.aep Files M.I.A!

I would really appreciate any input or help right now!
Situation:
I have been creating a showreel in AE, and saved many variations of my original file for each shot (like a template). The issue is I went to AME to render, and whilst it still does a mediocre and glitchy job at rendering the composition of source files, the actual source .aeps for each shot (the templated shot variations I mentioned earlier) are now all missing, and I fear many other have gone Missing In Action as well.
I feel like I am looking for the MH370 using specialist audio equipment with a pair of iphone earphones.
I have attached a full, dual monitor screenshot, with the right monitor displaying missing .aep files with a "blue orb" type icon, I am assuming indicating the files have gone offline.
Just to clarify - yes, the entire .aep files have gone missing, along with the folder containing them. However, some other files from folders untouched for over a week have decided to arbitrarily jump ship too.
I am just trying to make ends meet, all CC is doing is causing me hiccups, this really is horrible. CS5 was amazing.
System Info:
Windows 8.1 64bit via SSD
Adobe After Effects Version CC 12.2.1.5 (64bit)
Adobe Media Encoder Version CC 7.2.0.43 (64bit)

I thought I would just bump this thread, considering there are items at the top of the list that have been solved

Similar Messages

CC 2014 .aep files will not open with AE CS6

I have a file for Adobe After Effects I was working on for class, however I couldn't work on it at the college last week due to spring break so I used the CC Trial that they had available from this website for my laptop. Today, when I tried to open it up on one of the college computers that has the CS6 version of the software, it wouldn't open. I get this error that says:
I have worked on this project a whole bunch, and it is due this upcoming Wednesday. How can I convert the .aep file to the software from my college?

You need to save backwards. CC 2014 (which is version 13) can save back to version 12 (which is CC). Then you would open it in version 12 (CC) and save it back to version 11 (CS6).
opening After Effects projects from previous versions and saving back to previous versions

.aep files will not open with AE CS6

All my After Effects projects show as opening with Acrobat and I cannot change them to open with After Effects, and these were created with AE CS6.
Any ideas?
Cheers
Sean

Ok simple easy idiot proof method. Go to
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS5.5\Support Files
Rename AfterFX.exe to AfterFX.exe.org or anything will do to make it a non.exe file. Then click on any .aep file. Windoze will say can't find AE CS5.5 and it will then allow go to the dialog window where you can change it to open with AE CS6. Check the always open with this app box and you're done. Go back and rename the changed CS5.5 file to AfterFX.exe and you're back to normal with all future .aep files to open in CS6.
Same process with any version of AfterFX.exe Windoze may have locked you in to.

Media Manager not bringing along .aep file

Hi,
In CS5.5., I use the media manager to make a trimmed copy of my project for archiving (I select all the sequences) yet it won't bring along any after effects files (.aep) that were used in the premiere project. The end result is a trimmed copy sans any .aep files, so for now I bring the .aep files in manually but is there a reason/solution to this?
Thank you

is there a solution to this?
Yes. Use the proper tool for the job. For file management, you use a file manager, not an NLE. That means Explorer or Finder.

.aep files will not import with AE CS6

Ok, I'm doing something unique here maybe. I'm trying to Network Render a project because it takes about 8 hours or so to render in Premiere. My workflow consist of a number of dymanically linked AE files that make up some titles, info headers, and some green screen comps. This is all cut beatifully on the Premiere Pro timeline and audio is edited nicely in Audition. What I'd like to do is import the Premiere Pro project back into After Effects after the final cut and use the AE renderer to distribute. The problem I run itno is the .aep files I used in premiere show up as unlinked footage. Further more trying to relink the file leads the ,aep files to be represented by the importer as "8o u" or some crap like that. Can .aep files not be directly represented in a workflow like this?

If you have a Premiere Pro project that contains linked AE files as source footage then AE will have to open up in the background to run and render those files. Also, all linked Comps in AE will have to be in the same AE project.
If you open up the Premiere Pro project in AE then what do you think will happen to the linked files? AE will have to open them up and render them so that they can be rendered in AE.... See the problem.
Dynamic Link and AE as a comp are only useful in PPro if you're finishing your project in PPro. If it were my project as soon as the edit was close to final I would have rendered all of the dynamic linked files and bring the footage into PPro. Now you'll have no problem in AE doing the final color grading.
Most of my long form projects that require a final color grade are rendered from PPro or FCP or Avid to a production codec and then the footage is brought into AE for the final color grade if I need things like Colorista. Other wise the final color grade is done in Speed Grade or the entire sequence is sent out for color grading by boxing up a bunch of hard drives and bringing the entire project into a grading studio.

