“Error Compiling Movie. Unknown Error”

[Adrian Tan]

I just had the “Unknown error” message…

Basically, I had a series of photos with a dissolve at the start of the first photo. I nested the sequence (because the photos were all on separate tracks), then added another dissolve to the nest, and Premiere didn’t like that one bit. (Why did I add an additional dissolve? No good reason. Just forgot that there was already one there.)

Removed the dissolve and all was fine.

I doubt if that would have helped the original poster, but anyway…

[Mahad Sajid]

YOU JUST DID! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

[Saad Rabia]

In case someone is looking for a solution here is what was wrong in my case:

Go to “Sequence Settings” and make sure that the “Editing Mode” hasn’t changed to something random, especially if you are editing DSLR footage, make sure to match it by selecting “DSLR” for DSLR videos, as an example.

In my case, the sequence changed to ARRI on its own!

All is good now and good luck to everyone! 🙂

[Jake Cauty]

Same problem. May have a fix. Its exporting. I’ve got a timeline of MXF files, pngs, .movs and some other stuff. Premiere hates it. Plays fine, just won’t render or export. Tried pro res, h264, match seq settings, blah blah blah…

Exporting as MPEG2. MXF seems to like Mpeg 2. The only other thing I can think of is a horrible solution which is to bring all your clips through XDCam transfer or something similar to cover them to .mov. Something like that.

Anyway…try this.. Unknown error isn’t very helpful, cheers Adobe. Good luck

[Stacey Quine]

I have been having the same issue. It’s a long sequence with loads of different types of media that I am trying to export. I tried everything. Cleared cache, consolidated project, moved project from hard drive to computer, different export settings, in Premiere and in Encoder, etc.

I FINALLY tried unnesting a clip. It was a clip with a warp stabiliser effect on it. It worked. I noticed that it kept having an error in the same place (though there were a few outliers that threw me off). The clip had some diagonal lines at the end where the nested sequence isn’t as long as the clip in the main sequence (I had some media overlaid in the track above and didn’t notice), and I am yet to retest it with the clip properly trimmed, but Nesting seems to be a common cause, judging by previous responses. This is frustrating, because the nature of my work means I am constantly using nested sequences in my work, and I wish they were more stable. Would have helped if the error message was a bit more informative!

[Ben Special]

I was having the same issue and nothing here would fix it. I tried importing the project into a new file and that fixed it but I noticed something. IF YOUR FILE NAME HAS A CHARACTER IN IT THEN IT WILL ALWAYS GET THE ERROR FOR RENDERING OR EXPORT. This saved me maybe it will save you too.

[Joshua Moss-o’brien]

Hi Ben

when you say:
IF YOUR FILE NAME HAS A CHARACTER IN IT THEN IT WILL ALWAYS GET THE ERROR FOR RENDERING OR EXPORT.

do you mean numerical characters:
12345ect..

or Symbol Characters:
@$%^&*ect..

Thanks
Josh

“A photograph is usually looked at – seldom looked into.”
Ansel Adams

[Anass El issmaeli]

Hi, I think it’s too late, but I wanted to share my experience for future readers.
I faced the same problem, whenever I hit Render, either to export or to render effects in the TL, the message ” Error Compiling ” pops.

I had a terrible and dying Hard Drive where I was putting Adobe scratch files, and another slow and full Hard Drive for my footage, I was always procrastinating to change them, but when the problem persisted and became unbearable and when I found no clue over internet, I changed my Hard Drives et voilà ! Everything is working fine now.

I have an 128 SSD for the scratch files, 256 SSD for my software files, and 2*2TO HDD for my files.

I hope that this will be in any help for people facing this frustrating problem. Sorry for my little English though.

[Paul Stretton]

Same here. Fixed it this way….

Pre render the entire work area in your timeline. When you get the Error message, look at the timeline where the green render bar stopped – the clip next is the culprit (with yellow or red bar).

To test, deactivate the clip and render again – should work.

In my case it was the warp stabiliser causing the issue – God knows why as there were loads more like it on the timeline, just this one Premiere took exception to!

I removed the effect and boom – fixed.

Hope this helps!

[Mert Bengisu]

Well I’ve just registered to post this, so it may help someone out there one day.

After losing tons of time and valuable life energy on the famous unknown error during encoding process, I’ve realized that premiere was generating a blank (black) frame on some clips that I’ve applied Warp Stabilization.

This had never happened before on any other projects before, and I truly did not have the energy to find out why.

But! It was easily fixed by simply trimming the clip by a frame or two, getting rid of those spooky frames of void!

I was able to render my clip, and now I can sleep. Thanks for previous suggestions by the way, those were useful, and directed me to the right direction anyways.