Audio Waveforms won’t display in Viewer or recreate themselves

[Michael Gissing]

I hope this isn’t another problem with running legacy software on Lion. Firstly I assume you did an OS upgrade on a system running FCP 6 as doing a clean install of FCP6 on Lion is a problem.

Best advice here has always been to do clean installs of an OS and reinstall software. FCP just seems to be one of those programs that does weird things when an OS install is done over a previous OS with FCP already installed.

Is there a reason why you need Lion? My advice is to stick with an OS that works with your version of FCP. Search this forum as there has been some excellent advice on either running dual boot disks or partitioning your drive to keep a stable OS/ FCP combo and Lion and other software on the new partition. Plus heaps of advice about how best to do software and OS installs and updates.

[Christopher Mcdonell]

Thanks for your response. I performed a clean install of Fcs 2 on a brand new Mac that came with Lion using Rosetta. Other people have done this as well with success. My only problem thus far is missing waveforms and I’m not yet sure that’s due to Lion. Anyway, what else are people supposed to do if they want to edit on a new computer and stay current? As far as I know, new Macs running Lion are not backwards compatible with SL. And Fcs 2 is hardly any different than 3, so until X gets multi-track editing and the viewer back, 2 or 3 shouldn’t really be considered legacy. Just my humble opinion. I mean how many people are choosing to still use the “legacy” versions over X? But technically, I know, I know… So:

I opened up another project and voila – waveforms! But then I started clicking on files and some appeared while others didn’t. I went back to my original project and maybe 1 out of every 10 files I bring into the viewer gets waveforms drawn back up. There’s no rhyme or reason that I can detect. Whether hdv or pro res.

I’d love to hear from other Lion/Fcs 2 or 3 users to see if any one else has run into this problem.

Any other recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Chris

[Michael Gissing]

There is a huge difference between FCS2 and 3 but they are both legacy software from Apple’s point of view. This means they will not be getting any further development, so when OSs break stuff it probably won’t get fixed.

A clean install with Rosetta is good but FCS2 on Lion is a gamble. You are right about new machines with Lion. Apple has always been good at forcing people forward.

I don’t know but wonky waveforms may be a compatibility issue. If you have already done the usual preference & permissions maintenance then I don’t know what else to advise.

[Christopher Mcdonell]

If the clip is in the timeline, the waveform doesn’t show and it won’t draw a new one. If the clip is unused, and I double click it into the viewer, it draws a waveform! I don’t get it. I’m trying to think of what to do…

[Greg Leslie]

Chris, you probably know this, but displaying waveforms in a timeline is a toggle:
apple key + option key + w turns it on and off. Did you try that?

[Christopher Mcdonell]

Okay so I’ve mostly resolved the issue and thought I’d write in to report that I don’t believe it is a Lion compatibility problem. Rather, an issue caused by trying to switch computers during an edit. I found a couple other posts from people having the same problem. All my media is on an external drive, so in theory, opening the project on a new computer should have done nothing more but link everything up as usual. But somewhere along the way, linkages to waveforms got lost. I emptied the waveform cache for a second time, relaunched, and voila – new waveforms started being drawn. However, not all of them. The workaround for that was to move the original media files not linking to another folder causing them to disconnect in the timeline. Then reconnect, and presto – waveforms. Bit of a hassle. But working just the same.

Chris