RAM preview error

So,
About an hour ago I started to encounter "After Effects error: RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback".
I've found threads about this in the search but they seem to be towards the audio bug or Mac specific.
I'm on a regular comp with only plug used Trapcode Particular.
I'm using latest version of After effects CC (not 2014).
I'm on PC... To be more specific I'm on a HP Z800 workstation with 24gig ram & Quadro 4000 graphics card. And win 7.
I'm not maxing anything out and the comp is fairly basic. I've cleaned the cache and everything.. rebooted the software and rebooted the computer.. still same problem.
Anyone encounter the same problem and solved it?

Working with this further I discover that the error also appears if I tweak any of the transformations settings for the layer and add a parent to it.
I actually found a workaround.. I have an adjustment layer with Reel smart blur and glow on it (which I forgot to mention) which seems to be connected to the problem. I put the problematic layer on top and it seems to work.. Perhaps I maxed out the amount of layers RSMB could handle? Weird because it worked as long as I didn't parent it or changed the transform settings?..
A well.. problem solved for now.

Similar Messages

RAM Preview error: Ram Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback

Hi, I recently started getting error messages (saying the discussion's title) whenever I pressed "0" to RAM Preview my work. I've disabled multiprocessing, tried enabling/disabling all my footage and corresponding effects, but to no avail. It's a 5-second video withOne of my sources is a .jpg, one is a Quicktime movie played overtop of the .jpg, and then there are 6 .wav sound effects. The only other thing I can think of that I have is a Drop Shadow effect on the Quicktime movie and B&W on the .jpg. The current time marker is also set to the beginning of the timeline, and I've cleaned out my cache.
Comp. Settings
Preset: NTSC D1
Width: 720 px
Height: 486 px
Pixel Aspect Ratio: D1/DV NTSC (0.91)
Frame Rate: 29.97
Res: Full
Any tips on what else I could try? Thanks

What version of After Effects? What operating system?
If it's CS5, have you installed the After Effects CS5 (10.0.1) update? That update fixes a lot of problems.
Does this happen with every composition or just this one?
Finally, try disabling the audio layers and try again.

HOW TO FIX THIS RAM PREVIEW ERROR HELP!

adobe version Adobe after effects CC 11 .

before u convert the mp3 audio...which u can do in premiere or an audio program. just delete the mp3 layer from ur comp....then ram review and see if u still get that error.

RAM PREVIEW ERROR: need 2 or more frames to playback

Mac - OS X version 10.9... 16 G Ram NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB 3,5 GHz Intel Core i7
I did everting I find on the internet but it doesn't work for me. I even reinstall After effects 2014 but its the same after 10 minutes..
I really need to fix this problem ! Can I get the previous version from CC back?

Read the part about new memory handling performance here:
After Effects CS6 (11.0.2) update: bug fixes and added GPUs for ray-traced 3D renderer | After Effects region of inter…
You may want to check the box that says "Reduce Cache Size When System Is Low On Memory" under your memory and multiprocessing settings

Using CS4 and when ever I try to add footage- RAM PREVIEW ERROR: need 2 or more frames to playback"

Basically what it says in the title.
Every other thing i've ever done on here has never caused me any grief, now i'm met with this message as i'm starting to get into video editing. Need help asap.

Just as a side note, the program I use to convert things (handbrake) doesn't have those options for audios (the ones stated on that link) Where can I find a program, or the downloadable codec's,
thanks in advance -- EDIT
Err, actually removing the sound altogether did absolutely nothing - nor did any of the other suggestions... I'm confused

After Effects CS6 error: RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback - any ideas please?

