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: Error parsing properties list.

Message interpretation:

During launch it was impossible to derive useful info from some settings found in your preferences file.

Possible causes:

Either the preferences got damaged in a crash or some settings do not make sense. If you created custom output module and render settings templates it is possible that they are not recognized as valid because they are contrary to the footage interpretation rules or some other settings. Likewise using customized brush settings for paint and a few other things can make the prefs break.

Resolution or workaround:

Delete the preferences file. The location of the directories and files is explained on this page. You can also hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift while launching the program to enforce creation of a new prefs file with factory default settings.

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 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 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: Metadata Browser is missing.

Message interpretation:

The XMP infrastructure is missing, preventing you from viewing meta data info.

Possible causes:

XMP is a generic meta data interchange format shared across all Adobe applications. Therefore its components are installed as a shared feature. Because of that, damage to one program can also render it defunct in another program. most critical to this process is for instance Bridge, which is likewise used in all programs. If during an update Bridge was not properly configured, some of its functions will not be available thereafter, including meta data handling.

Resolution or workaround:

Reinstall the program from the original source media, then download the manual update packages. If you don’t require this feature at all, because you never use XMP or Bridge, you may ignore this warning and simply turn of XMP usage in the preferences.

Message text:

After Effects can’t continue: Unexpected failure during application startup.

Message interpretation:

The program crashed during its startup process.

Possible causes:

Similar to several other errors, this is most likely caused by a damaged install. In particular in CS3 and CS4, damaged or incorrectly installed MediaCore and Dynamic Link components can seriously mess with the program’s functionality. The same would be true for multiprocessing. Often this problem occurs after an update gone wrong. If you are using a suite (Production Premium, Master Collection), this sometimes means that an update of another program like Premiere Pro is responsible, not the After Effects update itself.

Resolution or workaround:

Reinstall the program from the original source media, then download the manual update packages. For a suite, make sure to include all programs currently installed on your system.

Message text:

After Effects error: After Effects can’t continue: Failed to register built-in motion tracker.

Message interpretation:

The motion tracker component could not be registered.

Possible causes:

This is mostly unclear, but it stands to reason that it is simply caused by a broken install. Sometimes this happens due to automatic updates going wrong.

Resolution or workaround:

Reinstall the program from the original source media, then download the manual update packages.

Message text:

After Effects warning: The location you have chosen is a removable drive. Please choose another location.

Message interpretation:

You chose to install the program on a removable drive, which is not possible.

Possible causes:

All Adobe programs are dependent on certain shared components for handling specific files, workflow integration and managing the activation. In addition, there is a number of auxiliary programs such as Bridge that each of them wil luse in one way or the other. To avoid having to install these tools multiple times, they are always placed in a fixed location. This must be a fixed drive on your system or otherwise the program may become inoperable, when a removable device is taken away from the system. The installer will therefore detect such conditions and not allow you to install programs on removable drives.

Resolution or workaround:

Select a proper location during install.