Can't open .aep files created in AE v12.0 in AE 11.0

Total AE N00b here ...
I downloaded some .aep tutorial files and can't open them in AE CS6 (version 11.0.2.11). When I do, I get the error:
I assume that AE version 12.0x353 is creative cloud?
Is there any way to open newer versions of .aep files in standard CS6 versions of AE?

No, you can't open After Effects CC (12.0) projects in After Effects CS6 (11.0).
You can open an After Effects CC (12.0) project in After Effects CC (12.0) and then use a command to save the file as a version that can be opened by After Effects CS6 (11.0):
File > Save As > Save A Copy As CS6

"package" an AEP file and go...

indesigner has that package function where it packages everything into a neat file for you to transport. i want to take my AEP file home with me to work on it. does AE (CS4) have a package function?
thanks.

There is a fundamental difference between a source file and a rendered file. A source file is something that you import into your project to use in your timeline. A rendered file is one you generate from a timeline. Are you comfortable with understanding that difference? A source file can be a rendered file if it's imported back into the project to be used as a source file in a timeline.
The bottom line is that if you use a file in your project, you need to collect it with the project or else the file will be missing when you open the project in a different location. If you're uncertain as to whether or not all of the files you imported into your project are being used by your project, you can reduce your project prior to collecting it. This will eliminate the files not used by any given selected compositions and possibly reduce the collected size.

AEP file makes AE CS6 crash. No import possible

Treat orginally started to creativecow. Was advised to bring it here. I will use this treat for updates.
Orginal post:
Okay. I am about to become suicidal here.
I am running healthy spec-ed i7 iMac OSX 10.8.5 with CS6 (full specs below in the crash log). I was working on this Premiere project with AE comps in it. Nothing heavy of complex. Just some kinetic typography made with TypeMonkey and some low res images.
After numerous saves (both Pr and AE) I decided to render the final result. And for some reason the render got stuck (Pr). So I decided to reboot my machine and start again. Now I can't open the AEP file it crashes after trying to load comp 6. Also my Premier file is F*cked because 95% of it is that darn AEP file and its giving me the spinning ball of death.
I tried to import into a black project -> Crash.
I tried to import the AEP file without the media linked. -> Crash
I tried to use a different Mac with CS6 -> Crash
I uninstalled all the expensive Red Giant and Saphire plug-ins (which this project doesn't use-> Crash.
I tried to use a windows 7 machine with AE CC -> Crash.
I read that it is possible to open the file in a text editor but so far this hasn't been successful. Although all comps are pretty much similar I have a feeling comp 6 is corrupt. Is there a way to extract this comp via a hex or txt editor? After Effects seems impossible to deal with it.
Suggestions are MOST welcome.
Crash log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1585582/After%20Effects_2013-12-12-152146_Pauls-iMac.t xt
Thanks alot,
Paul

First of all, DON'T KILL YOURSELF! Suicide is a permanent (wrong) answer to a temporary problem.
There is a way to translate an AE project into a human-readable text file. It's called Open Sesame. That might allow you to have a peek around and maybe change a few things.
Definitely file a bug report and include the project for them to look at.
Do you have any earlier versions of the project saved? Do they work? (If you don't have any, you might consider incremental saving on your next project.

Can't open AEP file, crashes AE 6 with error messages...

I've been rendering a 3D scene for a few weeks and got all the final frames finished on Thanksgiving. I've been composing them all weekend and one particular file I had all put together and then saved it and closed it and tried to open it Adobe Media Encoder to make a final video to send off to the client. Encoder repeatedly would hang at 100% opening the file, so I decided to open up AE again to see what was up and sure enought the file itself wouldnt open anymore. I get the error message [After Effects error: crash occurred while envoking effect plug-in "Auto Level"] and then [After Effects error: Crash in progress. Last logged message was:<3376> <Dynamic Link> <5> C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CS6\Adobe Premiere Pro.exe]. Then it crashes completely and asks if I want to save the file. Of course the resulting saved file is only a fraction of the oriiginal file size and doesnt open either. I tried emptying the cache files and turning on caps lock, tried to import the file into a new project and even place it on the Premiere timeline. No dice, nothing I know seems to work. I'd really rather not have to redo the 10+ hours I spent composing all those layers and re-adding back all the effects work. I can see all my compositions in the background while its crashing (which just pains me). Any way I could get my file back into a useable state?? Wouldn't care if I needed to re-do some of it, but deadline is approaching fast and I just can't be spending all the time to redo this one scene.
I'm on a 6core i7 PC, Win7 64bit OS with 32Gb of Ram and an Nvidia 670GTX 2Gb video card , 2 internal SSDs set as RAID for the boot drive. Of course this is all in After Effects CS6 from the master collection. Everything is latest driver as of 4 weeks ago when I started all of this (brand new machine!). I am composing 16bit PNG image sequences, and adding standard color corrections and image tuning, as well as a pass in Red Giant Looks, Re:visions Reel Smart Motion Blur and Video CoPilots Optical Flares.

