The Disappearing Wave Form Nightmare Returns

[Michael Fraticelli]

Hi again Roger 🙂

You guys really stay ontop of things here 🙂 Sorry for the confusion, yes I’ll get back to the issue of text in a few days. Very helpful folks here! I tried to focus primarily on our discussion regarding Dual System HD’s: Its going well – almost finished. However I do have a question: I usually keep ‘Apple Software Updates’ saved to separate folders. Concerning FC6, (for some reason), I installed Apple ProApplicationsUpdate2008-05 when in fact there’s four other ones before it:

ProApplicationsUpdate2008-01
ProApplicationsUpdate2008-02
ProApplicationsUpdate2008-03
ProApplicationsUpdate2008-04

Should I install these others, or ignor them?

Thanx again Roger
Mike

[Christopher Mcdonell]

Oh my goodness, all this because you have missing wave forms? Is that really a widespread issue with FCP 7? Might want to hear from more than just one user.

For what it’s worth, I ran into this problem as well… on FCP 6. The fix was to break the media links then reconnect. So I copied my media files to another folder, reconnected, and presto… The waveforms redrew themselves right before my eyes. Have you tried doing that?

[Roger Poole]

Well..You learn something every day! Nice catch Christopher.

[Roger Poole]

Hi Mike, if you are now running FCP 6.0.6 you’ll be right. Christopher seems to have come up with an answer to the waveforms problem. Get to work and give FCP a thrashing. See how it works out for you.

How did we get things done before the internet. :o)

[Michael Fraticelli]

Chris, Roger

Chris mentioned: The fix was to break the media links then reconnect. So I copied my media files to another folder then reconnected

As suggested I added a 2nd system drive containing fresh installs of OS and FC6 (within Rosetta), but the problem of missing wave forms continues. FC6 in its original state/machine (being an older G5), connects and reconstructs wave forms with no problems at all. But when a fresh install of FC6 is introduced, (from another system drive), it has the same problem that FC7 was having. No consistent connections to wave forms.

Problem here is that I have multiple drives of external ‘Scratch Media’. The ONLY media in the Mac Pro, (FC7), that can’t be connected/created are ‘Wave Forms’.

I fear if I start creating new folders for all that Media from multiple drives, I’ll be creating Frankenstein, (a little late for Halloween).

I think I’ve patiently tried to keep the horse alive, but he died just the same. It would seem, the only recourse is go back to the G5 and finish the project there, (I also have back up G5’s), and keep the Mac Pro Desktop for future HD projects. Yes its a wastefull shame not being able to take advantage of a perfectly fine Mac Pro Desktop, but I think I should quit while ahead.

Mike

[Christopher Mcdonell]

Hmm. Well just to clarify, I had the issue w FCP 6 and resolved it and now have waveforms and have been editing happily ever since, using just about every OS from SL onward; most recently Mavericks and now El Capitan. There’s plenty of others editing w vs 7 who have also not reported an ongoing issue with missing wave forms. I’m sorry for your troubles!

in case you’re interested, I’ll further elaborate. I broke the connection to some of my media files by simply moving them to another folder, then witnessing the lost connections and saving my project file. I quit FCP, deleted my waveform folder and relaunched. I was prompted to reconnect my missing files which I did. When finished, I double clicked on the files, switched to audio in the canvas and literally watched FCP redraw the waveforms right in front of me.

You could test this method with a few files, and if it works, just rename your main folder, or folders. Easy.

Good luck!

[Roger Poole]

I completely agree with Michael’s caution. Given the situation I wouldn’t mess around with the media drives because of the risk of causing problems with the fallback position of continuing the edit on the G5. I was in a similar situation a couple of years ago when asked to finish a project created by another editor who was working on a G5. I received all the raw media files, the project files and nothing else. Of course the whole project had to be recreated from scratch on a “New name” media drive, but it all worked out fine. Mike’s situation is different because he has the identical media drives which he had on the G5, so its a straight re-link, which might be where the problem is.

[Michael Fraticelli]

Hi again Chris – thank you very much for staying with me on this. I’ve done double duty installing FC6 thru Rosetta on another system drive. It looked feasible and was looking for an easier solution. But since it didn’t work, I’ve tested/tried deleting only a few wave forms at a time from corresponding wave cache folders. In those cases it worked. They were recognized/re-created upon re-opening a project. But when I tried to delete all the wave forms (perhaps 50-75) from a particular project, FC7 produced sketchy results and failed re-create/reconstruct all of them.

In your approach did you move only ‘wave forms’ to another/different folder, or did you move/relocate ‘Capture Scratch’ and other media? As I mentioned this project requires multiple Scratch Drives, 3 or more. I’m very cautious about changing the folder directory. Perhaps you could explain that?

I can look for specific media, (wave forms), and make changes in small increments by deleting a few at time. But its difficult figuring out the nomenclature assigned to each wave/piece of sound:

https://www.northafrica1942-43.com/Scratch-1.jpg

https://www.northafrica1942-43.com/Scratch-2.jpg

https://www.northafrica1942-43.com/Scratch-3.jpg

Thanx Chris

[Christopher Mcdonell]

Hi Michael,

I deleted the Waveform Cache files outright, straight to trash, then moved and reconnected (or just change the folder name, so FCP thinks you’re moving them) the Capture Scratch media files – the .mov files. It was important, in my case, to break connection with the .mov files, then reconnect, at which point waveforms were recreated and everything worked just fine.

I should add that the waveform cache or thumbnail cache files are not a big deal. You can delete them anytime and they’ll just recreate themselves when you relaunch FCP.

[Michael Fraticelli]

I should add that the waveform cache or thumbnail cache files are not a big deal. You can delete them anytime and they’ll just recreate themselves when you relaunch FCP.

As I mentioned, I’ve tried that and FC7 will not recreate them. It only creates partial pieces. However FC6 in the other machine has no problem reproducing them.

I had asked if there was a way to identify the waveform titles so you knew which ones represented which sound pieces that the .mov files were tied to? Please remember we’re dealing with multiple scratch drives. And BTW, they’ve all been backed up. Ironically it would appear, (at this point), backing them up may be irrelevant.