Understanding / troubleshooting After Effects crash

Question

I have been struggling to export a project. The project was edited in Premiere Pro CS6, color graded and stabilized in After Effects CS6 and I usually export straight from AE, but it kept crashing at the same point.

When I have problems like this, I sometimes export the audio from Premiere and uncheck the audio in AE's timeline and add the one audio file exported from Premiere. This happens sometimes, maybe because I use shots from a wide range of cameras in one timeline who have different time-rates and audio encoding settings. But this didn't help.

I also tried importing the project into Adobe Media Encoder, but Adobe Media Encoder returned an error too.

Another thing I tried was to look at the temporary files in the export folder. The AAC file always has a duration of 6:51 minutes (the whole film lasts about 11 minutes), so I inspected the shot located at 6:51 in the timeline, but it seemed normal.

How can I troubleshoot this kind of crash, and solve it to be able to export this video?

---

Crash log:

Process:               After Effects [1554]
Path:                  /Applications/Adobe After Effects CS6/Adobe After Effects CS6.app/Contents/MacOS/After Effects
Identifier:            com.adobe.AfterEffects
Version:               11.0.4 (11.0.4)
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        ??? [1]
Responsible:           After Effects [1554]
User ID:               501

Date/Time:             2016-06-26 18:16:55.948 -0700
OS Version:            Mac OS X 10.11.5 (15F34)
Report Version:        11
Anonymous UUID:        BE310E80-903C-A620-D4F3-A77FA58199E9


Time Awake Since Boot: 31000 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread:        31

Exception Type:        EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes:       KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0xfffff5ffd7894010
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY


    Model: iMac12,1, BootROM IM121.0047.B23, 4 processors, Intel Core i5, 2,7 GHz, 12 GB, SMC 1.71f21
    Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6770M, AMD Radeon HD 6770M, PCIe, 512 MB
    Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 2 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x45424A3231554538424655302D444A2D4620
    Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 2 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x45424A3231554538424655302D444A2D4620
    Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM1, 4 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x830B, 0x4E54344743363442384847304E532D434720
    Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM1, 4 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x830B, 0x4E54344743363442384847304E532D43472

Answer 1

It sounds like AE is encountering a point in one of your source files where there may be corrupted data, and while the file might be playable within the AE/PPro canvas, exporting isnt possible because of the way AE reads the file.

I don't see why using Media Encoder would be any different, they are built around the same engine.

I would suggest trying to replace the file you think is the issue with a proxy (same resolution) rendered using another application, perhaps VLC. Another option, would be (you mentioned 6:51 timestamp), is to split your clip in Premiere on a Sequence. Splice 10 seconds before that timestamp, and 10 seconds after. Render 2 separate files out, and drop them in.

This will leave a black hole, which you would have to fill... But that would tell you if the source file is the issue.

Lastly, clear cache, and also you could try accessing the hidden secrete menu in Preferences. On windows, hold Shift and while holding, click Edit - Preferences. There will then be a new "Secret" tab that allows flushing of memory every X frames during output, and some other options.

My guess, bad source. Have to work around it by either re-encoding the file into a format AE likes, or splitting if you can.