MASS CONFUSION! FCPX project clips black/library issues

[Jeff Kirkland]

You can find your files in the FCPX Project file… go to it in the Finder, right click, and choose “Show package contents”. Your media files should be in the Original Media folder.

It’s been a VERY long time since FCPX 10.0.4 was considered useable and I can remember issues like yours coming up many times in the past. My best advice would be to get your project finished as best you can and then move as quickly as you can to the current version.

Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer | Southern Creative Media | Melbourne Australia
http://www.southerncreative.com.au | G+: https://gplus.to/jeffkirkland | Twitter: @jeffkirkland

[Lola Mala]

Hi –

Bit worried that I’m not coming up with what I should be still…

I’ve a trail that looks like this :

Volumes/2tb/FCPX LIBRARY/Final Cut Projects/MIZAR 003 1/Render Files/High Quality Media/0CACE196354C406B4750AD125805560C

This for example is a Unix Executable File (132.6 MB on disk) called Frame 7168 – 8191. (There are plenty more of these folders, all in different sizes up to 1gb in size!

Other than that, I only seem to get a load of alias files :

Volumes/2tb/FCPX LIBRARY/Final Cut Events/New Event 13-03-2013/Original Media/MIZAR 003 .mov

Alias file, 48 bytes in size.

I know there’s something like 200gb of video in here somewhere according to the FCPX LIBRARY folder that I created, but I cannot see any of it!

[Jeff Kirkland]

That’s a link to just the internal rendered media. You can’t get anything out of that.

The alias files in Original Media means that the original media wasn’t stored in your library at all, just links to it. There may be files in the High Quality or Optimised Media folders? Where does the alias point to? That’s where your media should be…

I’m being a bit vague because 10.0.4 is ancient and the current FCPX is a completely different beast as far as file management goes. My memory doesn’t go back that far.

Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer | Southern Creative Media | Melbourne Australia
http://www.southerncreative.com.au | G+: https://gplus.to/jeffkirkland | Twitter: @jeffkirkland

[Bret Williams]

Having aliases is normal. Just means you elected to leave the originals in place. Right click on the aliases and choose to show original. If there isn’t an original file then there’s your problem. The drive or card may no longer be online.

[Lola Mala]

To clarify, it’s 10.1.3, not 10.0.3.

Worried about these alias files now, as when I right clicked on one it’s stating original can’t be found. As I think back, before my MBP crashed on me, I dragged over everything that I could onto an external drive. But I do recall there being problems accessing some of that information from another computer – permissions issues.
I feel like a lot of this material is there, but it’s now not letting me access it from the newer computer due to restrictions.

What is the usual/correct file path or my imported original movie files in FCPX?

[Jeremy Garchow]

It sounds to me like you are missing your original media.

As mentioned, the big files are render files.

Do you have a backup of your media?

[Lola Mala]

This is what I’m trying to find… I never delete originals, but they’re not showing up. I’m really worried now that the backup I made from the dead MBP to the external drive has mean that either I don’t have permissions to access some things on there, or everything wasn’t copied over like I thought

[Jeff Kirkland]

In my experience, permissions issues can stop you accessing files, but I’ve never had a case where they’ve stopped me seeing a file exists – so if the aliases aren’t finding the original media files, I suspect that your original permissions issues prevented them being copied across to your external drive.

Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer | Southern Creative Media | Melbourne Australia
http://www.southerncreative.com.au | G+: https://gplus.to/jeffkirkland | Twitter: @jeffkirkland

[Lola Mala]

That’s my worry now – that only the aliases were copied over :/

[Craig Alan]

If I were you, I would do a very detailed search on your drives to find copies of the original media. If you still have copies of the original media, I would update to the latest version of FC and start again by importing. If there are no copies of the actual media then there is nothing that will work.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.