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Unusual FCPX problem – red line in timeline render bar
Mark Smith replied 4 years, 4 months ago 8 Members · 31 Replies
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Hamdani Milas
May 21, 2020 at 2:01 pmTried all of the latest suggestions kindly offered, but nothing eliminated the random red line issue.
To my alarm I have discovered other odd behaviour that makes FCPX, in its present state on this machine, somewhat unfit for purpose.
Two examples.
1) Inserting a dissolve between one red-lined clip and a grey dotted line unrendered clip – both clips have adequate frames beyond the Out and In points to cover a 1 sec dissolve transition. However the transition simply cannot be applied, with the usual warning appearing about insufficient clip duration. Tried the three ways I’d previously used to add a dissolve; drag the effect from the transitions browser, option / drag a transition from another clip and Command T. None of these work. And yet there is ample footage on both sides of the edit.
2) Compound Clip manic behaviour – I have discovered that making a compound clip can sometimes get rid of the red line and choppy playback / rendering. A red-lined clip in one recent project is selected to test this with the Option G command to make a CC. As the CC is generated the clip deletes itself from its original location and instantly jumps backwards in the edit timeline, closes up the gap where it was, and inserts itself a couple of clips earlier! It’s not something you would believe was possible unless you saw it with your own eyes. This mad behaviour is repeatable and consistent on this red-lined clip.
The incomplete and inconsistent rendering issue also prevails, sometimes a third of a timeline is often left un-rendered when the preference is set for background rendering and, if this is disabled, the same applies, forced rendering almost always leaves a portion of the timeline unrendered.
There’s other weird stuff going on including ghost rendered titles where there is no title above a black solid but that oddity occurred just once and hasn’t reappeared. I have video screen caps of some of this quirkiness.
I’m flummoxed by the random unpredictability and instability of a previously reliable and stable editing app.
The only logical explanation I can think of is that the random red line issue and other weirdness started appearing after an update from High Sierra to Mojave which included an update to FCPX and subsequent updating of libraries. In hindsight I should have archived recent FCPX libraries and updated copies only, then at least I could have downgraded to the previous version of FCPX. But then I’d never previously had any issue with updating libraries through several versions of FCPX.
I’m still trying to locate a Mac with Mojave and the latest version of FCPX installed to see if the issues in the affected libraries appear on another machine, that will either eliminate or incriminate this iMac.
Thanks
Hamdani
Independent producer, director, cinematographer, writer, editor
Milas Film Productions, Hong Kong
http://www.milasfilm.com -
Eric Santiago
May 21, 2020 at 3:31 pm[Hamdani Milas] “I’m still trying to locate a Mac with Mojave and the latest version of FCPX installed to see if the issues in the affected libraries appear on another machine, that will either eliminate or incriminate this iMac.
“I’m running Mojave on a 2013 Mac Pro at home with 10.4.8.
Send me a Library with all the required resources and I can test this for you.
I have over 20 projects present in Mojave and not once have I seen this red line. -
Ronny Courtens
May 21, 2020 at 6:51 pmThis phenomenon has been in the app since version 1. According to Apple, it’s a software bug that shows an internal code that is not intended to be displayed. It appears it is caused and can be intermittently corrected by several various things. You can read more details in this thread from 2012: https://www.fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/6650-red-band-in-fcpx-timeline
I have only seen it in very few projects, mostly with optical flow retimed clips that have audio. In most cases, this red line does not affect performance and can be ignored. I a few rare cases it does indicate a corrupt file or a corrupt render file, which can affect performance.
– Ronny
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Hamdani Milas
May 22, 2020 at 1:28 pmThanks Ronny, appreciate the feedback. I had seen this FCP.co thread from 2012. My case though didn’t seem to fit the profile. On all clips affected – ProRes 422 HQ 1080/25p, or sometimes just titles and including a few where the red line doesn’t randomly come and go but persists regardless, there is no retiming or optical flow as the OP dgwvideo observed with his repeatable experience.
I’ve never encountered the red line issue before and have been using FCPX for more than 6 years. What caused it to suddenly start appearing randomly across several updated libraries after upgrading to Mojave and FCPX 10.4.8?
I have also observed, as the 2012 FCP.co thread mentions, that in some cases the red line can be ignored, as it has no effect on performance or output. But I have also noticed that with some clips when the playback stutters, in itself not desirable, the exported video either also stutters on playback or shows a freeze frame.
If it’s a bug, then I can only consider it a serious one because it cannot be eliminated, despite having applied all the usual maintenance / problem fixing routines, and it affects the ability to deliver work. I have reported it to Apple via Feedback but have seen no response.
Hamdani Milas
Independent producer, director, cinematographer, writer, editor
Milas Film Productions, Hong Kong
http://www.milasfilm.com -
Hamdani Milas
May 22, 2020 at 1:44 pmThanks Eric, that would be much appreciated. I have prepared the last 45 secs of a showreel I’m currently working on for a 3D animator colleague, you may download the zipped library file here. No password is required:
I’m afraid it’s almost 17GB, even though the generated library render files were deleted, because it includes some clips where the red line appears intermittently as well as the final clip which has persisted with a red line through several sessions with this edit.
