Message text:

After Effects warning: Failed to create mediacore preference paths.

Message interpretation:

The configuration for advanced media file handling using MediaCore could not be written.

Possible causes:

The user permissions on the directories in question are not set correctly or the directories cannot be found because you installed in a different path.

Resolution or workaround:

Make sure to grant the right user privileges for all directories. Information on the location of these directories can be found on this page. A more comprehensive description of recommended procedures before and during installations can be found here and here.

Message text:

After Effects warning: Unable to create font.

Message interpretation:

The program was unable to render all characters required to create menu and interface text.

Possible causes:

Similar to error 3 :: 160, this problem may be caused by a mismatch of your system language settings and the language in which the program is run. Additionally, there may be problems with user privileges and file permissions that prevent After Effects from accessing the directories required therefore. These include the system font directory as well as the Adobe font directory shared by all Adobe applications. For Mac OS X (Snow Leopard) in combination with CS5 products, this may be caused by the Verdana font from Microsoft missing because Apple no longer install it by default on this version.

Resolution or workaround:

Set your system language to a different country and region. If all else fails, try English/ US. This is the language in which most programs are being developed before localization to other regions and should work under any circumstances. Also make sure you have the proper user privileges and the file permissions for the font directories are set accordingly.

On occasion, you may try and delete the various instances of the AdobeFnt.lst, which can be found in a number of places, e.g. in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts on Windows systems. Deleting these files will force the Adobe Font System to scan all fonts on your system again and rebuild the lists whenever an Adobe application is launched again after the deletion. It will only take a bit longer for one time.

If you are using CS5 on a Mac system where no previous version of Adobe software is installed nor the Verdana font has been installed by another software, download it from Microsoft and add it to your font book.

Message text:

After Effects error: Could not allocate sound memory.

Message interpretation:

After Effects could not preview sound due to insufficient memory available.

Possible causes:

The most likely cause for any audio issues are problems with the audio hardware and their settings or the audio file types that are being used. While it may seem otehrwise, it is only rarely true memory exhaustion that causes problems.

Resolution or workaround:

Make sure your computer’s audio hardware is working properly and it is using suitable settings. Use a commonly used sample rate like 48 kHz and turn off any fancies like perceptional audio enhancements or virtual surround. Additionally, check its audio buffer delay settings. Reset them to defaults and leave them at reasonably small sizes. There is no point in excessively large buffer settings. In After Effects, check your audio hardware preferences and verify that the application correctly recognizes everything. If not already the case, make the audio channels that act as your primary outputs the active ones. If you use audio effects that force buffering to RAM, chose a suitable size that does not bring your system down. When working with compressed audio formats, convert them to conventional PCM files (WAV/ AIFF) before bringing them into After Effects.

Message text:

After Effects error: Not enough memory to create U_Mem Tracked Object.

Message interpretation:

The program could not allocate a specific memory resource.

Possible causes:

Not applicable.

Resolution or workaround:

Not applicable.

Message text:

After Effects warning: Audio conforming failed for the following file <filename>

Message interpretation:

A compressed audio file could not be decoded.

Possible causes:

When you import compressed media into After Effects, the program scans it in order to be able to access specific sections quicker. This also happens for audio, which in addition is also often fully decoded to a conventional PCM (WAV/ AIFF file). The resulting files are stored in the Media Cache directory. If this directory is somehow unavailable, locked or damaged, you will get a warning.

Resolution or workaround:

Adjust your preferences to point to a suitable directory for the Media Cache. Make sure you have full access to it and it is intact. Since the files stored therein are persistent, it is necessary to purge the directory from time to time to prevent it from getting full. Because of this heavy use, it is also critical that the directory is defragmented regularly.

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 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 warning: Error with Directory ‘C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Application Data\Adobe\After Effects\8.0\MediaIO’

Message interpretation:

There was an unspecified problem with your user-specific application data directory.

Possible causes:

The directory mentioned in the warning stores your settings for several export formats such as MPEG-2, H.264 or WMV that are handled via specific export modules. it is also responsible for features such as Premiere Pro import. if for some reason the folder is inaccessible, configuration data may not be stored or loaded and some operations may fail. The most likely cause of this is a generic permission problem, but it could also be security tools blocking access.

Resolution or workaround:

Check your permissions and grant your user full access to the directory. This may also include the parent directories, if user privileges are inherited from those. If that does not help, delete the folder.

Note: Deleting the folder will force the program to re-create with default settings. Customized settings will be lost and should be salvaged before deleting by making a backup copy.

Message text:

After Effects warning: Unable to access resource.

Message interpretation:

The program was unable to access one or more of its required or system resources.

Possible causes:

The message is very generic and does not seem to have a specific cause. The most likely reason is simply, that the files are locked by another program and cannot be accessed. This can be anything from an operating system security mechanism like UAC (User Access Control) on Windows up to third party programs like virus scanners.

Resolution or workaround:

The most reliable solution is to simply restart the entire computer. This will unlock all files and should prevent the error from occuring next time. For security tools, it may be necessary to define an exception rule and exclude After Effects from its operations.

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.