FCP General Error remedy

[Saya Hillman]

Do you have the deck and drive on the same bus?
Not sure how I know this? My deck is connected through FW straight to computer; drive conneted through seperate FW straight to computer.

How’s the burner connected?
USB hub

You don’t have any capture cards do you?
No (not that I know of)

Do you have read/write permissions on your media drive in general?
Both my 2 ext LaCie’s (Big Disk and d2) say read/write.
My system HD, it’s grayed out — I can’t select any of the options. It says Read Only though.

Do you have another machine to try and open it up on?
No

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I’ll try your disconnection suggestions.

Re. repairing permissions using disk utility — can this make things even worse?

Weird that you can open it and I can’t.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Aprildentist] “Re. repairing permissions using disk utility — can this make things even worse?”

Nope.

[Aprildentist] “Not sure how I know this? My deck is connected through FW straight to computer; drive conneted through seperate FW straight to computer.”

You would have a separate FW PCI card that you would put your fw drives on and keep the deck on your computer’s firewire bus, but since you don’t know what that is, I doubt that you do. Try disconnecting everything except your media drive and open your project up.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Aprildentist] “My system HD, it’s grayed out — I can’t select any of the options. It says Read Only though.”

? this could be a problem. Are you logged in as an administrator? Go to the ownership and permissions section again (get info) and twirl down the details section. Now click the little lock and type in a password and change everything to read & write. Where are you located in Chicago? I’m in the city too.

[Saya Hillman]

When I open Disk Utility and highlite either of the ext HDs in First Aid, “Permissions Enabled” at the bottom of the screen is “No” (it’s “Yes” for my system HD).

Does this mean anything?

[Saya Hillman]

Owner says ‘system,’ as opposed to my name. Group says ‘admin.’ If I change owner to my name, Read & Write ungrays and I’m able to select it, and change all the selections to Read Write.

I’m the only person who uses this computer and haven’t changed any of these settings. I did a security update a few days ago from Apple, but that just required typing in my password.

I’m in Roscoe Village —

[Jeremy Garchow]

This will answer the last two posts. You can only repair permissions on your boot drive, so your media drive should be grayed out. Repair permissions on your boot drive.

Change to read and write on your boot drive. Is your project located on your boot drive? If so, find the folder it’s in and get info and check your read/write privileges. What version of the OS are you on? I had problems like these in OS 10.3. Pain in the arse to track down. I am in Wicker Park and I have a shoot tomorrow or else I’d come see the problem. I am not giving up hope yet.

[Saya Hillman]

YEA!

I don’t know what you suggested that worked, but now the master file and the autosave files ALL open. I haven’t explored much yet to see if anything’s awry, but besides offline clips, it looks fine!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Is there anything you’d suggest I do before I start working again? I don’t want to go through this again (nor I’m sure do you! 🙂 )

(I have OS 10.3.9; feel like all my answers have been some version of “I don’t know”, but I’m not even sure the difference btw boot drive and media drive; maybe how I have my system set up is corrupting files?)

[Jeremy Garchow]

Sweet!!!! After what step did it start working? Repairing permissionsl, changing the read/write permissions, or unhooking everything? Pre 10.4, I’d find this happening a lot with the permissions and I don’t really have much problems with it now. I don’t know if it’s a 10.4 thing or what. If it happens again, now you know where to look first. I’m glad we got it sorted and fixed. Good luck with your project. Where’s it showing by the way? It seemed like some interesting banter from the descriptions (not that I am prying, but I couldn’t help but look). Also, OS 10.3.9 was not a very good release. using FCP 4 (and I highly recommend the free update to 4.5) I’d stick with os 10.3.8 and the last version of quicktime 6.5 which was 6.5.2 or something like that. In order to revert, you’d have to reinstall the system, it’s not too hard, but can be quite an undertaking if you aren’t familiar with it.

Jeremy

[Saya Hillman]

I don’t know if the Cow gives points/fruitbaskets/hugs to helpful posters, but if there’s somewhere I can communicate your helpfulness, let me know —

I unhooked everything, general error.
I changed the read/write permissions, general error.
Right before I was going to repair permissions, I was curious to see if there were any project files I had overlooked so I did a Find. The first file I clicked on (one of the ones that wouldn’t open all day) in the Finder opened without a hitch — well, slower than usual but other than that, fine. All the rest followed suit. ??? So I’m not sure which of your suggestions fixed the problem.

Yes, this project has been a very interesting undertaking — 13 people ages 24-41 giving their views on the Chicago dating scene and everything it encompasses. I hope to a short version to ITVS (if I get it done by deadline), and plan on doing a feature length version when I have time over the next few months. Will definitely have a screening, just don’t know when or where. Feel like I should put you in the credits, thanks again!

Will check out your suggestions (FCP 4.5, OS 10.3.8, QT 6.5, etc.)….

[Don Greening]

April,

Just got back in and I’m very pleased to see that you’re up and running again. Isn’t Creative Cow a great place? Through the tireless efforts of people like Jeremy the Cow has gained a worldwide reputation as the “Answer People”.

If your troubles were simply a ‘read and write permissions’ problem with regard to media file access then somehow they got changed. Also, if you highlight each of your hard drive icons on the desktop and choose “get info” on them, make sure that the little box is checked beside “ignore ownership permissions on this volume.” at the bottom of the get info window. This will allow you to read from and write to your FW drives.

– Don

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