Premiere Pro CS4 Export fails with Media Encoder CS4 "Encoding Failed"," Could Not Read From Source.

Question

There has never been a history of Adobe CS3 installation on the brand new MAC Pro I am using prior to installing Master Collection CS4, despite other posts claiming that chief cause of this issue is a previous CS3, Beta or trial installations of previous versions. I simply had a straightforward installation of CS4 and have had trouble since day 1.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled Master CS4 three times, two times with the action script cleaner for CS4. I tried changing Adobe Cache folder locations to alternative drives. I ran shift start many times to correct any inconsistencies and corrected for permissions using disk utilities repeatedly. All updates have been installed and I am still getting the same error when exporting my timeline to Media Encoder CS4, be it a large High Definition project or a small one consisting of few stills.
No matter what presets I chose, the job appears as one of the items in the render qeuee of Media Encoder CS4 and sits there with the status WAITING until i hit Start Queue. When I do, it still says WAITING under Status and at the bottom corner of the window it reads : Loading "project name.prproj" and after an average of about 6 minutes, a yellow caution sign appears. No render whatsoever takes place. When I click on the yellow caution sign, it reads a log of all errors in connection with each job, including the ones that have gone before it. Here is one:
Start of the Error Paste
- Source File:/users/myname/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/test.prproj
- Output File:/ users/my name/Documetns/Adobe/Premiere Pro/4.0/Sequence 01.mov
- Preset used :NTSC DV
- Video:
- Audio:
- Bitrate:
0 Encoding Time: 00:33:01
Sat Mar 21 17:12:25 2009 : Encoding failed
Could not read from the source. Please check if it has moved or been deleted.
END OF ERROR Paste
Please any gurus out there know how to troubleshoot this damn thing on Mac, I really appreciate it. I have not yet encountered any posts of Mac owners with no previous CS3 installation having this issue. I am in the middle of 3 projects with tight deadlines and need your urgent help. THANK YOU!

Answer 1

Hello There,
I resolved the issue through a simple process of elimination. So simple in fact I wonder how I missed it. Since there has been no history of prior CS3 installation on this machine and every conceivable trick was applied to resolve the problem (refer to my original post earlier in the thread) ending in frustration, the problem had to reside in a factor or series of factors that were only present in this machine. Of the two remaining causes different in compare to other machines, I had to look into the possibility of any hardware and/or software conflicts. After all, this very same installation works perfectly fine on my colleague's Apple Macbook Pro and several Windows machines.
It turns out that I had installed Pro Tools on this machine that comes with all kinds of optional plug-ins in the so called ignition pack. One of these optional plug-ins is called IZOTOPE (three varieties include Spectron, Trash and another one that escapes my mind). They were all lite version licenses that would automatically pop up on their own when you would start a program where they had been residing. One such program where an association existed was indeed the Premiere. An annoying dialogue box directing you to buy the full version when you would start the premiere would refuse to go away. Sometimes it would even start on its own culminating in a a permanent dialogue box.
The cause of the problem was right before my eyes and I had overlooked it. Once uninstalled using IZOTOPE clean uninstaller on step 4, the problem was resolved. Projects are now loading very fast into the AME and encoding begins in earnest. I have never had any issues ever since.
Long story short, if you have any plug-ins specially the ones that are loading upon the start of any program or the ones that reside inside the premiere or the ones that start on their own independently, they could be one of the highly probable causes of this error. I have seen other similar posts complaining of plug in folders inside premiere that needed to be moved to resolve the issue for instance the ones that needed to be moved to AE folders. If you are a plug-in admirer, I would suggest to look into them seriously.
On the side note, many combination and causes may lead to the same error. I am not claiming that this is the solution for everyone.
It must also be noted that I applied the trick of creating a shortcut of Premiere (and naming it exactly as such) and dropped it into the Adobe Dynamic LInk folder (even though this was suggested for windows)and have changed the adobe Cache locations to an alternative folder on a separate drive. I haven't been able to establish conclusively if the latter steps are also essential in fixing the error on MAC but I can confirm that since the latter steps were taken before the uninstalling of Izotope plug-ins and i still had issues, probably uninstalling those plug ins or finding a way to move them to a place where they don't interfere (if you absolutely need to keep them) is the one essential step that solved the problem.
Hope this helps.