I'm trying to render a project that has a deadline that is soon.

When I render, it just renders a huge text that says INVALID.

Here is a screenshot. (I attached an image but it didn't show up.)

http://kahvi.nurkka.us/i/invalid_2_4a2cf428adb31.png

Try saving your project, and reopen it (always a good idea to do a backup).

Do you have filenames with non-ascii characters in them? Try changing them to ascii.

We have some issues around charsets on some setups, which AFAIK, have not been resolved completely.

That happens with every file.

Does it only happen when rendering or also when playing? Which kdenlive/MLT versions are you using, and to which file format are you trying to render?

Only when rendering. It plays fine.

Kdenlive 0.7.3
MLT is from GIT
Rendering to any format causes this.

Ok, that is the problem. The git version of MLT REQUIRES Kdenlive 0.7.4 or a recent svn version. There were major changes in MLT when it was moved to git (the renderer was renamed from inigo to melt and a few other changes).

That is why Kdenlive 0.7.3 will NOT work correctly with MLT > 0.3.8

I updated MLT and Kdenlive but it's still the same.

But did you remove old MLT packages? All 0.3.x versions of MLT and MLT++ should be removed

I removed them but the problem still persists. Do I have to recompile Kdenlive? Or MLT?

You should first make sure that your mlt installation is working. In a terminal, type:

melt video.mpg

Does it play your file correctly?
If not, then you have a problem with your MLT installation.

If it works, try recompiling Kdenlive, then start it and run the "Config Wizard" from the "Settings" menu to make sure everything is correctly detected.

It plays nothing except Kdenlive projects and they just produce that INVALID text.

I installed MLT with the OpenShot build wizard - could that be a problem?

I had the same problem last week. It was a problem of permissions and, once I fixed and assigned the right permissions for the files it worked well.

Permissions for which files?

The source video files, sorry.