Message text:

After Effects error: Writing to file “$filename” (1450)

Message interpretation:

The host program failed in writing a file to disk.

Possible causes:

This error regularly occurs with image sequences. The most common source of trouble seem to be delays caused by large files in compressed formats or formats that require color space conversion (Cineon, DPX, YUV-encoded TIFF). Of course simply slow disks, problems with RAID drivers and others might also be the cause for trouble.

Resolution or workaround:

In the particular case the problem could be solved by disabling asynchronous read/ write in the After Effects prefs. This can be done manually following the steps laid out below:

- go to your application preferences directory as explained on this page

- open the Adobe After Effects x.0 Prefs.txt file in a text editor (Notepad)

- look for a paragraph called ["Misc Section"]

- find the line that says “Asynchronous file reading and writing” = 01 and change the value to 00

The next time you launch After Effects, the change will be in effect. The downside to this approach is that the program will now wait until all files necessary for rendering a given frame before writing the last rendered frame. If you are using many footage sources, this might considerably prolong the rendering process. Another solution to consider is simply choosing a different target drive.

Message text:

After Effects error: Error creating file “Workspace.xml” (5).

Message interpretation:

Upon launching the program, the file mentioned could not be found. An attempt to create it based on After Effects‘ default settings has also failed.

Possible causes:

The directory where the file is supposed to be placed is either not in place, cannot be found or it is locked somehow. This can happen if you install with insufficient user privileges or do not have the correct attributes and permissions set on your directories.

Resolution or workaround:

Manually check your permissions. Re-install the program with administrative rights and make sure to grant yourself the correct user privileges to write to system directories. For information on the proper default directory locations, refer to this page.

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 error: Reading from file " " – unexpected end of file.

Message interpretation:

A file does not comply to the expected format specifications and is possibly damaged.

Possible causes:

Especially saving very large files is considerably dependent on I/O performance, i.e. the bandwidth of your network or the speed of your harddrive. If one of those is insufficient, it can happen that particularly the last few bytes get lost. This is known as a premature end of file (EOF). When it happens, some formats cannot be read anymore, because information from the end of the file also affects data at the beginning or inbetween. Other formats that reconstruct image pixels sequentially, may show a few missing lines or pixels, but otherwise be fully usable. Some of the more robust formats that still may work even after such mishaps are for instance TIFF images and Quicktime Animation clips. Another frequent occurance is due to differences in implementation. Some 3D programs have been known to use strange value ranges and additional internal data which throws otehr programs off track.

Resolution or workaround:

If possible, save or generate the damaged files again from the original sources. If it is e.g. from a 3D animation program, re-rendering the damaged frames is advisable. If that is not possible, attempting to open the file in another program and saving an intact copy from there might work. For image files this can include image viewers such as XnView, Irfan View or ACDSee or image processing programs like Photoshop or GIMP. For movie clips tools like VirtualDub can be used.

Message text:

After Effects error: Tracker_Register: missing suite.

Message interpretation:

A required core component (suite) is missing, preventing a dependent extension from loading.

Possible causes:

This error is pretty specific to older versions of After Effects up to 7.0, where there was a differentiation between a Standard and a Professional version. Certain extensions specific to the Professional version would not load in Standard if you just copied over plug-ins such as the built-in point tracker. Sometimes the error also occurs, when a trial version is turned into the full product by entering a serial number. If during the trial period certain options were not installed, they may also not become active in the full product. Another possible cause may be installs that simply go wrong.

Resolution or workaround:

Install the correct Professional version or repair damaged installs by uninstalling and reinstalling the program.

Message text:

After Effects error: File cannot be imported — files of type " " cannot be used as sequences.

Message interpretation:

A given image sequence could not be imported.

Possible causes:

The particular incident was recorded by a suer, when he was trying to import pre-optimized GIF files to create an animated GIF. There are two specific things that cause this behavior: First, the format is a legacy format that was always handled via Quicktime in After Effects. Second, any file in the sequence could potentially in itself be already animated, thus making a mess. Therefore the use of this format for image sequences is disabled for your own safety. However, it is still possible to import all files separately.

Resolution or workaround:

Convert the files to a different image format that can be safely used. If you have Photoshop Extended or older versions of Photoshop with Image Ready, create your animation there. if that’s not possible, import the files separately and stack them in the timelein using the Sequence Layers keyframe assistant. Also consider using other programs for the task.

Message text:

After Effects error: Finding size of file " " (-1401).

Message interpretation:

When loading an image sequence, one of the files could not be found due to a file system error.

Possible causes:

Most likely this is caused by "hiccups" when the files were saved originally. This can e.g. happen due to network errors or problems in the creator program such as 3D programs. In such situations it’s possible, that only parts of the file are stored, only its name is registered in the file system, only its data is stored or any combination of those states. In any case this will lead to the file being unretrieveable by the operating system because the basically are phantoms. Often these files cannot even be deleted or renamed, because the operating system cannot make sense of it.

Resolution or workaround:

Save the file again from the original program, overwriting and replacing the damaged data.

Message text:

After Effects error: Finding free space on volume (1231).

Message interpretation:

The program was unable to allocate sufficient disk space for storing a file.

Possible causes:

Unlike other file storage errors, this message is not related to no space being available at all, but rather it being unusable for some reason.

The most common cause is fragmentation of the target disk. The reason why this will lead to failure, is the difference of the exact file size versus the file size on the disk. Almost any storage device, including optical discs and hard drives, operate with a fixed sector or cluster size, often 512 kB or 1024kB (kilo Bytes). This is required to facilitate managing information where the files are stored physically. However, since often the file size will not be even multiples of those values, multiple sectors will be needed to store a file. In effect this can mean, that a sector only holds a few Bytes and the rest of its space remains unused. Since such a sector is then locked and cannot contain other files, disk space will be wasted the more files you save, because each of them will start in empty sectors. This is known as fragmentation. At some point not enough empty sectors will be available to store a (large) file that requires several of them.

Another possible cause are safety and security settings in your operating system. Most systems will never exceed a certain threshold to prevent crashes or instabilities which could happen if not enough storage is available for temporary files, system caches or even the recycle bin/ trash can. In multi-user environments this can be further limited by quota and additional security restrictions defined by the administrator. If this does not leave enough room for writing user files, it can also lead to errors.

Resolution or workaround:

Take care to keep your disks clean and healthy. Regularly delete temporary files and other debris. CCcleaner and similar tools can help in the process. Also check for unnecessary old files that still linger in your Recycle Bin/ Trash and can be deleted. Defragment your drives to improve performance and free up additional space by more optimal placing of file clusters. Increase your disk quota and apply more liberal file permissions or ask your adminsitrator to do it for you.

Message text:

After Effects error: Making file specification — file not found (-43).

Message interpretation:

A file could not be registered with the operating system.

Possible causes:

See 3 :: 159

Resolution or workaround:

See 3 :: 159

Message text:

After Effects error: Making file reference – file not found (-43).

Message interpretation:

A file could not be registered with the operating system.

Possible causes:

On most operating systems, the actual data of a file is kept separate from other info for directory location, user permissions, search indices and other things. If this information can’t be updated properly, the file technically does not even exist, though it’s data could be found by a low level analysis of the harddisk drive. This failure to update can depend on a variety of factors. Most commonly the harrdrive is too slow and multiple file operations cannot be managed at the same time. Another cause can be file management tools that temporarily lock files for indexing it or moving it to a different physical location, for instance during a disk defragmentation or backup. During such operations the content will be moved before updating the file directory. Both conditions often occur in network environments oron notebooks.

Resolution or workaround:

Attempt the file operation again, possibly choosing a different location for saving. If you have control over it, schedule backups and other maintenance operations differently or at least pause them while you are working in your programs.