Message text:

After Effects error: AE_OpenGL: Unexpected Condition: No active gl context for line drawing (due to interrupt during N-up frame render?)

Message interpretation:

The view could not be drawn due to an OpenGL problem.

Possible causes:

The error would indicate an issue with internal resource management which terminates OpenGL based drawing prematurely, if multiple 3D views are used. No further details are available.

Resolution or workaround:

Not applicable.

Message text:

After Effects error: AE_OpenGL: Failed to load shader.

Message interpretation:

A specific code fragment could not be loaded and executed on your graphics card.

Possible causes:

This error indicates that your graphics card is either incapable of supporting the required shader features or you have a misconfiguration. More likely it’s the latter, as After Effects should disable these features, if no suitable card is detected. Outdated drivers or unusual configurations may have prevented that.

Resolution or workaround:

Check your graphics driver settings. If you have customized them, reset to factory defaults. Also choosing a different application profile may improve things. Always make sure to install a reasonably new driver which may already fix the issue. if that is not possible, turn off OpenGL in the preferences.

Message text:

After Effects error: Invisible OpenGL Buffer Windows: The procedure entry point [...] could not be located in the dynamic link library SQLite3.dll.

Message interpretation:

An function call could not be executed because a critical system DLL is missing.

Possible causes:

This one remains very much in the dark. SQLite is a specific sub-set and implementation of the SQL database language that in Adobe programs is used to manage install information (caps.db), licensing (pcd.db) and in several other places. However, those uses are very specific and do not resort to a global system DLL but rather local routines installed by Adobe themselves. Therefore the only halfway sensible explanation of the error seems, that another tool installed similar routines, but misconfigured it globally so all of Adobe‘s programs point to it as well, no longer being able to find their own data. More specifically, the user reporting this problem had been updating his iTunes, because it was required to use his iPhone.

Resolution or workaround:

In the given case all attempts to manually manage DLL usage via the Windows Registation Server (regsrv.exe) and the Service Control Manager diud not yield any positive results. Therefore it would seem, a full re-install of the whole computer is the only way to fix the issue.

Message text:

After Effects error: Unable to create drawing surface.

Message interpretation:

A part of the screen could not be refreshed because its region is not defined.

Possible causes:

This error is caused by problems with specific graphic cards in combination with using hardware accelerated features such as OpenGL drawing and MediaCore footage decoding. In those cases, at some point the program will simply refuse to redraw its interface entirely. the user needs to exit the program and restart the computer. In other cases, the program freezes up or crashes. The problem is random and arbitrary, but commonly occurs during RAM previews on the compromised machines.

Resolution or workaround:

Install the latest driver for your graphics card and see, if it fixes the issue. Make sure to install the 9.0.2 update, if you are on CS 4.

Message text:

After Effects error: AE_OpenGL: A texture in this composition is too small to render.

Message interpretation:

A layer in the composition does not cover enough pixels to generate a texture from it.

Possible causes:

Even though textures for OpenGL (your 3D layers’ pixel data) can have any arbitrary size, internally the layers will often be filled with empty pixels (black or transparent), to bring them up to a specific ratio and resolution. This increases efficiency of transform and shading calculations on some hardware and should actually completely avoid the error discussed here. However, there are some operations that potentially never generate enough opaque pixels, so the algorithm has no starting point. This can happen with very fine text, thin strokes or effects that render fine lines and dots at the sub-pixel level (lensflares, particle systems).

Resolution or workaround:

Adjust the font size of text layers or choose a font that doesn’t fade away. Likewise, increase the values on critical parameters to boost opacity of critical items. For other layers, applying additional effects that manipulate the intensity of pixels such as e.g. Levels might offer a solution.

Message text:

After Effects error: AE_OpenGL: Failed to create on-screen context.

Message interpretation:

The program was unable to refresh the OpenGL content during user interaction.