Hi everyone,
I'm running After Effects CS6 (11.0.4.2) on a MacBook Pro 2.8Ghz with 16GB RAM (Mac OS 10.9.4)
As a test, I created a 3 and a half minute Sequence in Adobe Premiere CS6, and then imported this into After Effects CS6, and placed it on the AE timeline.
This footage involves a couple of 1920x1080p footage movies, some psds and a large number of JPGs exported from two videos arranged as a sequence in two layers in Premiere, one on top of the other. So all in all for a Premiere / After Effects file I'd say it's reasonably heavy.
I then did a RAM Preview with Multiprocessing switched off - the 3 and a half minute sequence loaded into RAM, taking about 1min 30seconds, and played back in realtime at 25fps. This worked fine with 3,4,5 and 6 GB RAM available to other applications in the Memory Preferences. All things considered I think this is quite good. I can make changes, reclick the RAM Preview icon and my changes load into RAM and it previews ok.
My only 'complaint' is how long the RAM Preview takes to load up the whole thing.
I've been reading up on Multiprocessing and decided to try this to see if I can speed up the time it takes my RAM Preview to load up.
So I looked at some recommendations from Adobe and read information on various forums including this one.
My settings in the Memory Preferences are currently
• 6GB reserved for other applications
• Reduce cache size when system is low on memory - unticked
• After Effects Multiprocessing - ticked
• Installed CPUs (processor cores) - 8
• CPUs reserved for other applications - 6
• RAM allocation per background CPU - 3GB
• Actual CPUs that will be used - 2
This combination takes about 25 seconds to load up my 3 and a half minute sequence which I thought was pretty amazing.
I then pressed the stop button and then the play button - so now just playing the sequence briefly.
And also added a new layer - into the timeline - just a simple shape.
Then I tried a RAM Preview again.
I found I could load up part of the sequence but not load the whole thing into RAM.
I kept trying to get a RAM Preview and got this message
"After Effects error: RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback" which seems to prevent RAM Preview from working.
Eventually I quit and restarted After Effects and the problem went away temporarily and then came back when I tried again.
I tried various changes to the Memory Preferences - trying 3GB available for other applications. This gave 13GB of my 16GB RAM to After Effects.
This made it take slightly longer for the After Effects error to appear but it still appeared.
I tried ticking Reduce Cache size in the Memory Prefs - the After Effects error still appeared, so having read this is supposed to make the issue better I now leave it untucked, but as far as I can see ticked or untucked, it makes no difference, the problem remains.
I've since tried -
Making 2,3,4,5 and 6 CPUs available for other applications.
Changing the Background RAM allocation per background CPU to 0.75GB, 1GB, 1.5GB, 2GB and 3GB
Lots of combinations.
But in the end, I always get the "After Effects error: RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback" error.
It might take less or more time for the message to show up, depending on the combination of settings, but in the end I always got the same message appearing.
And I notice that I can RAM Preview less and less of the timeline. i.e. it becomes more blue than it does green and will load in only a small section of the timeline as opposed to the whole thing.
Reading further, I tried Edit > Purge > Image Cache and Edit > Purge > All Memory but still get the error message.
I also tried ensuring there were no other applications running e.g. Safari or Chrome or Firefox. And certainly not Photoshop or Premiere etc.
Reading even further, I tried two Memory management applications - 'Memory Clean' and 'Purge.'
Neither has had any effect - the After Effects error still appears.
Then I went back into the Memory and Multiprocessing Preferences.
I unticked Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously. And now the RAM Preview loads the whole 3 and half minute sequence in entirety, taking about 1 and half minutes to do so. It's working as perfectly as if I'd just quit and re-opened the application.
Then I went back into the Memory and Multiprocessing Preferences.
I reticked Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously.
The chose Edit > Purge > All
And tried a RAM Preview again. It loaded up in 25 seconds, but then, as previously, the error message came.
I tried Edit > Purge All - no effect.
And I tried going into the Media and Disk Cache Preferences and clicked Empty Disk Cache - still the problem remains.
I understand from my reading that After Effects CS6 11.0.2 was intended to fix this issue but I'm on 11.0.4 and as far as I can tell, I still have it - assuming it's the same thing.
As far as I can see, not using Multiprocessing allows me to work without these errors but take a bit longer to load the RAM Preview.
However I'd like to be able to use Multiprocessing as it seems it can potentially speeds things up quite a lot. I realise I could just not use it and AE would work, but I'd rather be able to make use of a feature of the software if possible, especially if it will speed things up and make optimum use of the my computer's hardware.
I've downloaded a trial copy of After Effects CC 2014. I'm still testing it but as far as I can see the RAM Preview error appears in this version of AE as well, but can take bit longer to show up in my experience.
Thanks everyone - if anyone has any thoughts or advice I'd appreciate hearing your opinions.
Kind regards,
John

You need to have much more RAM reserved for other applications and more CPUs reserved for other applications. Your current settings are crippling your performance.
Read these:
https://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2009/12/performance-tip-dont-starve-yo.html
http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2010/03/performance-tip-dont-oversched.html
After you have adjusted your settings according to the recommendations on those pages, restart your computer and try again.

