Files lost durring relinking in FCPX

[Andreas Kiel]

I’ve no idea how to help or why this happened.
But next time you should make a backup of your cards – as it is recommended here a thousand times.

-Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[James Ewart]

That’s not a very helpful answer to be fair…I think we all know we should back up or archive but that wasn’t the question and to answer “i don’t know” seems rather pointless.

[Andreas Kiel]

James

Do you have an answer?
So why not post it.

It was just a recommendation how to setup workflow next time to prevent things like described happening.

-Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[James Ewart]

If I have an answer I will post it…if not I won’t…I had a similar problem (I have backups fortunately) but was keen to read solution.

This forum could be a little silly if everybody who does’t know posts as such.

[Andreas Kiel]

James,

Don’t understand your point.
I didn’t had an answer – true.
But I had just an advice to have not same thing happen twice.

Probably Jonathan has tried the common procedures like data recover and/or searching for the files.
Obviously without success.

So you can leave him either alone with his question or give him some advice – like making a backup.
And what I forgot: send some feedback to Apple.

Anyway – let’s stop here.

Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Jonathan Shuler]

Hey guys, Thanks for getting back. You’ll both will be happy to know that I had backed up the whole project after all so no love lost there (and your right, I really should back up my masters until a project is over.)

The actual issue is a little worrying though. I’m going to take your advice and send something to apple.

Thanks again.

Jon

Virescit Vulnere Virtus

[Bill Davis]

I don’t know if this is going to help or not… but on the chance it will, I’m going to put it out there.

In X, the entire construct is largely “referential.” What I mean by that is that when you import anyting into X, what happens from that point on is that all operations “reference” the original media, but don’t really USE it other than as a read-only reference file.

The thing is that since X is really just a big database under the hood – all its constructions can CHANGE what they reference to pretty easily. For instance, you can import H-264 DSLR footage – and it ‘appears” in your timeline instantly. You can get to work immediately, because X will just “reference” simple display versions of those original files to get you up and running. But if you’ve set, for instance, ProRes as your native format, X will start transcoding “under the hood”, when the transcoding is done, it will SWITCH all the work you’ve done while the transcoding has been happening over to references to the new ProRes files replacing the H-264 ones. Same with Proxys. If you tell X to create Proxys – it can switch in and out of using THOSE instead of the ProRes files, because it just SWITCHES it’s references.

This reference thing is useful because lets say you have a robust array of projects in your project library – but you don’t want to maintain all the original clips that created them. Just Share out simple iPhone size clips into the internal X Shared Assets folder and BINGO, you all your projects remain as perfectly skimmable clips that STAY in your event library even if you dump all the original footage.

The point of all this is that X is extremely agile as to looking for files in order to display them.

The downside is that if X is using something OTHER than your original files to generate your project library or similar clip references, it can FOOL you into thinking you still have versions (originals) that you might not.

Back in Legacy days, if you didn’t have a clip in the Capture Scratch, ALL it could do was give you a “clip offline” (red screen) and you couldn’t see it or use it – it was totally disconnected. In X, theres no longer just ONE place where the program can look to give you a useful, skimmable, playable expression of your project.

Understanding this is pretty important so that you don’t get fooled into thinking that just because the project APPEARS in the X interface properly, you might not have moved, or deleted or othewise broken the links between the fundamental clips and the interface.

It’s annoying at first, HOWEVER, it’s also what makes X amazing when it comes to working with externally stored files. Since X works with these expressions, it has a built in ability to “auto-detect” mounted external volumes and re-build all the clip links so long as the database pathways are correct.

This is why so many of us recommend using disk images or removable drives with X. It means you can work with all sorts of off-line storage exactly as if it’s ON-Line – upon mounting.

As long as the database in X understands the path and the asset ID, it’s always ready to “auto connect” to them.

But you can’t simply think that because you ‘see” a clip in X, it means that the original source file is still there – it might be just a version.

Hope that helps. It’s one of the things thats fundamentally different about X that takes some getting used to.

Hope that helps and that I explained it OK. I’m coming off four straight long days of production and am a bit brain dead. ; )

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Lucas Barros]

So, did you find an answer?
The same thing happened to me TWICE over the same project,
and I’m pretty experienced to know it wasn’t my fault.

Here’s a link to my topic:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/344/21006

When I tried to relink it gave me the notice that “files were modified” so they couldn’t be relinked.

What actually worked for me was importing the same media again and then the files were automatically reconnected.

Lucas de Barros
http://www.novelofilmes.com.br

[John Davidson]

Did you use the files in AE or Premiere bychance and have the ‘write XMP’ preference in AE set to ‘on?’

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[Kris Strobeck]

I know this is really old, but I just had the same thing happen! I never lose files and am careful to back up, but in this case, it just didn’t work out. I can’t find the file anywhere on my computer and I definitely didn’t delete it. I’ve worked for weeks on the project, and now all of sudden it says it’s gone and I can’t find it anywhere on my system. It was only after I opened and worked with the multi cam clips. Please help if you have any information…. my project is due today, Wednesday! Ahhh!! It’s really a problem that final cut just randomly did this. Thanks.