Troubleshooting

The stability of our platform is one of our main focuses, however issues will happen from time to time. These issues are in form of failed analysis or renders, and they happen mostly when you are using a custom project.

Some issues affect both analysis and render and are caused by unpredictable infrastructure behavior — we group those as intermittent issues.

Analysis issues Rendering issues Intermittent issues

For help diagnosing and resolving problems, check out our troubleshooting guides, including common pitfalls. If nothing applies to the problem you have, please reach out to us at contact@plainlyvideos.com, and we’ll help you out!

Common pitfalls

Issues with an already set up project

If you’re experiencing failed render with a project that you already set up you probably changed something in the project and uploaded it again to Plainly using the Edit project button.

These issues appear when you change a layer that was already parametrized. On edits, Plainly expects no changes when it comes to parametrized layers. You can change the source file, their animation and similar, but you can’t delete them or change their name.

If you do, however, delete or alter those layers you need to update the parametrized layers list and save the template again. Plainly will mark any layer parametrization that is incompatible with the current project version by showing a warning icon.

Using non-English characters in names

Right now we only support English characters. If you have non-English characters in your layer or asset names, or any file you upload to Plainly you will probably get a failed analysis or render.

Using unsupported asset files

Adding unsupported asset files in your After Effects project, or sending them during render will always cause a failed render. For example, assets in HEVC and HEIC formats are not supported.

As a rule of thumb, make sure you’re using .jpg / .png / .mp4 / .mp3 and .wav files. These are enough to cover all your needs.

Using Illustrator / Photoshop files

It’s always a good idea to convert any Illustrator / Photoshop files into .png and .jpg.

Text not being rendered

If you don’t see texts in the final render, double check if you added the right font files in your .zip during the custom project upload. See Font management for more info.

Audio not playing properly

If you’re experiencing issues with audio, try using .wav files instead of .mp3.

Applying duplicate scripts

When applying scripts, make sure that you don’t apply duplicate scripts to the same layer.

AE effects causing issues

In very rare occasions, a certain AE effect will cause issues. If you went through the whole list from above, and you are still experiencing failed renders or analysis you probably have a certain AE effect in your custom project that’s causing an issue. Go through your project, turn off effects and troubleshoot them one by one.