Reporting now that after some comprehensive pulling of plugs and testing. i've narrowed my problem/issue down to GenArts Sapphire 7 and 8. Having anything from the GenArts arsenal in the comp will cause the AERender crash.
Reporting now to GenArts.
Can anyone else test this? Any comp, drop in a sapphire effect (S_Vignette is one of my go-to plugs) and no luck. Pull it and BGRender works as expected.
Element3d and Optical Flares in the mix are fine, just anything GenArts Sapphire.
Reporting now that after some comprehensive pulling of plugs and testing. i've narrowed my problem/issue down to GenArts Sapphire 7 and 8. Having anything from the GenArts arsenal in the comp will cause the AERender crash.
Reporting now to GenArts.
Can anyone else test this? Any comp, drop in a sapphire effect (S_Vignette is one of my go-to plugs) and no luck. Pull it and BGRender works as expected.
Element3d and Optical Flares in the mix are fine, just anything GenArts Sapphire.
Thanks for the update, unfortuantely we can't fix someone else's bugs so hopefully you'll hear back from GenArts. I would expect them to have good customer support so please keep us posted with any updates.
Lloyd, and anyone having BG Renderer Pro crash with the unable to allocate memory error(s), I reported that I narrowed my issue down to the GenArts Sapphire plug-ins set. After troubleshooting down to that specific plug, I contacted GenArts. Super super helpful support and we found one solution/workaround that others may find helpful.
In the GenArts installation folder/config folder, there is an s_config.text file.
Within that text file there is a line "use gpu=yes"
Altering that text file to be "use gpu=no" has resolved my issue with the plug and BG Renderer Pro and AErender.
I'm happy to report background rendering success with CC2014.
I hope this helps anyone else with the issue who may have Sapphire Plugs installed.
Lloyd, and anyone having BG Renderer Pro crash with the unable to allocate memory error(s), I reported that I narrowed my issue down to the GenArts Sapphire plug-ins set. After troubleshooting down to that specific plug, I contacted GenArts. Super super helpful support and we found one solution/workaround that others may find helpful.
In the GenArts installation folder/config folder, there is an s_config.text file.
Within that text file there is a line "use gpu=yes"
Altering that text file to be "use gpu=no" has resolved my issue with the plug and BG Renderer Pro and AErender.
I'm happy to report background rendering success with CC2014.
I hope this helps anyone else with the issue who may have Sapphire Plugs installed.
Thank you very much for sharing this. We were troubleshooting another customer and had narrowed it down to Sapphire so glad we now have a confirmation as well as a solution!
Here is the specific response from GenArts in case I wasn't super clear.
"Disable GPU acceleration, locate the s_config. [This is located in the installation folder/config folder] Open it in Texteditor and change use_gpu: yes to no. Save it and restart AE."
Thank you again Lloyd for keeping this thread active while a solution was found.
Here is the specific response from GenArts in case I wasn't super clear.
"Disable GPU acceleration, locate the s_config. [This is located in the installation folder/config folder] Open it in Texteditor and change use_gpu: yes to no. Save it and restart AE."
Thank you again Lloyd for keeping this thread active while a solution was found.
Does the pref affect all your rendering or just rendering on aerender? Can you ask GenArts why the plugin doesn't automatically falls back to rendering on the cpu if the gpu is not accessible? Most plugins work this way, having to set this pref manually seems a bit old-school.
Also, when docked, hitting the tilde key doesn’t maximise the BG Render window. Is this something you intend to fix?
Thanks.
That would be an After Effects issue you need to bring up with Adobe. I think there was some version of AE where this was intended behaviour can't remember which now.
That error is not coming from BG Rendrerer. Make sure there are no other scripts running and restart AE then try BG Rendrerer again. Also check to make sure you don't have any scripts in the Startup folder.
Aha, I tried the commandline-render-thingy, and behold: the result was the same. Guess I'll be doing some script-digging... Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
Well, sadly this happened this morning -- troubleshooting wise, i did install the new Magic Bullet 12 suite from RedGiant (all GPU based) so i'm sure there's some sort of correlation. will test
RENDERING: RWO_TRADESHOWLOOP_0205.aep
Launching aerender...
