats such as layered PSDs or multichannel OpenEXR. If that’s not an option, rendering out separate channels as separate sequences e.g. of TIFF or EXR files might also avoid the issue, but of course increase disk space requirements and management overhead. If you need to recover files without re-rendering, just re-importing them in the 3D program and saving to a different format might work. This includes auxiliary tools bundled with the programs such as fcheck in Maya and MAX. Likewise, some image viewing programs like XnView allow to retrieve some of the channels.

Message text:

After Effects error: Internal verification failure, sorry! {SetOutputWorld called with a world of the wrong size}

Message interpretation:

Somewhere in your project you tried to use conflicting settings. This error is identical to this error, but it’s still not clear as to what may be the specific cause of it.

Possible causes:

This can be any combination of CoDec issues, size of the output, options for scaling and cropping, fields, motionblur overrides and so on. A repeatable scenario reported by a user is the use of continuous rasterization on footage with different pixel aspect ratios.

Resolution or workaround:

Turn all advanced features off and leave the output at its original size. Then step by step re-enable the features and try to render to find the offending one.

Message text:

After Effects error: Font server could not be created

Message interpretation:

A component supplying font management and rendering facilities could not be loaded.

Possible causes:

Most likely you messed up the Adobe Font Engine, which is used by multiple programs, by installing a version of a program that is not compatible to the others. For instance you could have installed the latestAdobe Reader while still working with an older version of After Effects

Resolution or workaround:

Uninstall all programs and reinstall them. reverse the install order and choose the offending program first, then install the legacy programs.

Message text:

After Effects error: Not enough memory to create Text Engine Data. (1K requested, 0K available)

Message interpretation:

The program could not initialize its text handling component.

Possible causes:

This is somewhat vague. It does not appear to be a problem with any specifics of actually rendering fonts for display and use in the program, but rather the routines intended for that running out of memory. This could be caused by too many fonts on the system in general – if the text engine needs to scan them all and hold them in memory for imemdiate availability, this may fail at some point when too many typefaces need to be taken care of. A thinkable scenario is, if you got a project from a different user or different operating system platform and you need to change the text because a given font is not available.

In addition to the specific case above, the usual rules for font handling apply: Damaged, outdated and poorly designed fonts not only cause such irregularities, but may also threaten your system stability in general.

Resolution or workaround:

Reduce the number of active fonts on your system. This can be done with your operating system’s own font management or third party tools such as Linotype FontXplorer or Extensis Suitcase. If you are using outdated commercial fonts, update them by buying a newer version. For free fonts you have found on the Internet, look into commercial alternatives. They are often much more refined and provide better usage options.

Message text:

After Effects error: Render Graph stack overflow. Composition too complex.

Message interpretation:

The composition cannot be rendered.

Possible causes:

Though the message states otherwise, the complexity of your composition has usually nothing to do with it. In most cases one of the footage sources is damaged or the project structure itself has broken down when the file was saved last. Another possible cause is the use of too many different footage types whose CoDecs may cause odd combinations and lead to memory leaks.

Resolution or workaround:

Not applicable.

Message text:

After Effects error: Error reading text layer.

Message interpretation:

A text layer in a project could not be created because the program could not make sense of the layer information.

Possible causes:

Since text layers are a special layer type and always rendered anew when a project is opened, it’s possible that part of the information cannot be interpreted to allow rendering all characters. For some cases such as missing fonts there are precautions in place, for others not. In the latter case the layer will not be created at all and the message comes up. The problem does not occur as an isolated problem, but rather as a combination of other options. So it’s for instance possible that layer styles or certain effects may affect your text layer in this fashion.

Resolution or workaround:

Not applicable.

Message text:

After Effects error: Missing global text resources.

Message interpretation:

The program could not launch because it was unable to display text.

Possible causes:

Very likely the Adobe font system is damaged.

Resolution or workaround:

Info regarding how to possibly fix the error can be found on this page for the 83 :: 4 error and here.

Message text:

After Effects can’t continue: couldn’t acquire ADM suites (S!Fd). Is ‘ADM Plugin’ missing from the Required folder?

Message interpretation:

A component required to run After Effects could not be loaded and the program needs to exit.

Possible causes:

The program was not installed correctly or the program library has been moved.

Resolution or workaround:

Re-install AfterEffects.