What Dave said. MP is hopelessly overrated. Sometimes it works splendidly on simple projects, most of the time not so much when you throw halfway complex stuff at it. In your case it would have been quietly disabled behind your back, anyways (read this for reference: After Effects Help | Memory and storage), but with AE anything is possible. I suspect that a conflict between hardware acceleration features for another effect or footage decoding made things go boom in your case, but without knowing al lthe details, it's impossible to tell what exactly caused the breakdown.
Mylenium

How do I prevent AE from saving .AEP files in the wrong folders?

I've been using AE heavily for about 6 months, and it has this really pesky basic Windows UI problem that makes life quite frustrating. I work on lots of projects that I maintain sequentially numbered in their respective folders. Typically in Windows when you choose "Save As" windows defaults to the folder the current file resides in. For some reason After Effects defaults to the last folder I saved a file in, which often times is not the folder I am in. So I end up with project files from projectA stored in the projectB folder. This leads to version control problems when members of the team can't find the most recent version of projectA and so they start working on the previous version of ProjectA and later on ask me where all my changes are. I want to believe that AE has a checkbox in preferences somewhere that says "make save-as feature operate like every other windows program" - but I haven't found it yet. Does anyone have any advice on this topic?

I want to believe that AE has a checkbox in preferences somewhere that says "make save-as feature operate like every other windows program" - but I haven't found it yet. Does anyone have any advice on this topic?
I think you are operating on wrong assumptions - a project is just a reference to other files plus some internal data, so it doesn't exactly make sense to maintain endless lists of absolute paths, given that you can import things back and forth in a million ways. What happens as soon as you import a project into another one? What, when you collect files? What happens when you re-import pre-rendered files? A "same origin" policy would be riddled with tons of issues to figure out the logic as to what the user actually wants to do and which path is the correct one.... I've never missed any such feature.
Mylenium

High res aep files imported to prpro export low res

I create an after effects file for a lower third. Look beautiful. Renders to avi great.
I import that file into prpro cs6. I put in the timeline, export mpeg2-dvd - it looks horrible (very low resolution).
What am I doing wrong?
Mark

OK. I have the files.
I took a look at each one in MediaInfo.
The first image is from the file you exported from After Effects. As you can see, it was created at 720p (HD). It has a HUGE data rate of 553Mb/s. It better look good with that much data behind it!.
By the way, in order to make this a lower third you need to export to a codec that has an Alpha channel - meaning you export as a 32 bit file to get rid of the white background - assuming you don't have a white background in your comp. It is fine to create a comp with a white background but you need to hide it when you export to a 32 bit file. That way you can see through it to the video below. There are a few like Quicktime Animation which offers a 32 bit file for use with an alpha channel.
The second one is the AVI you exported from Premiere Pro. It was exported from Premiere Pro at the standard definition (PAL) setting. It is not standard DV AVI because DV AVI only uses a data rate of about 30Mb/s (including the audio) and this one is way over that. I assume that is a function of the Aja card in your computer.
The third image is from the MPEG2-DVD export. As you can see, you changed from 25 frames per second to 29.97. And you changed from PAL to NTSC. Also, the data rate is a pathetic 3.8Mb/s
So, you started with a pristine high definition image from After Effects. You exported to a form of AVI that allowed you to keep a high data rate. Then you changed horses in mid stream and exported to NTSC.
I have heard of mixing apples and oranges, but you threw some tomatoes into that mix. Rotten ones.
Be aware that NTSC (Never Twice the Same Color) is not a friendly format for crisp, sharp lines.
Why don't you tell us where you live and if it is not in the USA, perhaps all you need to do is export to a PAL format instead of NTSC.
Here it is exported to H.264 at 5Mb/s using 25 frames per second off of a PAL sequence set for widescreen. Looks fine. Just remember. It is only uploaded as a standard definition file, so don't expect to see it full screen and get 100% of the quality. Use the larger YouTube box, OK, but not full screen. And remember to view it at 480p and not a lower resolution.
MediaInfo show this. See how low the data rate is? And yet it looks fine.
I exported to MPEG2-DVD for you. Download it from http://www.stevengotz.com/files/lower-third-test.m2v (Right click on the link and Save As - do not play it from my site or you may be disappointed)
MediaInfo shows this. Still a low bit rate, but the correct frame rate and frame size. That really made the difference.
In conclusion, export to PAL if that is what you need. Otherwise, rework the comp to 29.97 and set the sequence to DV AVI (NTSC). Then export as NTSC. Also, if viewing this on your computer, make sure the window you are using never exceeds 720X576 or you are forcing the computer to invent pixels where there were none.