INFO:Unable to allocate 0.000 MB of memory. Either decrease the memory requirements for the rendering of this frame, or install more RAM. (12803 / U_MemTrackedObject). For more information, see www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_mem
aerender Error: After Effects error: There is not enough memory available to complete the operation. Please make more memory available by closing windows or quitting other applications, and try again. (4)
aerender version 13.2x49
PROGRESS: Launching After Effects...
PROGRESS: ...After Effects successfully launched
aerender ERROR -609: AESend failed to send apple event at line 769
Well, sadly this happened this morning -- troubleshooting wise, i did install the new Magic Bullet 12 suite from RedGiant (all GPU based) so i'm sure there's some sort of correlation. will test
I'm having issues with the plugin skipping frames when I render to a video file. It seems really random which frames it skips but it won't create all the frames. Is this a known issue or am I doing something incorrectly? I've just been setting up my renders normally (add to render queue>set the output parameters).
I tried BG Renderer last week to speed up my AE rendering. It worked great to start with, but towards the end of the project I noticed that I wasn't getting anywhere near the speed as I had been. Looking at my Activity Monitor, I was able to run 8-12 instances of the script to use 100% of my machine's power to get renders out quickly. Now, I can't even get 20%, no matter what I try. Running more than 4 instances now seems to stop all rendering.
I made a portable app and ran it on my server machine, which is much older than my current machine (and a Mac Mini, as opposed to a new Macbook Pro) and one instance of the BG renderer is using almost 100% of the machine, and rendering frames in less than a minute, when they're taking anywhere from 5-10 mins on the laptop.
Any ideas why this might be?
My laptop is Macbook Pro, running Yosemite, 16GB RAM with an Intel Iris Pro gfx card. The Mac Mini is a 2012 one with 16GB RAM running Yosemite with on-board graphics. Both running AE CS5.
I tried BG Renderer last week to speed up my AE rendering. It worked great to start with, but towards the end of the project I noticed that I wasn't getting anywhere near the speed as I had been. Looking at my Activity Monitor, I was able to run 8-12 instances of the script to use 100% of my machine's power to get renders out quickly. Now, I can't even get 20%, no matter what I try. Running more than 4 instances now seems to stop all rendering.
I made a portable app and ran it on my server machine, which is much older than my current machine (and a Mac Mini, as opposed to a new Macbook Pro) and one instance of the BG renderer is using almost 100% of the machine, and rendering frames in less than a minute, when they're taking anywhere from 5-10 mins on the laptop.
Any ideas why this might be?
My laptop is Macbook Pro, running Yosemite, 16GB RAM with an Intel Iris Pro gfx card. The Mac Mini is a 2012 one with 16GB RAM running Yosemite with on-board graphics. Both running AE CS5.
Make sure you do not have the "Use Multiprocessing" turned on as it will choke the machine if you launch more than one BG Renderer instance. Also make sure you do not launch more instances than you have RAM available. This all depends on the size and complexity of your project but the general rule of thumb is 2-3GB per processor plus 2-3GB for the OS and 2-3GB for any other running apps including AE so as you can see 16GB is not a lot of ram to be doing efficient multi-instance rendering. The problem is that the OS will allow you to launch more than you have memory for and will begin doing disk-swapping of memory which is terribly slow so you always need to be aware of memory usage and management.
Bg Renderer Pro used to work on my AE, and now it doesn't.
Guess the biggest change is I moved to AE CC 2014. It starts up and all but it just stays eternally at "Launchin aerender"
I don't have a good computer, and just 8GB but I am not necessarily making the most complex comps. Just moving text. Won't even start that.
Won't even do smaller chunks of comps. Simply put it never starts.
I've uninstalled AE and BG Renderer at least twice alreayd to see if anything changes.
Do you get any warnings or errors when you launch AE? Since aerender doesn't have a GUI there is no way for you to dismiss any modal dialogs so this would prevent it from launching. You need to make sure your AE installation is working properly, i would suggest re-installing AE and testing with a clean project that does not use any 3rd party plugins.
Bg Renderer Pro used to work on my AE, and now it doesn't.
Guess the biggest change is I moved to AE CC 2014. It starts up and all but it just stays eternally at "Launchin aerender"
I don't have a good computer, and just 8GB but I am not necessarily making the most complex comps. Just moving text. Won't even start that.
Won't even do smaller chunks of comps. Simply put it never starts.
I've uninstalled AE and BG Renderer at least twice alreayd to see if anything changes.
