Dropped frames in viewer but not timeline

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

THE FOLLOWING COMES FROM THE KEN STONE WEBSITE:
“Over 5,000 years ago Confucius wrote: ‘If you are toiling away, you have changed nothing and FCP heads South on you, [starts behaving in strange ways] then it is time to trash your FCP Preferences.’ ”

Click the following link for instructions.

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html

A great way to do this is to use “FCP Rescue” a free Apple Script that will Trash the Preferences for you (and restore nearly all of your user settings afterward).
There are versions for FCP (Pro) & FCE (Express) and a new one for FCP 5.

Download these free Apple Scripts at

https://fcprescue.andersholck.com/
or
https://pistolerapost2.com/fcprescue/

This is one FCP tip that has helped in solving hundreds of “odd” problems.

[Robert Withers]

Many thanks to all who have tried to help.
Here’s where I’ve netted out, for those who are interested.

In a selection of about two dozen batch-captured clips in Project X, about 4 of them play back perfectly in the viewer.
The rest do not, even though they have many times before.
I can’t identify any consistent characteristics among these in the browser. Some are long, some are short, some captured long ago, some recently, some with stereo sound, some with A1, A2 sound.
All clips play back perfectly in the canvas, whether they play back in the viewer or not.

All play back perfectly in Quicken from within FCP clip edit or from the finder.

I tried re-batch-capturing some of the clips and this resulted in even weirder versions of the clips that I won’t describe here.

Before doing this, I had fortunately saved my Project X as a copy, and put the Copy of X on the startup drive. FCP created a new batch of media folders (capture scratch etc.) on the firewire drive, independent of the existing media folder. I deleted the empty folders, and the Copy of X still accesses the original media files properly.

But I’m left with the playback weirdness.

I think I’ll try the trashing and rebuilding of preferences next . . .

Thanks for everyone’s interest.
Best regards,
Robert

[Robert Withers]

Aha!
Trashing the preferences didn’t help, but . . .
I finally discovered the difference between Project Road Test clips that don’t playback (dropped frame error message) and those that do.

It’s all about file location for this FCP2 running in OS 9.2.2.

Clips that don’t play back are in “Firewire Drive:/Road9.2.2_media/Capture Scratch/Road Test/”

That’s the designated Capture Scratch folder in Preferences. The “Road9.2.2_media” folder is the funny folder that I created trying to follow Charles Roberts’s instructions on the best way to set up media files. (No claim here that I followed his instructions accurately.) These are the files that play perfectly in Quicktime but not from the FCP2 browser or viewer.

Clips that do play back in the FCP2 viewer are in “Startup Drive:/Documents/Final Cut Pro Documents/Capture Scratch/Road Test/”

I didn’t knowingly create that folder and have no idea how it got there.
I did the experiment of copying a clip from the Firewire Drive folder to the Startup Drive folder and behold! the clip now plays back in the FCP viewer.

But obviously I need to use the big Firewire drive, not the Startup Drive, and clips used to play fine from the Firewire drive until I did whatever I did.

So the next challenge is how to change folder names or move folders to get the files running from the Firewire drive again. Perhaps I’ll trying copying the “Final Cut Pro Documents” file to the Firewire Drive. Maybe FCP won’t work properly unless it has a folder entitled “Final Cut Pro Documents.”

Despite what I thought I read in Charles Roberts’s “Final Cut Pro 2” book. And despite the fact that I still can’t find the phrase “Final Cut Pro Documents” in the 1500 page FCP2 manual.

But it’s interesting that the playback issue is related to the file location condition. Wish I could find more detailed documentation on this for this ancient if not prehistoric program.

I wonder if the more recent FCP versions have these file location issues or if that’s all long gone with the cleansing winds.

Newly optimistic,
Relentlessly,
Robert

[Robert Withers]

All,

Let me try to radically simplify my questions, since most responses seem to circle around them with thoughtful suggestions but don’t directly anwer.

It’s all about file location for this FCP2 running in OS 9.2.2.

My clips that don’t play back are in “Firewire Drive:/Road9.2.2_media/Capture Scratch/Road Test/”

That’s the designated Capture Scratch folder in Preferences. These files play perfectly in Quicktime but not from the FCP2 browser or viewer.

Clips that do play back in the FCP2 viewer are in “Startup Drive:/Documents/Final Cut Pro Documents/Capture Scratch/Road Test/”

Here are my three questions:
DOES FCP REQUIRE A FOLDER ENTITLED “FINAL CUT PRO DOCUMENTS?” MUST THIS FOLDER CONTAIN OR EXIST AS THE CAPTURE SCRATCH FOLDER?
IF I WANT TO ORGANIZE MEDIA FILES FOR DIFFERENT PROJECTS ON THE SAME OR ANOTHER EXTERNAL DRIVE HOW CAN THEY BE NAMED?

If anyone can respond to these specific questions I would be most grateful.

Many thanks,
Robert