Deleting unused renders

[David Bogie]

Dunno what else you’ve been offered but here’s what I’d try:

Save the project under a new name. This will eventually create new folders. Set your scratch so the new render scratch is on a separate drive from your capture scratch, if you have the drives. this will make organization much easier later.
Un-render as much as you can using any of several techniques you’ve been offered but I’d start with one or two clips that you know are consistently crashing your project.
Select one or two of them and render.
If they crash, it’s your source media, not FCP, not your renders. You will need to recapture or otherwise replace the material. If you cannot recapture, you could try to export copies of your source material and then replace it in your new project. Tedious. But if you cannot or will not recapture, you have no choice but to attempt to replace the bad media with new media. the diea is to select an export method that will create new media that will not include file errors casuing the crash but might include frame glitches. Kind of like dubbing bad tape to a new tape to clean up edge damage.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Eells]

Thanks for the response.

Here’s the thing about the crashes: it’s not like there’s anything in particular I can’t render. When the renders fail, it’s somewhat unpredictable. Just because it chokes on a given clip doesn’t mean it will next time.

What I want to do is let the sucker render at the end of day. So far I haven’t been able to do it. I’m rendering to an internal, render-only disk, by the way.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Eells] “I’ve looked at Render Manager, and it only knows from folders.”

Huh? Those filders are your sequences.

Why not jsut trash them all? Find the render files in your FCP Docs folder and trash the render files for your project. It’s the only way to be sure.

Why are you using a separate drive for renders?

What format/codec are you working in and where did you get the advice? Is this an old thread or is it from another forum?

Jeremy

[David Eells]

Hey Jeremy

How’s your summer going?

The advice to use a separate disk for renders came from Don Peebles. We were trying to isolate the cause of render crashes.

The formats are XDCAM 35mbr 1080i, HDV1080i, HDV 720p and DV Pal, all at pal frame rates, in a Pro Res 422Q timeline (just to reiterate, I inherited this project).

This is a new thread, no other forums involved.

I have had issues with FCP getting confused with render files – if you version your sequences, the sequence names can be similar enough so that the truncated sequence name used to name render files can cause non-unique filenames. My approach was to keep the name of my current sequence constant, and just label the old versions according to date.

So I could trash them all, but the problem is that the sequence is an hour long, and I can’t count on the edit machine to make it through the show without crashing.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Summer’s going well, thanks very much.

[David Eells] “if you version your sequences, the sequence names can be similar enough so that the truncated sequence name used to name render files can cause non-unique filenames.”

Exactly right.

Since you have all of those different formats, I’d imagine FCP is getting tripped on one of your source material clips. While I feel it’s best to trash all render files and start over, I see your concern.

You can trick FCP by rendering in pieces. Select a few clips, then render selected (apple-r). It’s a pain in the ass, but it will allow you to see if any one thing is making it crash. also, if you check your render files folder, sort it by date and see what the last file that was written and see if rendered completely or what happened. Perhaps start there.

Jeremy

[David Eells]

I’ve actually been through a few cycles of that. There’s nothing I can’t render on the second try, nothing I can find that trips up consistently. I can sit here and render in two minute pieces (and I have!), but in the long run it’s not my preferred method.

[Randy Lee]

Not that its a universal solution by any means, but could you set your autosave to save frequently, then cut your sequence up into say, 10 sequences, each containing 6 minutes or so of footage, by copy-pasting. Leave those sequences open, but not your main one, then in user preferences, turn on auto-render for all open timelines. I believe that it renders each one separately, so it whatever it gets through before crashing would get saved.

Or would it? If the system is rendering, will it still auto-save the parts that are rendered in the background? I would have to test it, and don’t have time at the moment. This method might also help if it is a RAM issue, and your system is crashing from not enough RAM. (Speaking of which, you’ve been through the usual threads on not enough RAM, wrong combinations, etc… right?)

If this method works, you could then just copy-paste all those rendered sections back into one main sequence, and they would show up rendered there and you would be good to go.

Let us know what you come up with, and if anyone knows if this would work, chime in. I’ve got too much to get done today and not enough time, but I’ll see if I can come up with anything else later.