Do you get any warnings or errors when you launch AE? Since aerender doesn't have a GUI there is no way for you to dismiss any modal dialogs so this would prevent it from launching. You need to make sure your AE installation is working properly, i would suggest re-installing AE and testing with a clean project that does not use any 3rd party plugins.
No warnings or errors. Terminal window simply stays at "Launching aerender..."
I could leave it on for as long as I want and it just remains there. I might try uninstalling AE again as you say.
These errors only occur on networked drives...I've successfully instanced 15 copies of the BG renderer if it's rendering locally.
OS X 10.9.5 (13F34) 64 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC 2 x 2.4 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon AE CC 2014
You have a corrupted plugin. Looks like one of the native AE plugins which means something might be wrong with your install, i would recommend doing a clean re-install of After Effects
I just downloaded the trial for BG Renderer. I'm getting this error part way through rendering. A couple times it happened right after I closed AE. But I still get it even if I leave AE open and just sit and watch.
aerender ERROR An existing connection was forcible closed by the remote host.
:Unable to receive at line 314
aerender ERROR: After Effects can not render for aerender. Another instance of aerender, or another script, may be running; or, AE may be waiting for a response from a modal dialog, or for a render to complete. Try running aerender without the - reuse flag to invoke a separate instance of After Effects
I just downloaded the trial for BG Renderer. I'm getting this error part way through rendering. A couple times it happened right after I closed AE. But I still get it even if I leave AE open and just sit and watch. aerender ERROR An existing connection was forcible closed by the remote host.:Unable to receive at line 314aerender ERROR: After Effects can not render for aerender. Another instance of aerender, or another script, may be running; or, AE may be waiting for a response from a modal dialog, or for a render to complete. Try running aerender without the - reuse flag to invoke a separate instance of After Effects
Sounds like you have a firewall or something blocking the aerender socket connection. In any case this is an After Effects issue so please contact Adobe for help with this.
I'm using it on CC and noticing that on some renders it says it has completed but for some reason occasionally (but repeatedly) stops rendering some files early. IE i'll queue 10 short sequences (10 frames - 200 frames max) and on 2 of the 10 sequences the outputed file stopped early and has to be rerendered...tho the renderer says eveyrthing completed normally.
Can't figure out what's up. : /
Any tips?
(Oh, and the sequences are 3k res down to 720p using keylight / primatte and outputting to QT Png+A MOV. 64gb ram / i7 3930)
I'm using it on CC and noticing that on some renders it says it has completed but for some reason occasionally (but repeatedly) stops rendering some files early. IE i'll queue 10 short sequences (10 frames - 200 frames max) and on 2 of the 10 sequences the outputed file stopped early and has to be rerendered...tho the renderer says eveyrthing completed normally.
Can't figure out what's up. : /
Any tips?
(Oh, and the sequences are 3k res down to 720p using keylight / primatte and outputting to QT Png+A MOV. 64gb ram / i7 3930)
Does this happen on all projects or just this specific project? Can you try rendering to a different format and directory? These errors are usually footage/permission related. In any case this is an aerender issue so you should also follow up with Adobe about it as it's in their realm.
Hey Lloyd, wonder if you have any plans for an option with the upcoming AE 2015 to render the project using the 2014.2 engine so that multiprocessing is used.
Hey Lloyd, wonder if you have any plans for an option with the upcoming AE 2015 to render the project using the 2014.2 engine so that multiprocessing is used.
Do not use MP as it's extremely inefficient (This is why Adobe dropped it). You should use the "Save BG Launcher" feature instead and launch your own multi-proc render. Please watch the video tutorial for details.
Thanks for replying Lloyd, BG Launcher rendering is always an option but for our workflow output directly to a movie file instead of image sequence ends up saving more time for us. That's why I asked if you'd consider to add an option to render using 2014.2 engine, it would be really helpful. Thanks!
Thanks for replying Lloyd, BG Launcher rendering is always an option but for our workflow output directly to a movie file instead of image sequence ends up saving more time for us. That's why I asked if you'd consider to add an option to render using 2014.2 engine, it would be really helpful. Thanks!
Yes we will definitely consider adding that feature.
Lloyd, please forgive me if this question has been answered somewhere in these pages, but I'm on a quick lunch break in the middle of a busy day, and this question just popped into my head while I'm waiting for my lunch... and plus I also wanted to take the chance to say how grateful for BGRenderer I am.
