Error exporting ProTools COM Operation failed HRESULT

I get this error code when I try to export a project to Pro Tools.

" COM Operation failed HRESULT "

If you are a Blackmagic engineer and you see this post, I have saved the log from the last incident and I can send it to you. But the forum will not allow me to attach it.

I've tried exporting both video and audio together and tried exporting just audio. Both operations fail.

Does it have anything to do with having mono tracks on stereo files or vice versa? I've done it before no problem. But maybe something has changed? Just wondering.

I see that many others have had this problem too but have not seen a solution. I saw that someone said it was because of a corrupt file. But when I render out the whole movie as a ProRez master or H264 file everything works. A corrupt file would fail in that scenario so I don't buy that as the issue.

In the past I have successfully exported to Pro Tools. So I've done this before. But this time nothing is working.
This is what I am running.

I hope someone knows how to fix this.
Thanks
Steven


RESOLVE 16.2.5

OS 10.14.6 (18G103)
Mac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017)
4.2 GHz Intel Core i7
40 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
Radeon Pro 580 8 GB

Never got a response. If you are someone who had the same problem, don't bother with exporting to protools. Export the separate tracks as wave files. It can be done fairly easily in the render window. Choose export Audio only, then make your choices of file types and whether you want to export all tracks or one track. Then import into pro tools. So you have one extra step. no big deal. You can even export a low rez file in the same dialogue and use it for your reference video while mixing.

However I liked when the ProTools export function worked. it was nice.

I'm having the same problem.

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=120111

I can't just export to wave because my sound people also need the aaf for reconnecting.

I was able to workaround by exporting as xml, reimporting to resolve and exporting that new timeline to protools... I have the feeling this won't be 100% fine but at least close enough as to only have to manually relink or adjust a few files.

I'm having the same problem.

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=120111

I can't just export to wave because my sound people also need the aaf for reconnecting.

I was able to workaround by exporting as xml, reimporting to resolve and exporting that new timeline to protools... I have the feeling this won't be 100% fine but at least close enough as to only have to manually relink or adjust a few files.

I see....I guess I didn't need the aaf aspect.

In order to mix in protools I also exported a low res video for reference and it worked well. then sent the final stereo mix to a friend to master the whole thing.

Since you were having the same problem I'm curious as to whether you also had some audio tracks that slowly went out of sync as the movie progressed either when exporting audio or rendering a whole movie?

This happened to me over and over in my recent project. In the end it seemed it was only tracks that had a plugin on them or tracks that had a lot of volume automation written in. It was driving me NUTS! I had to export these files separately, treat them in protools while leaving them a little out of sync the way they had exported. Then when I brought the processed file back into Resolve on a new clean track, I then had to manually sync it with the waveform from the original track. I muted the original track because I no longer needed the automation or the plugin(s). And it stayed in sync.
UNTIL.... I tried to export my very final movie. I was exporting the audio for the 4 timelines as scenes in one timeline. the stereo mix audio file when exported got more and more out of sync as the movie progressed. I had to uninstall Resolve, I zapped the pram, started the computer in safe mode. Then I tried another export and it worked. I have no idea why. But finally I had a finished movie. It was really scary for awhile.

Good luck.
Steve

I'm having the same problem.

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=120111

I can't just export to wave because my sound people also need the aaf for reconnecting.

I was able to workaround by exporting as xml, reimporting to resolve and exporting that new timeline to protools... I have the feeling this won't be 100% fine but at least close enough as to only have to manually relink or adjust a few files.

I see....I guess I didn't need the aaf aspect.

In order to mix in protools I also exported a low res video for reference and it worked well. then sent the final stereo mix to a friend to master the whole thing.

Since you were having the same problem I'm curious as to whether you also had some audio tracks that slowly went out of sync as the movie progressed either when exporting audio or rendering a whole movie?

This happened to me over and over in my recent project. In the end it seemed it was only tracks that had a plugin on them or tracks that had a lot of volume automation written in. It was driving me NUTS! I had to export these files separately, treat them in protools while leaving them a little out of sync the way they had exported. Then when I brought the processed file back into Resolve on a new clean track, I then had to manually sync it with the waveform from the original track. I muted the original track because I no longer needed the automation or the plugin(s). And it stayed in sync.
UNTIL.... I tried to export my very final movie. I was exporting the audio for the 4 timelines as scenes in one timeline. the stereo mix audio file when exported got more and more out of sync as the movie progressed. I had to uninstall Resolve, I zapped the pram, started the computer in safe mode. Then I tried another export and it worked. I have no idea why. But finally I had a finished movie. It was really scary for awhile.

Good luck.
Steve

I didn't have the sync issues you've had.

I was able to workaround my issue.

It was suggested to me, that the error might be due to a corrupt audio file. So I went down the path of elimination, until I was able to generate an aaf without the warning. The culprit was just single channel in one of the hundreds of clips in the timeline. After deleting the channel, everything seems to be working fine in protools.

OK.... So let me ask you. How in the world did you find that corrupt audio file? Did it look odd ? Is there some defining feature of a corrupt audio file? I know I've encountered them before in audio programs but I don't remember any features. You just started deleting and undeleting channels until it worked?