What can cause After Effects project files (.aep) to be large?

Some of my AE project files are over 100mb and I can't figure out why. Other projects that were created in a similar fashion are just a few KB or about 5MB and smaller. Any ideas what I could have done differently for the .aep file to be so large?

details about Dave's response:
memory and storage tips for Warp Stabilizer and 3D Camera Tracker

How do I make After Effects files in Windows 7 open in AE CS5 instead of the default CS5.5?

I have AE 5.5 and 5 installed on a Windows 7 machine and I'd like .AEP files open in CS5 by default.
I've tried using windows explorer to specify using the CS5 program but it defaults back to CS5.5
I've tried using Bridge CS5 and CS5.5 Edit/Preferences/File Type Associations but After Effects isn't even listed for some reason.
The only way I can open files in CS5 is by opening CS5 and opening the files from there. Trouble is I have more CS5 files than CS5.5 and I collaborate with several other artists only running CS5 so converting them to CS5.5 isn't an option right now.
Any ideas?
Thanks for looking!
Cheers,
Chris

Nah, won't work. You would have to completeley erase the "After Effects Project" file type from your file associtaions and then literally rebuild it from scratch. Yes, that means heavy surgery by digging into the Registry and its HKEY_CASSES_ROOT branch as just removing it from the Explorer file associations still leaves the file type class in place. Long answer short: Just leave things as they are and keep your work organized. I never use double-clicking and I'm juggling versions from CS4 to CS6 every day, so it's possible.
Mylenium

How can I open an AEP project and make all media OFFLINE?

Hi There,
I am working with an AEP file that is on the network that has pretty heavy media files linked to the project. Every time I open the file over the network, AE takes FOREVER to open it. I remember somebody showed me a way to open up a file and making all the media offline. Something like holding ALT when pressing the open button on the Open File dialog. Although, I can't remember if this is right. I'm on a Mac, and I'd like to know if there is a way to do this so I can open up the project without waiting, and simply link the files that I really need to be linked so I can work quicker.
Anybody have any suggestion? Thank you for your time and help!

>You can just change the name of the folder where your sources are stored.
That works well for Windows, but Mac OS is a little trickier. The OS keeps track of folder name changes (even on network directories) and will re-direct requests appropriately. Very cool for users, very bad if you're trying to fool a program like AE. (Had to struggle with this about a month ago to offline some files.)
The only way I was able to make it work was by changing the name of the folder from a different computer while the main computer was disconnected from that server.

Can I import .aep into photoshop or convert to .psd

I helped a team mate (at a different location) with a Poster (Many Layers). She needed some special effects.
I imported the .psd into After Effects 2014 cc
This is a single frame composition.
I used special effect video files to add effects and just lined them up where I wanted on the single frame to get the effect i wanted. (Explosion.mov)
I did this with 6 or 7 different .mov files to create the effect I wanted.
I exported the poster for delivery.
Turned out great.
My problem is: There are quite a few different pictures and different posters that have to be made. I just want to send the layers I made back to the Poster (Photoshop) Team Mate. (She doesn't know or do After Effects)
How Can I get my project with all the layers BACK to .psd or.... .how can I save this so she can import my .aep back into .psd so she can continue to work there?
Is this possible?
Can someone suggest a better workflow?

Photoshop cannot open the .aep file - you need After Effects to open that.
I'm not sure how you could put AE data back into PSD form.

.aep Files M.I.A!

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