BGRenderer is an absolute must. THE essential add-on for AE. (OK, not the only essential add-on for AE, but hands down top of the list). Just thought you should know I will fully support your Canonization, should that day ever come.
From page 1 on this thread, you wrote:
"Since aerender works on the command-line it doesn't have access to the graphics card and it's GPU. For the record multi-processing in the main AE application also doesn't work for Raytrace rendering for the same reason. If you would like Adobe to implement support for this please file a feature request with them here: http://adobe.com/go/wish"
Am I to understand that for non-Raytraced or non-GPU-dependant Comps, aerender (bgrenderer) does support Multiprocessing and rendering multiple frames simultaneously? I feel like if this were the case, I would see the PROGRESS: frames counter chew on one frame for 4-5 seconds, then spit out 20 frames at once with 0 seconds per frame listed, like it does in the RAM preview or Main Render Queue.
Well anyways, no bug report or show-stopping project-killer of a question here, I was just curious for my own edification and wanted to give magnanimous praise for BG Renderer. Thank you so much, Lloyd!
Am I to understand that for non-Raytraced or non-GPU-dependant Comps, aerender (bgrenderer) does support Multiprocessing and rendering multiple frames simultaneously? I feel like if this were the case, I would see the PROGRESS: frames counter chew on one frame for 4-5 seconds, then spit out 20 frames at once with 0 seconds per frame listed, like it does in the RAM preview or Main Render Queue. Well anyways, no bug report or show-stopping project-killer of a question here, I was just curious for my own edification and wanted to give magnanimous praise for BG Renderer. Thank you so much, Lloyd! ...and now my lunch is here-]
Don't use the MP option. Use the "Save BG Launcher" option instead. Please watch the tutorial video to learn how it works.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
Well, sadly this happened this morning -- troubleshooting wise, i did install the new Magic Bullet 12 suite from RedGiant (all GPU based) so i'm sure there's some sort of correlation. will test
RENDERING: RWO_TRADESHOWLOOP_0205.aep
Launching aerender...
INFO:Unable to allocate 0.000 MB of memory. Either decrease the memory requirements for the rendering of this frame, or install more RAM. (12803 / U_MemTrackedObject). For more information, see www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_mem
aerender Error: After Effects error: There is not enough memory available to complete the operation. Please make more memory available by closing windows or quitting other applications, and try again. (4)
aerender version 13.2x49
PROGRESS: Launching After Effects...
PROGRESS: ...After Effects successfully launched
aerender ERROR -609: AESend failed to send apple event at line 769
I tried BG Renderer last week to speed up my AE rendering. It worked great to start with, but towards the end of the project I noticed that I wasn't getting anywhere near the speed as I had been. Looking at my Activity Monitor, I was able to run 8-12 instances of the script to use 100% of my machine's power to get renders out quickly. Now, I can't even get 20%, no matter what I try. Running more than 4 instances now seems to stop all rendering.
I made a portable app and ran it on my server machine, which is much older than my current machine (and a Mac Mini, as opposed to a new Macbook Pro) and one instance of the BG renderer is using almost 100% of the machine, and rendering frames in less than a minute, when they're taking anywhere from 5-10 mins on the laptop.
Any ideas why this might be?
My laptop is Macbook Pro, running Yosemite, 16GB RAM with an Intel Iris Pro gfx card. The Mac Mini is a 2012 one with 16GB RAM running Yosemite with on-board graphics. Both running AE CS5.
Terminal window simply stays at "Launching aerender..."
I could leave it on for as long as I want and it just remains there.
I might try uninstalling AE again as you say.
Close the terminal window
WARNING:After Effects warning: logged one error AEGP Plugin TIFFIO: Error Writing TIFF Data (5027 :: 12)
eventually, every instance failed. I've tried PNG sequences and received this error too:
WARNING:After Effects warning: Unknown file i/o error
INFO:AEGP Plugin PNGIO Support: Unable to create PNGIO.
WARNING:After Effects warning: Unknown file i/o error
These errors only occur on networked drives...I've successfully instanced 15 copies of the BG renderer if it's rendering locally.
OS X 10.9.5 (13F34)
64 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC
2 x 2.4 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
AE CC 2014
Thanks for the suggestion, we will consider this for a future version.
I work off two computers but will replace them in the future, would I need to buy another license when I do?
No you can transfer the license. Please open a support ticket and we can help you with this. Http://aescripts.com/contact/?direct=1