Hamdani Milas
Independent producer, director, cinematographer, writer, editor
Milas Film Productions, Hong Kong
http://www.milasfilm.com -
Joe Marler
May 22, 2020 at 5:42 pm[Hamdani Milas] “Thanks Eric, that would be much appreciated. I have prepared the last 45 secs of a showreel I’m currently working on for a 3D animator colleague, you may download the zipped library file here. No password is required:”
I will download and test it on several different machines.
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Joe Marler
May 22, 2020 at 11:13 pm[Joe Marler] “I have prepared the last 45 secs of a showreel I’m currently working on for a 3D animator colleague, you may download the zipped library file here”
I have downloaded the library and am studying it. I can easily reproduce the red line on 10.4.8 on Catalina 10.15.4 on an iMac Pro. I don’t see any other performance-related issues but it’s obviously an anomaly. It still happens if I copy a simplified version of the project to another library, also if I create and load an XML of that project to a new library.
If I had to make a wild guess, it might be related to the non-standard parameters of some of the CGI clips. E.g, “Shenzhen Bay Cam1” is (from FCPX standpoint) 2048×1024, 25p, ProRes 422HQ. That should nonetheless work and cause no problems.
The video header metadata states 189 megabit/sec, ProRes 422HQ , 1920×873, display aspect ratio 2.2:1.
It might be FCPX is getting confused by this clip or similar ones. I will continue studying it tomorrow.
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Hamdani Milas
May 23, 2020 at 7:09 amThanks for checking the library Joe. That’s something of a relief to know the issue is not specific to the iMac or macOS.
A little more information on the Shenzhen Bay Cam1 clip. It was rendered out of 3DS Max at 1920 x 873* / 25fps as a Targa image sequence of 801 frames. This was imported into After Effects (alpha ignored), brought into a comp of the same dimensions and fps and rendered as a ProRes HQ mov. We’ve been using this workflow for years with no issues.
(*We adopt those dimensions because the 2.2:1 aspect better suits these projects and it’s also a little faster than rendering 1080 frames in 3DS Max.)
It’s identical in all respects to the Shenzhen Bay Cam4 clip that precedes it, except as you can see this is a Compound Clip with a cloud layer. This clip may randomly show a red line but playback is always normal.
I’d be interested to see if any other clips show a red line as you are looking at this library. They usually appear randomly when random adjustments are made!
For example, I just opened the Cam4 CC into its own timeline and on returning to the Red Line Edit 08 project five additional red lines appeared above random clips. It’s almost as if the presence of one permanently red lined clip can affect render indicators (or trigger this bug) anywhere in the entire project.
I shall continue to look into it myself, meanwhile your feedback, and any other contribution, is much appreciated.
Hamdani Milas
Independent producer, director, cinematographer, writer, editor
Milas Film Productions, Hong Kong
http://www.milasfilm.com -
Joe Marler
May 23, 2020 at 1:32 pm“Recently updated a 2015 27″ iMac to Mojave 10.14.6 and also updated all Pro Apps including FCPX10.4.8”
I believe this is the key. I just tested FCPX 10.4.6 on Catalina and the “red line” problem doesn’t seem to happen. This could indicate it’s a side-effect unique to your media format which possibly began with the Metal-optimized version of FCPX, 10.4.7.
To test this you’d need to run 10.4.6 and load your data. You could possibly export a library XML using the prior XML version which is 1.7, create a new library when running 10.4.6, then load that XML.
You don’t need to re-install FCPX to switch between versions, just double-click on the 10.4.6 .app file to launch it. Of course any libraries already upgraded to later versions won’t work, but importing the library XML will re-create all projects and should connect all media, although those clips may not appear in the Browser until you reference them.
You could possibly recover the 10.4.6 .app file using Time Machine. If you don’t have this, email me at joema4 at gmail dot com.
If you verify it doesn’t happen on 10.4.6, that might be an interim workaround while we further pursue the behavior on 10.4.8.
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Doug Metz
May 23, 2020 at 3:45 pmApologies for jumping in, but I’ve also downloaded the library to investigate as I haven’t seen this particular problem before.
I have had projects behave strangely in other cases where I’ve changed the project’s start TC to prep for bars & tone and output to tape, so thought I’d start there.
Indeed, there is an apparent link to your project’s timecode setting. When I changed the start TC from 23:59:54:12 to 00:00:00:00, everything functioned properly and all red bars disappeared. I was unable to make them return after this change. Changing it back to your original modified start caused all the red bar strangeness return.
*Added for clarity – I saw the red bars immediately upon opening the project. Running the latest Catalina and latest FCPX.
Doug Metz
Dalton Agency
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