After Effects error: RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback (It's Back)

Just upgeaded to 12.1 and this error is back. I have tried purging memory, restarting and closing all apps with no luck. System specs as follows...
Mac Pro 2 x 2.4 Ghz Quad Core
40 GB of Ram
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB of VRAM
Any ideas?
Mike

Hold the phone, I may have jumped the gun on this. This looks like it might be an issue with the VCReflect plugin from the folks at Video Copilot. If somones else would like to give it a try that would be swell. Here's what I did to create it.
Added a text layer.
Applied VCReflect and set it up
Moved text off screen.
As soon as the text is almost off screen it stops moving any further. At that point I start getting the Ram Preview error. If I delete the off screen keyframe I am back to normal.
Mike

ERROR: RAM Preview Issue

Hello -
I have been researching this issue all day. I have seen a variety of posts but no solution for me yet.
I am using AE 5.5. I get the following error when trying to Preview.
"RAM preview needs 2 or more frames to playback"
I am working on a Mac and I have tried it on the Mac laptop and Mac desktop. Both systems have enough RAM to handle After Effects.
Any guidance is very much appreciated!!
Thank you

HI, I'm experiencing this problem as well, but it only starts after I add audio.
My composition is quite simple at the moment, I just need this snippet of audio to create a simple animation...
I'm able to listen to the audio with ram preview in the Viewer, but once I add it to the composition, I get the error.
I then have to proceed to re-start AE because once I remove the audio from the comp, the same error will come up again (until restarted).
Audio settings are:
My computer info:
Any help is appreciated. Thanks

After Effects Error: RAM preview needs 2 or more frames to playback

I keep getting this error message on a Windows 7 64bit system with 12GB of RAM. I have tried rebooting and re-installing the application and After Effects still gives me this error message when I press '0' to perform a RAM preview
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks

Canon PowerShot SX20IS
I would suspect that is the problem.... From what I gather, it uses H.264 compression inside MOVs, but it may use an unusual, non-standard profile and thus throw off AE. Can you check these settings in the extended info in the Quicktime Player? would help to know some more details. If you have Quicktime Pro, it may be enough to re-export the clip from there. Using identical settings, this should go pretty fast and not cause any changes in quality, but doing so may fix little annoyances commonlyy associated with such formats like open gaps or invalid timecode markers. If that doesn't help, then I guess it's time to run it through SUPER©, ffmpeg etc. to get workable converted files...
Mylenium

After Effects error: RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback when previewing animation video

Good afternoon,
We have an error that is persistent. This error RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames occurs in AE CC often. It happens when we preview what has been animated a few times. Here's all the details below on what we're working on and the computer specs.
Computer Details
Processor 2x2.93 GHZ Core Intel Xeon
Memory 28GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Software OS X 10.9.4
Graphics Card ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB Graphics
Project Details
Project usually consists of comps 1920x1080 dimensions RGB
And we're simply animating
Video is always prores 1920x1080
We've added RAM to this comp and still nothing has changed. I saw that the other error for this has been fixed but I'm not sure what's going on in AE for this to continue. Please help !

ahorne21 wrote:
And we're simply animating
Animating what?
What exact version of AE (down to the last decimal)?
How are you invoking the RAM preview?

