FCP7.03 hangs/freezes while loading project

[Jeremy Garchow]

You are finding out the hardway that nests inside FCP aren’t the best, especially when your project starts to get huge. You can add the scenes to your master sequence without nesting (it’s a pain, I know, but it’s more stable). You can also keep multiple projects open and working to keep the project size down. Fcp does better this way ad well, although makes you work harder to keep everything organized.

As far as the thumbnails, that is strange. I don’t have specific answers for you. Sorry about that.

The empty XML leads me to believe there’s something very wrong in your project. I’d start yet another new project with no nests and see what happens. Hold command when dragging a sequence to another sequence to avoid nesting. I’m sure it’s probably exactly what you don’t want to hear.

[Jon Chappell]

With longer projects it really pays to reduce complexity. My personal preference is to not use nests at all, but if you are going to use them, organize them into reels of around 20 minutes each. That way you only end up with 5 or 6 instead of 70.

And always strive to keep your Final Cut Pro project under 100 MB. Once a project file gets too big, I create a “lite” version with just the essentials in to keep file sizes low.

My software:
FCS Maintenance Pack – Tools to keep Final Cut Studio running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
FCP Versioner – Backs up Final Cut Pro projects to XML and creates changelists for each revision
More tools…