Random black clips when dragging project to another library

[Joe Marler]

[Jiri Fiala] “I have perfectly fine Project in Library A
-I create new Library B
-I drag Project from A to B

I get seemingly random black clips that reveal and play in Finder fine, not in FCPX. “

They don’t play in the FCPX viewer, or they play but thumbnails are black? If you right click a black clip and pick “Reveal in Finder” does that point to the media location you expect?

If you select each library in the left sidebar, then look at Inspector, is the media volume and folder what you expect? Are by chance both libraries sharing the same cache folder?

Is the playback anomaly only when using proxies or when using original media?

Have you installed Pro Video Formats 2.0.7? In Mojave that is in System Preferences>Software Update, for earlier macOS versions you get it here: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1947?locale=en_US

[Jiri Fiala]

Hi! Thanks.

They don’t play in the FCPX viewer, or they play but thumbnails are black? If you right click a black clip and pick “Reveal in Finder” does that point to the media location you expect?
// no playback. Reveal shows correct clips which plays in quickview, other NLEs and/or other FCPX libraries, but not this one

If you select each library in the left sidebar, then look at Inspector, is the media volume and folder what you expect? Are by chance both libraries sharing the same cache folder? // it’s a new library with cache inside. Volume and folder are correct

Is the playback anomaly only when using proxies or when using original media? //original. Plus, the black clips never correct themselves, so it’s not only a playback issue.

Have you installed Pro Video Formats 2.0.7? In Mojave that is in System Preferences>Software Update, for earlier macOS versions you get it here: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1947?locale=en_US // yes, I have that installed. If I hadn’t, I guess the other clips from the same batch wouldn’t play as well.

It seems completely random AND the issue is not present when doing the same thing (i.e. importing a sequence to a new library for handing out to other editor) via FCPXML instead of directly dragging it inside FCPX.

[Joe Marler]

Is this the same library with 13k clips where you previously had problems? If so that’s pretty big. The largest doc I’ve done was 230 hr of 4k H264 material, 8,500 clips, 20TB in a single externally-managed library, about eight events. That was on a locally-attached Thunderbolt array. It mostly worked OK but you often see odd things at that level.

If it’s a different library and project from the prior problem, please describe any relationship between them. Did it inherit data from the previous one, if so, how? If it’s a different smaller library with only XAVC-L and iPhone material, I’m curious why *another* odd problem would happen.

This is 10.4.4, right? What media hard drive and machine type? Is it a locally attached HFS+ volume or on a NAS? Did you ever manually delete, add or alter any symlinks or other content inside the library? If so what was the immediate result?

Is the current problem isolated to just clips from one project when it’s copied to another library? Or are there non-project red/black clips in the source library’s Event Browser? When you copy the project to the other library, do you have optimized or proxy media? Did you select those checkboxes?

What if you make a project snapshot in the source library, open it, select all clips on the timeline, then delete all effects with Edit>Remove Effects, THEN copy that test project to the new library?

FCPX apparently uses Spotlight indexes to accelerate lookup, so I recommend you do a Disk Utility First aid on all volumes (inc’l system drive), verify no errors, then rebuild all Spotlight indexes on all volumes (inc’l system drive). Procedure: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

There’s not a high probability this will help but it’s easy to do. I know this is very rudimentary but also make sure you have adequate free space on all volumes.

I suspect it’s some kind of internal library corruption problem caused by a previous crash or who knows what. How was the media imported? Was it copied from the camera card to disk then imported using “leave files in place”, or imported from the camera card?

Can you describe anything else about the problem history? Did it start happening after a crash, after a system update, after a hardware config change, after you passed 10,000 clips, etc? Was it one or two black clips that got more prevalent? Or did everything look and work fine until you tried to copy the project, then you saw it for the 1st time?

What if you create a test library and drag several “problem” clips there (between libraries). Does it happen then? What about after consolidation, or if that test library is on a different locally-attached physical drive? What if the test library uses only internal storage?

What if you create a test project in the original library, copy/paste a few problem clips from the original project, do they stay black? If so what if you drag/drop that smaller test project to a new test library.

Sorry to recommend so many different investigative steps but I haven’t see this before and am just trying to “feel out” the problem boundaries and behaviors.

[Brett Sherman]

I do a lot of cross library editing, and this is a fairly common bug. I have not found a really effective cure. You can try it a second time. Or once in your library you can sometimes drag the clip in from the finder. You can make an XML of the clips you want to bring into the new library. Then import. That’s pretty bullet-proof, but a bit more work.