CS6 RAM preview short and "needs 2 or more frames" errors

Hello everyone,
I've been researching this one for over a week now and still haven't found a solution. The short story it is that my RAM preview is limited to only a few seconds regardless of work area, but I've got over 4Gb of RAM available and open for use. CPU is barely being used as well. I'm also intermittently getting the "After Effects Error: RAM Preview requires 2 or more frames to playback," which confuses me as I have 4Gb or ram available. RAM is still close to 4Gb during and after preview. This has been a repeated problem, not matter how many times the memory is purged, the RAM is free'd up with the Memory Clear App (as recommended in previous threads), or the computer is restarted. Memory and Cache have been optimized for best performance as well. Also, final renders are fine and have no problems. It's only with RAM preview and previewing the project that I'm having trouble. It seems to me that the project is being bottlenecked somewhere but not sure where or how. To open, here's the system I'm running it on. It may not be a brute but it should be enough to handle the work.
System:
Program: Adobe After Effects CS6 (11.0.4.2
System: Mid 2010 iMAC, 27-inch
Processor: 2.8 GHz Intel Core i5
RAM:   8GB 1333 MHz DDR3 (two 4gb cards)
Graphics: ATI Radion HD 5750 1024 MB
Software: OS X 10.9.4
Hard Drive: Western Digital WD Green 2TB Sata drive
                    -6.0 Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive
Project Specifics: (Has happened across other similar projects)
Project: Educational video with graphics, simple animations, and link to Premiere Pro timeline.
               -33 layers (most are highlight boxes and animated arrows)
                         -13 small PNG images (Arrows and simple graphics with 1 3D layer)
                         -7 Short Compositions
                         -7 Text Layers
                         -5 shape layers
                         -1 Premiere Pro Timeline
Composition Settings: 1280 x 720 at 23.976fps
Project Location: Company Server
Problems
-Ram preview only renders a few seconds, regardless of Work Area or "From Current Time" enabled.
-Fairly frequent, "After Effects Error: RAM preview requires two or more frames to playback."
-Scrolling through project is very pixelated.
When Problems Occurs: When trying to perform a RAM preview.
Attempted Solutions:
- Use of Memory Clean App to open up more RAM. (Makes little to no difference when problem is at peak.)
- Shut down and restart computer (Does work for a short time but problem reappears within an hour)
- Closing all apps and running just After Effects. (Little to no difference)
- Turning off motion blur, turning on 3D draft and using Proxies to simplify project. (Little to no difference)
- Purge: All Memory. (No difference)
- Stopping any unnecessary processes in Activity Monitor. (No difference)
Additional Information:
-Projects seem to take a little longer than normal to open. (1-2 min max.)
Thanks in advance for any support on this issue. It's been quite a stressful timesink.

Unfortunately the problem has come back again after an hour of use this morning. To show how much RAM I have available at the time the issue appears, I've included the Memory Clean window showing 4.44GB of ram available at the time of incident. It first happened a few minutes ago with roughly 1GB available, so I and purged all memory in After Effects and cleaned the RAM with the Memory Clear app, but still no such luck. I've been working with the same actions and material all morning so nothing new was introduced to the project when the error occurred. The work I was performing at the time was animating highlight boxes over a screen capture, but again it seems to happen regardless of what I'm working on. I'm going to restart the computer and see how long it makes it before needing another reset. Any other ideas as to what it could be? Also, if there's any more information that might be helpful to solving the issue please let me know and I'll be happy to share. Thank you again for the support!
Szalam, thank you for the link. I had been to the page previously but am going back to watch them again to see if I missed something. If it is a bottleneck, I'm not sure where it could be as of yet.
And just to make sure I'm not making any other simple mistakes VVV

"RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames" error back in CS6

Hey everyone,
I'm quite familiar with this old error and how to avoid it and fix it but when preparing new CS6 lessons for my classes it just seems to come up again and again without any apparent relationship to the assets I'm working with. I've mostly been preparing some "What's New in CS6" lessons and have had this error come up using Evironment Layers, Raytracing lessons, Motion Tracker lessons, etc. using text, footage, solids, you name it.
The main thing that seems really telling is that before this issue happens, the blue and/or green cache bars seem to be gone within my workspace range. Purging the caches doesn't fix it but closing and reopening AE does fix it.
Using the updates AE 11.0.0.378 on OS10.6.8 MacBook Pro 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM
All prefs are set to the defaults.
Thoughts?
Thanks!
steven