Possible causes:

Upon initializing certain functions as described in here and here, programs must also make decisions regarding the interactivity of these features. For maximum user feedback, the actual refresh of the screen, in case of After Effects the composition window, the on-screen context is used. This will immediately propagate every change. Other operations not dependent on user interaction on the other hand will use an off-screen context with a lower priority. This sually allows for an optimal use of resources. With large compositions it is however possible, that this prioritization scheme does not work because you are running out of memory on the graphics hardware. This will lead to drawing artifacts and occasionally bring up this error message.

Resolution or workaround:

If possible, reduce the resolution of your items during interactive work. This can for instance be achieved by using proxies instead of full resolution footage. In complex projects that contain deeply nested hierarchies of compositions, it is also helpful to be patient and wait for the program to finish rendering those pre-compositions. This can be further improved upon by using the disk cache and generating RAM Previews at regular intervals to allow using the buffered frames.

Message text:

After Effects error: Error: AE_OpenGL: Failed to render fragment.

Message interpretation:

A specific hardware accelerated shading function could not be executed.

Possible causes:

Fragment shaders, also referred to as pixel shaders, present a specific subset of OpenGL. After Effects uses them to provide a number of realtime features from soft shadows for 3D lights to depth of field (DOF) for the 3D camera to accelerated effects for adjustments. In order to provide this functionality however, your grphics card must support a given level of OpenGL. In addition, even if it may theoretically fulfill the requirements already, the actual number of parallel steps the card is able to process, must be able to accomodate all instructions of the shader code and execute them. As an example: If a program requires 17 or more steps, it will not run on cards that are only able to process 16 steps.

Resolution or workaround:

Sometimes the inability to use pixel shaders is merely caused by a wrong configuration where After Effects is unable to properly detect all resources. In such situations adjusting the settings or installing a newer driver may resolve the issue. If the hardware really is too restricted, only purchasing a suitable graphics card will allow using these features.

Message text:

After Effects error: OpenGL: Failed to create render context.

Message interpretation:

The program was unable to determine the required settings for hardware-accelerated rendering functions.

Possible causes:

As laid out in 5044 :: 0, the process of initializing OpenGL functions is split into finding the device context to determine the capabilities of your graphics card and the render context to decide which rendering features to use and which resources to allocate to them. This can for instance include texture sizes, stencil buffers for shadows or the processing depth of pixel shaders. If this info cannot be established, the warning will be produced and OpenGL will not be available.

Resolution or workaround:

See 5044 :: 0

Message text:

After Effects error: internal verification failure, sorry! {PF_GetFloatingPointColorFromColorDef() called on non-PF_Param_COLOR}

Message interpretation:

A colorspace conversion request by a plugin has failed.

Possible causes:

In the given example, the error was recorded while the user was using the Magic Bullet Colorista and Magic Bullet Looks color correction plugins. both tools make use of the system’s graphics hardware to accelerate processing and provide realtime feedback for the user while he makes adjustments. Depending on the graphics card model used, this may result in the oprations failing. Specifically, the plugins returned a color value (non-PF) that could not be properly converted to After Effects‘ own color ranges in 32bpc mode. Most likely this happened due to the graphics card not providing enough resources for full precision floating point calculations and thus oprating at a lower bit-depth or even in an entirely different color mode.

Resolution or workaround:

Adjust your graphics card settings or install the latest driver. If the problems persist, but only occur on a specific system with a certain graphics hardware. consider replacing the graphics card with a different model.

Message text:

After Effects error: Couldn’t load plug-in "OpenGL3D". Code fragment library not found (-2804).

Message interpretation:

The OpenGL 3D plugin could not be loaded.

Possible causes:

In versions prior to CS3, the composition could be made to use OpenGL by switching it to a dedicated mode in the Advanced composition settings. If the graphics card did not support the required features, the plugin would not load. This functionality has been replaced with different mechanisms and refined control in later versions.

Resolution or workaround:

Not applicable.