Hi , I have a Canon AE-1 camera and I'm haviving a problem with the film advance lever . It seems to be stuck . It will not advance. Have you ever come across this problem before? Thanks ,John.

try pushing the lever forward a bit. try while camera is off, and then on. if not, you might have to sacrifice your film to unclog the inside of it. It's also possible a gear has broken inside.

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Like all AE-1's and related models, your camera is gumming up inside as the internal lubricant films are at least 25 years old and are largely dried-out.

The fix is to get the camera to a repair specialist for a CLA service (Clean, Lubricate, Adjust). As a one-off extra cost also get the foam light seals and foam mirror buffer replaced as they'll either be absent by now or will still be turning to a sticky goo. Modern foam is is different material and is will not decay like the old stuff.

A CLA and foam replacement definitely costs more than the residual value of the camera, but they're solidly built and have plenty of cheap high quality lenses so can still achieve results which compare well to even the best modern pro dSLR's. Get the work done and your camera will probably last until 35mm film ceases to be available. Your camera will also withstand conditions which you'd never dare risk a dSLR in.

A Canon AE-1 is not an EOS camera the Canon "A" series is manual focus while EOS is auto focus. First thought In answer to the advance lever stuck or jammed I'm going to assume the camera is in serviceable condition and has not been subjected to water damage or harsh use. If we are dealing with just the advance lever then I'd say that you have over advanced the film at the last frame. I've done this myself after loading a 24 exposure and thinking I had a 36 exposure film. At the bottom of the camera there is a little pin which releases the advance lever and allows the user to rewind the film. Under normal conditions when it's time to rewind the film into the canister this pin offers little resistance to pushing in to release, however depending on how much force the advance lever has been subjected to increases the tension on this pin. Push the pin in and rewind the film.
Second thought is if you have film in the camera and it has not been used fully then it's possible that the film has already been advanced to a new frame and the shutter needs to be activated before the lever will become free and advance to the next frame.
Other problems with the Canon "A" series cameras is they have a tendency to dry out the lubrication and begin to squeak when the shutter is fired. This condition can eventually result is a shutter seizure and give the same advance lever condition.
Those are the three things that come to mind over this lever problem lets hope it's just run out of film.

The film is either at the end or stuck. The shutter will not release unless the film advance lever has gone all the way and back.
Make a note of the frame counter. Rewind the film and remove it from the camera (When you feel the film to come loose from the receiving spool, stop rewinding to prevent the end of the film to disappear inside the can. This way you can reload it if it was stuck in the middle.) If the film was completely exposed, take it to be developed.
With the empty camera, try to advance the lever and release the shutter. If this works, the problem was the film and not the camera. Everything is fine. If the problem persists, take it to be repaired.
If the film was stuck in the middle, load it again into the camera. With the lense cap on (preferably in a dark room or similar) 'shoot' as many 'empty' frames as you had on the counter plus two more. Finish the film and develop the pictures.
If the film stucks again at the same place, rewind it and develop normally. It was a bad film.
Hope this helped you to solve the problem.

Camera has a bad magnet, the A series were plagued by this.
Repairs will cost more than probably what it's worth.
The AE-1's used an electromagnet system to activate the shutter for a smoother press and less shake from the camera system.

I got lucky and recently purchased an AE-1 program that doesn't have this problem, it seems to be a hit and miss with these.

Mechanical problem that must be repaired by a technician. It may be time to retire this camera.

In most film cameras, a battery is not necessary to manual advance film using the lever. Your Canon AV-1 is no exception. I have owned two cameras from the same group, the AE-1 and the Canon A-1. Neither required a battery for manual film advance.

Make sure the ring around the shutter release button is set to "A", otherwise the shutter won't release and the film lever won't work correctly. If the ring shows an "L", the shutter release is locked.

Here's a graphic of the batteries that can be used in your AV-1:

On the very bottom inside the plate there are many cog gears with levers and retractor springs. One may had come off causing your problem