Corrupted composition?

Hello cows,

I have a composition that is behaving strangely. If I try and pre-compose it, AE crashes. If I try and copy the layers and move them to another composition, AE crashes. If I even drag the composition around in the project panel, AE crashes. No error messages. All other compositions behave normally.

Doing any editing inside the composition itself is totally fine.

Additionally I can't export this comp...I can add it to the render queue, but when I start the render it the info displays ""Pre-flighting render items. Render items to check: 1"

And then the color wheel of death starts its spinning.

The composition is pretty simple, 152 layers, but nothing's really happening, all are split layers of the same that overlap 1 frame each on the ends. (I'm removing extra frames from a video). They are precomps of other compositions, but many of those are pre-rendered so it shouldn't be a problem. (to give you an idea, the pre-comp that I'm working with as a layer is 2 hours long and takes about 4 hours to render, so I'm not abusing AE, to my knowledge).

Specs:

Adobe CS 4; 9.0.3.8
OS X 10.6.8
Comp settings, 1280x630, 30fps
render settings: pro res 422
computer: 2 x 2.8 ghz quad core intel mac / 10GB ram

Have tried with openGL and render multi-frames both on and off. I've reset my preferences and restarted my computer. I've imported my project into another project.

Any ideas? Thank you.

I would just download a trial of CS6 and see how the AEP/comps performs.

Erik's provided some pointers but to commit to a thorough trouble-shooting exercise, you'll have to copy-paste layers from the affected comp onto another comp by copying one layer at a time. There are other trouble-shooting schemes but this is the easiest to explain, in writing ;-).

Good Luck
RoRK

Intensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer