Message text:

After Effetcs: Not enough memory to create compress formats (424905K requested, 216828K available).

Message interpretation:

Some specific file format handlig extensions could not be loaded.

Possible causes:

The incident recorded here happened, after a failed update of After Effects CS4 to the 9.0.2 patch. This damaged the preferences and the CoDecs shared between After Effects, Premiere Pro, Encore and Adobe Media Encoder. Launching any of the applications thereafter did not initialize the post-install auto-install, that would repair these settings.

Resolution or workaround:

As a first step, delete your preferences file. The next time you start After Effects, they will be restored with default values. The location of these files and folders is explained on this page. If that does not help, consider downloading all the updater packages manually from the Adobe support pages and installing them. Make sure to include all of the tools mentioned above or else you may still end up with incomplete installs. Should that still not resolve the matter, you will need to run a full re-install and then attempt to apply the patches. When doing so, first uninstall all programs using the proper Adobe uninstall routines. On Windows they are in your Add or Remove Programs system control panel and on OS X in the /Applications:Utilities:Adobe Utilities:Installers directory. Include all Adobe tools in the process such as Adobe AIR or Adobe Reader, even if they were not originally installed with the otehr products. After that, run the CS4 Clean Script/ Utility and only then reinstall.

Message text:

After Effects error: Could not load any writer. Adobe Media Encoder will now exit.

Message interpretation:

A specific I/O routine for a given media format could not be loaded.

Possible causes:

When attempting to output to MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, FLV and similar formats, specific modules are used to allow better temporal compression by analysing multiple frames at once, a feature which After Effects otehrwise does not support. All these formats are handled via the Adobe Media Encoder routines, which are also used in Premiere Pro, Encore and the standalone application of same name. If there for some reason is a mismatch or conflict, the components refuse to load or you get warnings about missing CoDecs and such. Most commonly this happens, when installing the programs in a non-ideal order, running one of them as a trial, which you possibly later intend to activate, or by different update statuses.

Resolution or workaround:

Unfortunately, the only way to resolve this, is to uninstall al lof the applications and re-install them, possibly in a different order and always with proper serial numbers. During updates, make sure all of them are patched correctly.

Message text:

After Effects: AEGP Plugin AAF: Error occurred while creating project.

Message interpretation:

The program could not add a footage item to the project during import.

Possible causes:

The error is quite misleading and can crop up on a number of occasions. In the given example, an MPEG-based source material was imported without success and triggered this message. AAF refers to advanced audio formats, which in this case would possibly mean embedded audio in a video file. Such files are regularly generated when using modern digital photo and video cameras and transfering the data on the file system level without additional capture procedures. Within the file, often multiple data streams are stored, which can include multiple audio channel as multiplexed or unmultiplexed streams plus any number of extra streams for timecodes or metadata. If these streams do not adhere to a given order, e.g. audio is recorded on channels 3 and 4, not on 1 and 2, After Effects may not be able to recogize or decode them properly.

Another case is presented, when you do not transfer the whole content via a specific file manger associated with the camera. This regularly happens to users with P2 systems, that require to use a specific helper program to transfer the MXF files correctly in the order they are stored. This means, that the entire folders in which they are organized need to be transfered, including any auxiliary files also stored in those. This not only ensures retaining all the metadata, but also continuity, if multiple files are linked to present one shot/ take.

Resolution or workaround:

Use the file management and conversion tools bundled with your camera to transcode the files and transfer them to your computer. Also make sure to check your camera and choose a more compatible set of defaults for it to avoid these problems in the future.

Message text:

After Effects: AEGP Plugin Media IO Plugin: There is a mismatch between Output Module settings and Transcode settings.
Please verify your settings and try again.
MediaIO2 error: 0×5

Message interpretation:

MPEG-II output was not initiated because the options on the normal output module settings do not match the ones in the Adobe Media Encoder.

Possible causes:

You cannot output MPEG-II for DVD with different settings. Of particular interest is the audio. It always needs to be set to 48 kHz, matching the specs of the DVD format. If you do not need audio, you need to turn it off in the generic settings and the Media Encoder, not just one of them. Your composition settings are also only allowed to be those defined in the DVD specs. This error also applies to various presets for BlueRay and Flash video introduced beginning with CS3.

Resolution or workaround:

Set the options to the correct parameters.

Message text:

After Effects: AEGP Plugin Media IO Plugin: MediaIO2 error: )x4 Not enough memory to complete this encoding.

Message interpretation:

Encoding to a special media format failed because the Media I/O plugin ran out of memory.

Possible causes:

This is unclear. The user did not provide any additional details, but most likely he tried to encode to one of the formats handled by the Adobe Media Encoder module such as MPEG-II or H.264.

Resolution or workaround:

Not applicable.