No, we have not given up on this issue.
Here's an explanation.
This error message is After Effects telling you that it can't do a RAM preview because it can't render and preview at least two frames. This state has many causes, though:
One cause is operator error. If you have the current-time indicator at the end of the composition or work area, and you have From Current Time enabled in the Preview panel, then you'll get this message when trying to RAM preview. This is because you're already at the end of the previewable duration.
Another cause is a badly behaved plug-in that is demanding waaaaaay too much memory, so After Effects can't render two frames using this plug-in. (Video Copilot Reflection has been known to behave badly in this way, for example.)
The two above causes apply to all versions of After Effects.
A cause that only applies to After Effects CS6 is a bit more problematic and technical. In previous versions of After Effects, when you started a RAM preview, After Effects would start rendering frames and storing them in RAM without first checking to see how much memory was available; it would stop when it ran out of RAM, wherever that might be. But this was potentially a very rude thing for After Effects to do, since it might be forcing other contents of RAM used by other programs out of RAM and onto the disk (paging), which can cause some slowdowns. So, in After Effects CS6, the program first does a check to see how much RAM is available. And here's the problem: Mac OS is bad about communicating how much RAM is really available. In fact, in many cases, it says that almost no RAM is available... and After Effects CS6 believes it and reports that it doesn't have enough RAM to render and store two frames. Specifically, After Effects is asking how much RAM is "free". If you leave Mac OS running for a long time, the amount of "free" memory dwindles to nearly nothing under normal operation, as the OS accumulates a lot of stuff in "inactive" memory, which is not reported as "free". Previous verisons of After Effects would go ahead and use this "inactive" memory for RAM preview, and perhaps After Effects CS6 should, too. We're discussing how we can best fix this.
So, what can you do? There are some command-line ways of purging "inactive" memory and making it free in Mac OS. I won't recommend any specific ones here, but a quick search on the Internet will turn them up. But a guaranteed and easy way of doing this is to restart the operating system.

I am getting an error message when I try and Ram Preview "

"After Effects error: RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback."
My Preferences settings in the the Memory & Multiprocessing section are.
Installed RAM: 6GB
RAM reserved for other applications: 1.5GB
RAM available for AE: 4.5GB
AE multiprocessing
Checked Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously
Ram Allocation per background CPU: 1GB

Your available ram is completely inadequate for rendering multiple frames simultaneously to be used. Turn it off. Also, allocate an even number for ram to other applications. 2GB minimum. Unless you have 16 or more GB of ram turn off MP rendering. Unless you have a lot of free time to wait for AE to render frames and try to struggle along with limited resources upgrade your ram to some multiple of 4GB using MATCHED memory in 4GB increments.

Need help with the "RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames" error

I keep getting this error while trying to RAM Preview, I've tried to purge all my AE memory, upgrade to the latest version of AE (2014,2) but it still doesnt work.
Please help

What happens when you create a brand new project, put in a solid, animate its position, and RAM preview it?
If that works, what happens if you import your troubled project into this brand new one?
You have restarted your computer, right?

RAM preview needs 2 or more frames error

Good Morning,
I have just encountered this error for the first time since i started using AE about 6 years ago.
I am running a PC (windows 7 pro), i5 2.90GHz 64-bit OS, 16GB RAM, and 1 GB Graphics card, dedicated 1TB HDD for Cache. Creative Cloud subscription.
I had no problems up until the update to 'After Effects CC 2014', since this update i cannot generate a RAM preview. I have read countless forums and i have followed previously suggested solutions (purge, remove VCReflect plugin, started AE as administrator etc), to no avail.
Any suggestions will be welcomed.
Will

The "RAM preview needs 2 or more frames to play back" message usually means 1 of 2 things. Either:
You have requested a RAM preview of only 1 frame.
There is not enough RAM available to generate more than 1 frame.
Regarding the first possibility, make sure that your comp is more than one frame long, and that your work area bar is set to more than one frame. Also make sure that in the Preview panel the From Current Time option is not enabled, if your current time indicator is on the last frame of your comp. In these cases the message is saying "You don't have more than one frame for me to play, so using RAM preview doesn't make sense: this single frame is already on screen and already cached!"
Regarding the second possibility, there are a number of contributing factors. Generally, make sure that there is available memory for After Effects to use, which you can check in Activity Monitor or Task Manager. If you don't have much free memory: use the Edit > Purge > All command, close other applications and/or restart After Effects or your computer. If you appear to have lots of free memory, start breaking down your comp, turning off effects and layers (including cameras and lights) until you can get a RAM preview without the error message.
Effects, in particular, can consume large amounts of memory, such as particle effects or effects that grow the layer bounds to very large sizes. If After Effects can't generate more than one frame for such a layer in the amount of available memory, you may get this error message.
If you're still having trouble, test by building simpler comps just to verify you can RAM preview anything, such as an animated shape layer or text or a piece of footage with no effects applied to it. If you need to post back to this thread, describe the contents of your comp, including the comp settings, layer types, effects applied, etc. Screenshots and screen capture videos are always helpful.

RAM preview error

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