Message text:

After Effects can’t continue: Damaged item.

Message interpretation:

An effect returned an invalid value and caused the program to crash.

Possible causes:

This is an internal error that eludes the user’s ability to influence or correct it. It may be caused by plug-ins "that do not behave" because they are either outdated and thus incompatible or still under development (Beta).

Resolution or workaround:

Get the latest version of the plug-ins that are compatible with your version of After Effects from the manufacturer.

Message text:

After effects warning: Not enough thread resources.

Message interpretation:

The program cannot initiate an operation due to insufficient processing resources.

Possible causes:

This error may occur, if a plug-in requests more threads than are currently available. If other multithreaded operations are already running inside the same address space, they may mutually block each other, resulting in failure of this processing step. This will force the plug-in back into single-threaded mode, so calculations take longer, but can be executed with less resource usage.

Resolution or workaround:

This is an internal issue in the code that cannot be influenced. At best, you can try to not use conflicting effects and features.

Message text:

After Effects error: Invalid image buffer size (-61x – 106.)

Message interpretation:

A processing operation resulted in invalid pixel data.

Possible causes:

While in line with other image buffer errors, this one can be pinned down to being specific to a third-party plug-in. In the recorded case, Magic Bullet Frames was used. Since it employs pixel motion detection to create progressive footage from interlaced sources, the error would indicate that one of the calculations ended up going nowhere, producing a negative buffer.

Resolution or workaround:

There is no specific solution, but it is reasonable to assume that modifying the effect’s settings ever so slightly or changing footage interpretation and comp settings might allow to get the expected result without the error.

Message text:

After Effects error: Effect attempting to use empty path parameter.

Message interpretation:

An effect references a missing item.

Possible causes:

There are two imaginable scenarios where this message might be of relevance.

First, it could refer to another layer within the scene hierarchy path. As many effects are able to use other layers for additional processing inputs by selecting them in pop-ups, they may respond badly, if those external inputs are removed or renamed. This should normally not happen, as the plug-ins are meant to keep track of such changes and exit gracefully by setting the input to none or their internal default, but some combinations or a bug in the effect may prevent this. Similarly, duplicating a layer that already references another layer does not update those inputs, yet the effect requires them to be unique to work properly and causes the error.

A second possible cause are effects, that use external files to either store pre-calculated data or require certain configuration data. Good examples for this are for instance Turbulence 2D, which caches its simulation data externally, many of the Sapphire plug-ins that use external configuration files, or some other effects plug-ins that require "textures" or "shapes" and look for bitmap images or vector files.

Resolution or workaround:

If the error can be pinpointed to layer references, change your handling procedures. Instead of duplicating layers with the references in place, set them to the defaults before duplicating, then manually set them to the desired layers. If a project was created by someone else and you get the error, set all references to their defaults, then save it again. Re-open it to manually set the references. Apply the same methodology when getting issues with renaming layers.

When dealing with external files, make sure that they exist in the first place. For configuration data and presets, re-installing a plug-in is often the simplest way to do that. For cached simulations, you should check the Options panel in the effect or any dedicated path options in the main interface. when you do, also make sure that the directory being linked has enough free space to hold the files.

Message text

After Effects error: Warp cannot allocate a buffer larger than 30000 pixels in either dimension (-516).

Message interpretation:

An effect tries to calculate an image larger in size than the maximum resolution supported in After Effects.

Possible causes:

You are working with large resolution files and try to make them even larger. This normally happens with effects applied and their values spinning out of control or their resulting calculations producing pixels outside the original layer dimensions. Typical effects affected by this are:

- Basic 3D
- Corner Pin
- Motion Tile
- Transform

This situation also often occurs, when these effects are used in conjunction with expressions and the expressions break, setting some of the rigged parameters to excessively high values.

Resolution or workaround:

Reduce the resolution of your footage elements or use subtler values. When using expressions, make sure they are safe and cannot accidentally break.

Message text:

After Effects error: Unable to open resource file "ParticleWorld.plugin".

Message interpretation:

The CC Particle World plug-in could not be loaded.

Possible causes:

Similar to this error, this is a resource problem in a plug-in. Specific to CC Particle World, it occurred regularly at the time when new Nehalem MacPros with Hyperthreading became available.

Resolution or workaround:

For After Effects CS4, running the 9.0.2 update fixes the issue. For older versions, a user offered the following solutions on the Adobe user-to-user forums:

Solution a

- do a search for Terminal
- launch the Terminal from the search results
- type hwprefs cpu_ht=false
- hit enter to execute the command
- launch After Effects

Solution b

- do a search for AppleScript Editor
- launch the AppleScript Editor from the search results
- type do shell script “hwprefs cpu_ht=false”
- save the file to a location of your choice
- place the file on your dock
- double-click it to execute the command
- launch After Effects

Note: Executing the script will be required every time you have shut down the system because the setting is not persistent.

Message text:

After Effects warning: [message text comes here]

Message interpretation:

This error also serves as a generic placeholder for plug-ins, if they trigger problems that the host program can intercept.

Message text

After Effects error: The Glow effect can only use the “Original Colors” for a glow when the glow is based on the color channels. (514)

Message interpretation:

The Glow plugin cannot be used in the chosen mode.

Possible causes:

For once this message is perfectly clear. When working with the Glow effect, you can select to intensify the colors using the ones already contained in the layer. This mode is however only available if it also operates on the color channels, not on the Alpha channel.

Resolution or workaround:

Not applicable.

Message text:

After Effects warning: Memory inefficiency due to 2 unbalanced layer checkouts.

Message interpretation:

Memory used by the program was not released due to a plug-in not releasing it.

Possible causes:

This is a programmatic error that cannot be influenced by the user. In the given case it was experienced with a Beta version of an unreleased plug-in.

Resolution or workaround:

Not applicable

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.