I first starting by doing that. Looking for clips that had plugins, fx or that were from a weird source, like some temp ADR done via whatsap... In the end, it was a waste of time. What ended up working was treating every clip as a possible suspect. Like so:

- I duplicated the timeline.

- Deleted all tracks except one, then exported. If I got an error I knew that track was affected and would keep it.

- If it didn't give an error from that track, I would get the rest of the tracks back and delete the good one. Maybe delete 3 and keep 3. If from one of those 3 got the error, keep those 3 and do the first step until there's only one track left.

- Now zeroed down to one track, go deleting chunks of half a dozen clips forward and exporting each time until I stop getting the error. Then recover the last deleted tracks and repeat one by one to find the culprit.

- Then go to my original timeline and delete that single clip... In my case it was one channel of a multi track.

It sounds like a lot of work but I was able to get to it in about a dozen exports (from the file menu), so was able to do it fairly quick.

And I have no clue why that clip was creating the error. Maybe will get some feedback from the sound guys but to me nothing stands out. I have hundreds of clips from the same source and spec that didn't give the error.

I have to say, that sounds horrible. But thanks for telling me. Someday I may have to use that process. Makes sense. Smart guy you are.

Thanks!

Delete all cross fades from the timeline. - try a file menu aaf export. If it fails cut sequence in half, try again - if it exports, the problem is in the second half. - Keep narrowing it down. After about 5 goes you should be able to isolate the corrupt clip.

Blackmagic really need to sort out the Fades issue. Until Resolve gains more traction as a total solution, edits will still need to be sent to protools for finishing. This is an issue that FCP 7 used to have so its not as if its new....

Hi there, I've never been able to export to Protools or even audio only. I always get this same error. I even flattened out all video layers, took away all audio fades. Nothing happens. As if it's just never gonna work.

Is it the camera maybe? I've got material from the a Sony a7iii. That shouldn't matter. This doesn't make sense.

Please Blackmagic, help me out here. Need to export for audio mastering.

Thanks!

It took a lot of troubleshooting, but I have found three separate causes for this error:

1.)Audio Transition Effects. As others have said, transition effects applied to the audio clips, specifically crossfades.
The solution: select and remove all audio transitions. If you have large project, there is a very fast way to do this for the whole timeline. You can check tutorials online if you're not sure (I had to)

2.)Fade handles outside of clip. This took me a while to figure out. If a fade handle has been extended beyond the duration of the clip, you'll get the error. This sometimes happens when you cut or delete part of the clip. There are probably other causes of it too. The only way you will be able to tell is if you click on the clip; then you can see the fade handle floating outside the clip in the timeline. Slide it back into the clip and the error should go away when you export.

3.)Fade handles on the same edit point.
On one clip, I had the fade handles from the head and tail of my clip pulled into the center on the same edit point. For the life of me, I don't know how I did it, but the handles were overlapping on the same frame point in the center of the clip. I slid them apart, re-exported, and the error went away.

It's a pain to figure which clips are giving you this error message, but so far all of mine have been related to fades and crossfades

Hi there. I'm new to all this so thanks in advance for your patience.

I just encountered this error ("COM Operation failed HRESULT") as well while using the Deliver page's export to ProTools function.
I'm using Resolve (Free) 17.1B (Build 11) on a MacBook Air M1 (8 core, 8GB integrated memory, 500GB SSD internal drive).

Exporting the video itself (with the audio from its timeline mixed down to 2 channel stereo, "baked" into the exported video) on the Deliver page via a default YouTube render setting was successful, no issues there.

As a test (to see if I could alleviate the possible issues you all mentioned already (fades, effects, etc)) I grabbed a simple 8 second (H.264) video clip, made a timeline just with that, no fades or anything (nor any other clips at all on the timeline), and tried to export that to ProTools via the Deliver page.... same error. (If exporting the video with the YouTube settings on the Deliver page it works fine. Only the ProTools export is malfunctioning and generating the error message.)

The only (seemingly) meaningful thing I changed during testing was unchecking (or leaving checked) the "Export Video" setting (in the Deliver page/ProTools tab/Video tab) before hitting the render button. Same error either way. Seems like the individual files populate the destination folder.... but the export errors out possibly as the timeline/sequence itself is to be generated.

I'm wondering if anyone has successfully exported anything via the ProTools settings on the Deliver page in Resolve 17.x (Free or Studio)?

Or maybe I just have to keep going back, generation by generation of Resolve Free releases, until a ProTools export works?

The other thing I'll do some more digging for is what to do with a generated error code/message... The software has a pop up that shows the error "COM Operation failed HRESULT" so I'm hopeful that there's a list of these messages (and their general meanings) somewhere that users can arm themselves with in order to assess their issues. If I knew why the software throws up that specific message I could hopefully narrow in a bit more on how that applies to what I'm attempting to accomplish.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I'll keep digging and see what else I can find.

I have been able to troubleshoot this error myself - it wasn't caused by crossfades for me, but with having muted audio clips in the timeline.

I had checkerboarded 2 microphones by muting one of them. This caused the error doing the final muxing of the embedded AAF for protools.

After I deleted the muted clips - it kicked out just fine. I suppose you could also drop the volume on those to neg infinity too.

I hope this helps someone else.

Hi there,

I've found a solution :

- duplicate the timeline
- remove all the video assets

It works with the file>export>timeline method.

Best,

Robin