Message text:

After Effects error: Internal verification failure, sorry!{preferences structure invalid}

Message interpretation:

Some data in your preferences file is damaged or not formatted correctly.

Possible causes:

The preferences file may not have gotten written to disk correctly the last time you exited After Effects. On foreign language systems it may contain invalid characters due to directory names containing them.

Resolution or workaround:

Trash the preferences file and have the program create a new one from scratch. Either hold down Ctrl + Alt + Shift (Cmd + Alt + Shift on Mac) during the launch of the application or delete it manually. The location of the preferences is explained on this page.

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: Preference [Options Normal] ‘Frame Rate’ is 312 bytes, max allowed is 255 bytes.

Message interpretation:

The frame rate for RAM previews in your preferences is set to an illegal value.

Possible causes:

Due to a crash, disturbance during program exit or similar event, your preferences got corrupted and wrong configuartion values were stored.

Resolution or workaround:

Delete your preferences file. The next time you start After Effects, they will be restored with default values. Alternateively, open the preferences in a text editor and change the value in the section mentioned in the warning. The default for this value is "Auto", which will always attempt to use the composition frame rate. The location of the preferences is explained on this page.

Message text:

After Effects error: Finding preferences folder – no such directory.

Message interpretation:

The preferences folder could not be found.

Possible causes:

In most cases this will be caused by an permission issue, where the user cannot access his configuration directory. On rare occasions, the folder will not be found because it has accidentally been deleted or renamed.

Resolution or workaround:

Make sure that your user has full access to his user directory and it actually exists. The locations of the folders are explained on this page. Once there, right-click the folder and call up the Information panel (Mac OS X) or the Properties dialog (Windows) and check the security permissions and user privileges.

Message text:

After Effects error: Unknown checkout ID.

Message interpretation:

An effect returned an invalid parameter and thus did not produce a correct result.

Possible causes:

This error is pretty rare, as it indicates a bug in a plug-in or file format module and should not occur in publicly released versions. A first occurance was recorded during a specific render that involved audio files. Initial suspicions, that this would mean that a given frame could not be finalized (checked out) during render, could not be confirmed. Instead this seems to be caused by including audio in the render and a problem with Quicktime. The user affected by the problem was able to resolve the issue by simply removing the audio files from the project. Another incident was noted with GenArts’ Sapphire plug-ins, where the interactive overlay manipulators used in some effects would produce invalid numerical values.

Resolution or workaround:

If you are using an outdated version of a plug-in, try to obtain and install a newer version that is compatible with your current version of After Effects. If the error is related to rendering specific formats, re-installing Quicktime and Specific CoDecs may be necessary. Also converting source footage files to other formats may prevent these errors.

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 Effects error: Failed to parse transmap file.

Message interpretation:

Unicode conversion for fonts failed because there is no rules file.

Possible causes:

Basically, the Adobe font system is broken when this message appears. This is a component shared between various programs and operates side by side with your operating system’s font system. Due to these complex mechanisms, it can break relatively easily. In most cases this is triggered by installing various applications in the wrong order. If you install for instance an older version of a program to complement other programs, trouble may ensue. This is in particular a problem when you install a mix of complete suites and separate tools. In addition, damaged or poorly designed fonts can cause similar troubles, because they cannot be properly accessed and rendered in font selection lists.

Resolution or workaround:

As a first, always try to remove any fonts from your system that you do not need currently. They only consume memory and performance when the system needs to access them, e.g. to generate previews, and make the lists unnecessarily long. If that doesn’t help, removing all Adobe apps and re-installing everything from scratch will fix the issue in many cases. In addition to removing the programs, you may need to manually remove directories and configuration data. The location of the directory is explained on this page. If you need to use an offending font regardless, try to find a better version of it. If it represents a clone of a commercial font, that one time may be the right moment learning to appreciate the quality, both in technical and aesthetical terms, of a well-done commercial typeface and spending a bit of money on it.

Message text:

After Effects error: Render can’t continue – out of disk space on all overflow volumes.

Message interpretation:

Your disks are are either truly full (which is rare) or for some reason After Effects thinks they are because it cannot write to them.

Possible causes:

Your local harddrives or your network storage are full. This is however extremely rare and unlikely. In most cases there willl be other reasons. If you are rendering using a network, the network might be poorly configured, resulting in datarates too low to mainatin a decent performance. On local disks you may experience fragmentation that will prevent the program form writing large enough chunks, thus also resulting in this error.

If you are using file systems such as FAT 16 or FAT 32, your filesizes may exceed the maximum of 2GB or 4GB, respectively. Likewise, those systems impose limits on the number of files in a directory (for image sequences) and the number of hierarchy levels/ recursions in your folder structure which need to be figured in.

The most common source of trouble are bad disk controller hardware and drivers. Advanced device modes for RAID and/or controllers that are not part of the motherboard, often require installation of dedicated drivers for Firewire, SATA, SCSI and even USB. If the driver is flakey or the device not 100% compliant to the host operating system, it may show odd power saving behaviors, write delays and an assortment of other misconduct that will mess up things.

For CS3 and CS4, another possible point of failure is introduced by the temporary files for multiprocessor rendering. These will reside in your user home directory and may accumulate on consecutive uses of the aforementioned feature. A similar behavior can be observed for Gridiron Software‘s NucleoPro. Information on temporary directories can be found here.

Resolution or workaround:

Get bigger disks or free up space. Defragment the drives. Make sure, all your hardware controllers and drivers work as expected. Reinstall them if necessary or try to find newer/ more compatible versions of them. Regularly clean out your directories that are used during rendering. More information regarding disk health can be found in this article.

Message text:

After Effects error: Adding to movie – disk is full (-34)

Message interpretation:

The movie could not be saved because the disk you are saving it to does not have any space anymore.

Possible causes:

The message is pretty clear in that it already points out the cause that ultimately makes the program throw an error. However, on deeper inspection this can be related to different things. Of course the first and most obvious is, that the disks are physically full. A second, less apparent reason is, that only specific directories on the disk are full. Especially when using Render multiple Frames simultanoulsy, After Effects will generate temporary data in your user home directory. If the folder is full, and no more data can be stored in it, the rendering may fail. This must not be, because the program itself stores so many files, but otehr programs that use the same directory. Similarly, the Media Cache and Disk Cache may prevent successful completion of renders, if they are full. In workgroup environments, you may be restricted by a disk quota, either on your local machine or the server. As an last item, a common reason is simply disk fragmentation.

Resolution or workaround:

First, check whether the location you are saving to, really is full. If so, choose a different directory. As a next step, check all your temporary data directories. Use tools like CCleaner or e.g. Windows‘ own disk cleanup utility to remove any unnecessary files. In addition, manually verify your user home directory and its sub-directories. The locations of these directories are explained on this page. Of course by all means run a defragmentation tool, if you suspect this being the cause. As an last item, increase the available space alotted to your user by changing the quota or lifting it completely. You may need to contact your system/ network administrator to do that.

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.