Rendering for hours in After Effects, can't see progress.. what to do?

[rocco123]

I was rendering for hours, i was able to look at the progress by maximizing the window while I was doing other things, but now it's stuck on the taskbar and it doesn't maximize when I click on it. Good news is the .avi file is still growing and ram usage is high so I assume it's still working, but for some reason, it's stuck on the bar and I can't see progress... last time I checked it was at around 50% so I should wake up tomorrow with a finished file.
Should I leave it running or something will go wrong?

[smrpix]

All indications are it is working and using all the system resources it can muster. If you stop the render now you can guarantee it won't be done by morning.

[rocco123]

Legit reasoning, will leave it running then and hope for the best.

[poisondeathray]

I'm not saying that you crashed, but this is one reason why many people use image sequences - if you do crash, all your work isn't lost. You just carry on where you crashed. With a "video" format like AVI, MOV, etc.. it's garbage and you have to start all over. (And if you think this is taking a long time... heavy CG renders can often take hours per frame)

[digitalcurosity]

I bet after many hours you will have the video rendered. the "BIG" problem is your computer is just not powerful enough to handle the rendering process,also more memory is needed for the process.
A Computer with an i7 processor and 8+ megs of Ram would be a good system.