Final cut wont open !!!! URGENT!!!

[Scott Davis]

More likely than not youre project file is corrupt. Go to your autosve folder and open up the most recent version of your project. To help prevent corrupt project files; I periodicly (sp?) same the project under a different name (I add 1, 1.1, 1.2 etc.) I’ve found that if you keep saving to the same project files over a long period of time you will inevitably get corrupt files.

Scott Davis

Scott Davis

[Juan Carlos]

no im trying to open a project brought from an external HDD my autosave foldr is empty,, final cut quits at splash screen,…

[Don Greening]

Copy the project file on to your startup drive and try opening it again. If it fails to open then start a new project and see if FCP boots properly as an empty project. If that works then you know that there’s something in the problem project that’s stopping it from opening up properly i.e. a corrupt project file.

– Don

[Randyp]

Here are some steps I’ve implemented after experiencing problems opening FCP project files myself. They won’t help you open a corrupt file, but might help you avoid file corruption in the future:

I agree with the suggestions already posted, especially regularly saving copies of the project. Auto Save is not always a “lifeboat,” because I found that I could be running an already corrupted project (corruption I wouldn’t discover until after closing FCP and trying to re-open), and Auto Save would faithfully copy multiple already-corrupted-versions to the Auto Save Vault. I’d discover the project wouldn’t reopen and that the Auto Save files also wouldn’t reopen, and would have to search back in time through those files to finally find one auto-saved before the corruption set in. After learning this sad fact, I finally began regularly saving the project file to a new version name in the morning and a new version name after lunch. (I add the date and “AM” or “PM” to the file name in the new versions.)

As a routine preventative step I also restart my computer first thing in the morning and then once or twice during day to refresh all the cache files, the connections to my Medea, and the FCP application software. If I start getting drop-frame warnings, a restart will usually correct those too.

I also found if I leave FCP running for untended for long periods sometimes something corrupts all by itself, so I try to avoid leaving the software and project open overnight or on weekends.

A sign of impending trouble I noticed in particular with my FCP 4.5 was that after working on a project for a while I could no longer “undo” changes. Whenever I noticed this, it was time to “save as” and restart the system. Occasionally I would “Select All” and bulk copy my entire timeline of video and audio clips over to an new, empty sequence. (This is something I used to have to do when I edited on the old Turbo Cube and the Stratosphere to rid my project of “ghost” files, the traces of files deleted and changed which seemed to accumulate over time. I don’t know if FCP has a “ghost” file problem, but I do it anyway, once in a while, just in case.)

I sent dozens of messages to the Apple debuggers in the past when FCP 4.5 “Unexpectedly Quit,” so they will be happy to hear that last month I completed the major FCP project I’ve been working on for the past year and a half, and this week my Mac has finally been updated to OS X Tiger and Final Cut Studio. Maybe I’ve left some previous FCP problems behind, but I’ll continue to guard myself fo a while at least using the procedures mentioned above.

Randy

“You are:
1. Untalented but excessively persistent
2. Unbelieveably stupid
3. An artist
4. All of the above”

–Norman Rockwell

[Frank Nolan]

What version of FCP are you using and what version was the project last saved in?

[Brian Hamm]

Im having this problem now too. Did you find a solution?
I cant get past the splash screen.

thanks

[Randyp]

I never found a specific solution to the “Won’t Open” problem I had with FCP 4.5. Upgrading to FCP 5.0.4 seems to have left most of these problems behind, but I also have not yet worked on a project as large or intricate as the one I was working on back in FCP 4.5 before I upgraded.

Did you try trashing FCP preferences? If you have it installed, use FCP Rescue to trash and restore your preferences. If you don’t have FCP Rescue, trash your FCP preferences anyway, but you’ll have to manually reset everything the next time FCP opens up because it will automatically establish the default preference settings. (If you don’t have FCP Rescue, get it for this kind of situation in the future.)

[Randyp]

I never found a specific solution to the “Won’t Open” problem I had with FCP 4.5. Upgrading to FCP 5.0.4 seems to have left most of these problems behind, but I also have not yet worked on a project as large or intricate as the one I was working on back in FCP 4.5 before I upgraded.

Did you try trashing FCP preferences? If you have it installed, use FCP Rescue to trash and restore your preferences. If you don’t have FCP Rescue, trash your FCP preferences anyway, but you’ll have to manually reset everything the next time FCP opens up because it will automatically establish the default preference settings. (If you don’t have FCP Rescue, get it for this kind of situation in the future.)

Here is advice I copied from a previous post MATTE offered on this subject:

The first thing to always try is to Quit FCP, Restart the Mac, Open your FCP project and try again.

Next:
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.