[Joe Marler]

[Brett Sherman] “I do a lot of cross library editing, and this is a fairly common bug.”

I have personally not seen this but I don’t do that much cross-database editing. I do often drag/drop a project from an externally managed library to an internally managed library for archival backup, and that has always worked. He might try that, but it definitely can take some space.

The overall data integrity of FCPX is very good but there are significant media management issues that need work — especially involving proxies and the inability to relink those.

[Jiri Fiala]

Thing is, it’s not really cross-library editing. I was merely copying a project to a new library. I didn’t edit media from library A to library B. It’s a nasty bug.

[Jiri Fiala]

Hi Joe!

It’s a USB 3-connected HFS+ drive with externally managed media (consolidated into the “Final Cut Optimized/Original/Proxy folders but not as part of the library). The Libraries themselves are on APFS drive, either internal or external. Library A was created with FCPX 10.4.3 and updated to 10.4.4 as it came out, running on MacOS 10.14.2, 2015 rMBP and 2015 Retina iMac. Drives are fine. I did not notice that it would manifest after a crash. There’s all kinds of footage but only XAVC 50p and iPhone clips ever had this issue.

I did not manually modify links in the Library. I did want to, as I had an additional issue with this Lib before (several clips from Sony FS7 (XAVC Long GOP) were reported as Missing File and there was NO way of reconnecting or re-adding. Re-linking went fine but clips were still Missing afterwards, deleting from Browser and dragging back into it from Finder did literally nothing, re-importing from resulted in Missing files also). But no, I didn ‘t modify the Library manually in any way.

The black clips are created exclusively when creating a new library and dragging existing clips/projects into it. It doesn’t happen with all Libraries and/or Projects. I had this happen before, usually with Synced clips (with those, usually audio plays but video is completely black and there’s nothing that can be done about it other than manually opening the clip in timeline and dragging the video clip into it from browser).

When I re-tried creating the new Lib and dragging to it from old Lib, it was always the same clips that had the issue. There is no craziness in file/clip names, nothing that would differentiate them from the clips that passed without issues.

I can’t check your other suggestions as I don’t have the media drive with me. Thanks!

[Joe Marler]

[Jiri Fiala] “Thing is, it’s not really cross-library editing. I was merely copying a project to a new library. I didn’t edit media from library A to library B. It’s a nasty bug.”

By “cross-library editing” we meant copying the data (or references) then editing. You can’t really edit between libraries.

You’re right it should work perfectly. I’ve seen several cases of red clips or red audio after a cross-library copy, or if using multiple drives and one is momentarily off line. Those are often related to a cache issue and can sometimes be fixed by manually deleting the cache from Finder. Sometimes the clips are OK but the audio in a project is red, even though it plays OK.

There is another range of cases where proxies become unlinked, usually when using externally-stored proxies. This is really bad since you can’t re-link proxies.

However I haven’t seen cases where the clips are just black following a cross-library copy.

I’m actively investigating some FCPX media management issues now. If you could give any more details that would be helpful. You can email me directly at joema4(at)gmail(dot)com.

[Joe Marler]

[Jiri Fiala] “Thing is, it’s not really cross-library editing. I was merely copying a project to a new library. I didn’t edit media from library A to library B. It’s a nasty bug.”

I just reproduced this; not sure how related it is to your situation. I had a library with proxy-only external media and copied an event to another library, and did not select the optimized or proxy checkboxes. Examination of the destination library bundle showed no /Transcoded Media/Proxy Media folder and no symlinks to the proxies on disk.

I then deleted the copied events with the black clips and re-did the copy but selected the optimized and proxy checkboxes. Examination of the target library bundle then showed showed a Proxy Media folder which contained symlinks pointing to the original proxies on the same volume.

Using external proxies might be an edge case, but the UI should really not let you do something that results in black clips. It’s also ambiguous. The normal interpretation of the copy proxies/optimized media checkboxes refers to the media itself, which you don’t want duplicated if using external media. However in this case those checkboxes were necessary to copy the symlinks, and without those it somehow copied only metadata resulting in black clips but no links to the media.

If you have proxies on some media (say just the 4k) and did not select the proxy checkbox during the copy, maybe that explains why only some clips were black in the destination library.

[Brett Sherman]

[Joe Marler] “I have personally not seen this but I don’t do that much cross-database editing”

It’s possible it has something to do with storing media on a NAS. I find it more buggy in that situation, but it’s really the only way that works for me.