How to fix a Failed Render from After Effects

5 things you can do so your videos will export.

Failed Renders - it's so depressing when that happens. Adobe After Effects and Media Encoder have loads of features that can help diagnose the problem, but knowing what they are can been its own issue. I made this video to help answer the questions:

“Why does my video fail to export?",
"What steps can I take when a render fails?"
and
“Why is my render stalled / hanging?”

In this video, I'll look at AME’s #error log which tells me the point in the timeline which caused the #render to #fail. Then I run through the standard fixes, like clearing / purging the media cache. I discuss why I think using GPU acceleration is a bad idea (ever since I stopped using it, I rarely get a failed render) and finally, I show how to use render to image sequence to bypass the whole issue.

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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:20 Look for clues
1:16 Playing games?
2:05 Work around the problem

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[ShiveringCactus]

Also, post below if none of the tips covered help and if I can help, I will.

[a.y.hawk.]

Purging memory & disk cache solved it for me! You have no idea how long I've been looking for a solution. Thanks so much!

[EricPatno]

You’re a lifesaver. Was pushing out an advertisement I filmed and I was stuck trying to render bc I needed to clear the cache. Thank you so much!

[kiber_official]

I indeed have a gaming PC, so I just had to switch the "Renderer"-option into "...Software". You are truly a genius!

[SSGaming]

I'm rendering image sequence but whenever I render it's failed, it didn't even work in media endcoder pls help btw those images sequence are in 4k

[swampwhompa]

As much as rendering an image sequence sux, that definitely saved me today. For some reason a couple effects I was using were bugging out in the middle of a render and would crash AE every time. I had to restart the image sequence render a couple times but once it got past those few weird frames in the middle everything went perfectly. Thanks a bunch!

[rehanali]

Most of my render problems are fixed by rendering as lossless (AVI) on ae, and then importing the avi in media encoder and rendering as mp4. Tedious, but this is how I usually fix my problems. I think it's because rendering as mp4 means that the software tries to find the best way to compress each frame and append it to a file. Doing this could be very slow, depending on how good your PC is. Mine isn't very good, sadly.

[owndamnhero]

I came to this video looking for a solution while literally doing option 5. Idk why I found that funny. But thanks for the help, I’ll keep it in mind for next time.

[AnnSnowfrost]

Thank you so much for the video! I was encountering so many error reports, but somehow switching the render option made it went smooth and even faster!

[turbo_co]

Ah, I had 89gb of cache I needed to clear. Man 4k is MASSIVE. Thank you!

[LloydDunamis]

Intro was basically me as well, and perhaps most of everyone else.

'Am aware that a computer restart might actually fix the problem, but I was stubborn.
In my case, the render fails right when I press [Render] on the render queue. Log files, no mention of why; the interface just says "Failed". No AfterEffects restart nor cache clear could save it
...just the computer restart.

This was somewhat the last thing I read/watched until I gave up and just restarted my laptop. Thanks.

[sandeepkhare]

first trick works. i did pre comp. Thank you so much man.

[thedivyanshsingh]

STEP 2: Purging worked for me!

You friking saved my day bro!! Was working on this project for 2 days and finally when it was finished I put it on render as usual but this problem came and it was goddamn frustrating... I thought it somehow got corrupted & i have to redo the project. But before redoing it was tired my last effort to fix it and I found this vid. Can't express my gratitude in words❤❤

[sunshaken]

IT WORKED. The worst option for me was to change the clip and i avoided it by doing all the other alternatives but ultimately i had to change the clip, AME gave the time stamp for. But the clip even rendered separately easily and i tried using the rendered clip as well but it just wasn't working. Idk what was the problem. Whatever tho, after 3 hours of stupid effort, i got it done! 😩✊ (i even restarted the pc & yk how unwanted is that)

[XinEdits]

Thanks! I failed to export for the first time on November 29, 2021. I watched this video and I know how to solve this problem :D

[piyushsoni]

I'm little late, but if you are still getting 'failed' when you try to render ae edit through media encoder, then follow this:

- Set your Performance to SOFTWARE ENCODING in Encoding Settings under Video menu and then render it.

It worked for me, hope it works for you 😁

[moranxedits]

Hi I need help, my AE isn't rendering my project in full resolution only in half or draft if It's on full it freezes and saves nothing.. can you help me fix it?

[DaceLmao]

hey man my ae render always crashes with the sapphire plugin (i was trying to render 1920x1080 60fps quicktime with rgb+alpha) and when i go to render it the render percentage gets stuck at 0% and then crashes with the error code "after effects can't continue (plugin) generated an unexpected exception" plz help

[tanveerahmad]

One more thing you can do, ⬇️⬇️⬇️
Don't render it with media encoder first,
Render it with after effects for first time,
It will create a huge sized file, then drag and drop it to media encoder,
Render it and your job is done🤗 (I hope atleast)

[TheSpacePlaceYT]

I've always rendered in MP4 but for some reason that is the one file export I cannot render in. This problem occurred nearly a year ago and I decided to render in AVI. The issue though is that it's file size is rediculous and uploading to YouTube is tedious. I can't use online file converters because the file is too big. What should I do?