-
FCP General Error remedy
-
Makes sense, thanks —
Didn’t have any render files yet, audio or video, as I was just at the importing and organizing stage, so will start what Don suggested.
One question though — how will I know that a file is corrupt? I import a few at a time, until I get to one that what, won’t open? Gives an error message?
Also, would it make sense to start importing backwards, meaning the most recent files first, thinking that something I did in the past few days as opposed to a month ago is the culprit?
Will definitely keep you posted, thank you thank you thank you
-
[Aprildentist] “Also, would it make sense to start importing backwards, meaning the most recent files first, thinking that something I did in the past few days as opposed to a month ago is the culprit?”
That’s one way of thinking, and logical too. But consider the fact that the oldest imported media (actually the files that point to the media files) have the most chance of becoming ccorrupted from repeated saving.
I also second Jeremy’s advice about upgrading to FCP 4.5HD. If I recall, FCP 4.0 was quite buggy compared to the upgrade. And it’s free.
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
-
[Aprildentist] “One question though — how will I know that a file is corrupt? I import a few at a time, until I get to one that what, won’t open? Gives an error message?”
You can reduce the risk of saving yet another corrupt project by first opening your various media files in another program e.g. if you have video clips, open them in Quicktime Player. If you have pictures try opening them in something like Photoshop or Apple’s Preview program. Then if everything checks out then import them into your new FCP project.
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
-
The easiest way to do this process is to remove your media drive from the system. Now open your project with the drive still disconnected and everything should say it’s offline, do not reconnect. Plug in your media drive now and make sure your capture scratch prefs are still set to that drive. Then in your browser start reconnecting your files 5 at a time or so and when you get to one that won’t reconnect, you have found a bad file.
Jeremy
-
I may be missing something but….
The problem is that the project doesn’t open at all. I double click on the project file and then General Error comes up — I can’t even get to the “files are offline” screen. I don’t see any of my bins, sequences, clips, etc. The browser/timeline/viewer remain the generic, blank gray clean slates.
I thought I was going to:
1. open new project
2. import files a few at a time
3. locate corrupt file (still not sure how I’ll know it’s corrupt if I can’t even reconnect files?)
4. recapture corrupt one -
That’s one way to do it, but since I know your project is not totally corrupt (it opened on my system) I think you should first quit FCP. Now disconnect your media drive. Then open the problem project. Does it open then?
-
Nope, same general error issue.
Quit FCP, disconnected media drive, open project, ‘general error’…..
-
Okay, so that means it’s not really your drive either. Are you sure you trashed the prefs and the caches properly? What other devices are connected to your system? Is there any media that’s not on your media drive that perhaps the project could be connected to? Still frames, graphics files, anything?
-
Before you sent me the FCP rescue, I did the following (from Apple site):
1. Quit Final Cut Pro 4.
2. Click the Finder icon in the Dock.
3. From the Go menu, choose Go to Folder.
4. Type: ~/Library/Preferences/ Note: The tilde “~” refers to your home directory. For more information see “Mac OS X: Using Your Home Directory”.
5. Click Go.
6. Drag the file named “com.apple.FinalCutPro.plist” to the Trash (Figure 1).
7. Double-click the folder named “Final Cut Pro User Data”.
8. Drag the file named “Final Cut Pro 4.0 Preferences” to the Trash (see Figure 2).
9. Drag the file named “Final Cut Pro POA Cache” to the Trash (Figure 2).
10. Open Final Cut Pro.==============================
Other devices connected to my computer:
1. Sony miniDV deck
2. Two printers
3. Cassette deck
4. Occasionaly, I’ll swap another LaCie HD with the miniDV deck
5. Ext burner================================
There are no stills or graphics. All I’ve done thus far is import and edit footage. No titles, no effects, no text, no photos, etc.
Due to space shortage, I did have some media on one LaCie and some on the other, but was able to switch it all to one about two weeks ago. No problems when I did that.
The only main difference in the past week or so that I can think of is that I had Garageband open at the same time as FCP. While I was logging a tape in FCP, I was also importing a cassette into GB. Too much?
-
I’d try disconnecting everything that’s firewire related except the media drive and try opening again. Do you have the deck and drive on the same bus? How’s the burner connected? Sorry about all this run around, I’m just trying to get you up and running and exhaust all possibilities. You don’t have any capture cards do you? Do you have read/write permissions on your media drive in general? Do the same get info business, except on the drive this time. You could try repairing permissions using the disk utility on your boot drive (again, disconnect everything).
If that doesn’t work, I’m not sure. We’ve tried everything within my brain power short of reinstalling FCP or perhaps the whole system. I’m not so sure it’s a corrupt project file as it works over here, but again, I’m at the limit of what I know to do. I do know that FCP 4 was pretty strange. FCP 4.5 fixed a lot of different issues. I’m not saying you should upgrade, but it is free and could help but this will force an upgrade of all of your current projects which I’m not sure is feasible or doable on your end. Do you have another machine to try and open it up on?
Jeremy
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up