[Anita Meinken]

Not sure if this is any help, but here goes by each issue.

MP3s and Final Cut
In my history of being a Final Cut User, in FCP 3 and FCP 7, it has never liked mp3. I always have to use iTunes to convert to .wav for it to play nicely with FCP.

If you downloaded a locked/copy protected mp3 that won’t let you convert it, here’s what I do. It involves wasting a CD-R. Open iTunes. Make playlist, put the mp3 in, use the “Burn Disc” Audio CD feature in the bottom right corner of iTunes (as opposed to the desktop data cd burn feature). Leave CD in after complete- the song should now be .aiff format on the CD. Set the import settings to .wav in the iTunes Preferences -> General Tab, and import the song back in. You now have a .wav copy of your song to bring into FCP. At least for me, using this feature makes it forget it’s locked. I suppose one could argue this is a pirate method, but I use it to make songs play nice in FCP.

In my previous post, to get rid of the “File Not Found”, I have to go through and replace all the transitions that remain “red” after you hit Render several times, sometimes replacing with different transitions, directly from the effects tab one at a time. I like to know the whole picture or WHY it does this error, but I can’t figure it out. I’m not that computer savvy. Tedious replacing of each seems to get rid of the Render error.

Media Files Offline:
(You need to make sure the external is connected again and visible on desktop before doing this)
Not to sound condescending, and I’m sure you know this, but you did try the “Reconnect Media” Feature in FCP? I find it works best if you highlight all your files in the Browser Window of FCP then File-> Reconnect Media, (make sure your external is mounted on desktop), and hit Locate, follow the little list with names of offline files and go to folder where you have your files, and it should become visible (as opposed to that “light-gray-can’t-open-me” color) and click the file once you find it. If other files are in same folder it seems to reconnect them as well on its own, but sometimes you may be forced to search for each file one at a time. Once all reconnected in the Browser, the Sequence seems reconnect on its own. (I say this because in my Moody FCP 3.5, I would have to select the files in the Sequence after I already reconnected the files in the Browser and “reconnect” all those as well- as if they don’t talk to each other..likely an ancient Fossil-FCP3 quirk)

Moody external hard drives:
I have all Maxtors and Seagates, and Western Digital MyBooks, and they all have minds and personalities of their own. This method I use below happens most often with my 1.5 TB MyBook external hard drive.

I have no real easy cures for this. This experience may be slightly different than yours, and for me, it’s just a vicious “restart everything” procedure in a certain order. (sometimes several times)

My FCP did this a lot in my last project only yesterday oddly enough, without even bumping it, my external would act like it was pulled out about 3 times. It would freeze, I had to force quit FCP. One time it even FORGOT my last save, and I lost several edits reverting to the previous Saved Project. That’s when I walk away from the Mac before I become abusive to him.

What I do when my external hard drive “disappears” while working in a project, and it doesn’t want to come back to my Desktop, and all files go Offline:

I just quit everything, which may involve Force Quitting FCP, dismounting hard drives, even unplugging external hard drives to get them to stop spinning.
If the “Save option” comes up when quitting Final Cut- you have a couple options, if you Saved everything recently before the disapearng act, you can say NO to Save when you close it. Then when you open everything again, it should remember your last Save before the “offline” status. But if you don’t remember when you last saved and can’t bear to lose edits you’ve done since, just “Save” with the offline status, and when you get the project open again after the restart (all files will be “offline”), then refer back to the “Reconnect Media” paragraph above.

Allow everything to stop spinning- I’ve even had to yank power out of the external hard drive to get it to stop thinking after I dismounted the little guy. Give it a moment. Make sure FCP is closed, restart the Mac. Wait for the happy desktop environment to be at peace, plug in the external hard drive, plug it into the Mac, and wait for it to appear on desktop before you open FCP. If it looks like it’s just not mounting, yank it out, turn it off, possibly yank it out of the wall socket again (I cringe when I have to do this), wait for it to stop spinning, and again, plug back in, plug in Mac (MyBook turns on when plugged in, I find a lot of newer externals don’t require you to use the power button much.), and again wait for the external hard drive to mount before opening FCP.

Then when the guy opens, and you open FCP, it may still give you the “Cannot locate Scratch Disc” Error, Choose Reset, and even though your file path may be the right one, just select it again and say Continue. My only theory on why this error comes up is because it saved your project with all the “offline files” so it still thinks it’s missing.

Again, in terms of moody externals, it’s more of a quest to figure out their quirks, ad trying to avoid the desire to throw them out the window.

This whole process will make you cringe- because I’ve had to do more “unsafe device removals” with my externals that I care to admit. You say it likes to randomly work again on other days, so this seems to go along with unplugging everything all the way to power to reset itself idea.

Command-S is your best friend…save as often as possible in FCP while editing, so you hate life less when everything freezes.

Hope this helped a little. I’m a rambler. 🙂

[Anita Meinken]

I’m a bit late for this conversation. Not sure this will help anyone, but here is what I was doing in my project when this error would pester me most frequently. It’s the only consistent thing I found I’m doing that generates this error message:
It’s a 1hr 15 min wedding. I hit Render All, and it did some renders, and left some. I did try deleting all render files and did new render, and again, it only did some and left some.
I went to every individual RED/needs render area that the sequence still had, and it appears to have the biggest problem with certain “edited” transitions.
Example, in guests interviews, I’ll use Wipe transitions, change the border size, color, duration and place it between clips of different people. For the next clip, I’ll double click my last made transition right out of the Sequence (transition which I made changes to), it will appear in Viewer, I’ll drag it down from the Viewer to the next area between to new people clips (rather than straight from the Effects Tab), I’ll double click the newly placed transition, and change the direction- I do this to save the time of taking from Effect Tab, changing border thickness and color, and transition duration every single time I put the transition in.
I would also place my “edited transition” in the Project Browser to save time, and drag it to sequence from there, but again, if I edited the transition a second time, I’d get the same error when I tried to render.
It reminds me of the days of “copy of a copy of a VHS is never as good as the original” concept.

I went through, deleted ALL my “repeated” transitions, and replaced them with a “Fresh” transition from the Effect Tab (sometimes replacing it with a simple CrossFade-since it became too time consuming). Once all were replaced, it Rendered All just fine, and obnoxious “Not Found!” error went away.

It seems the Sequence only like some of the unique transitions to be taken directly from the Effects Tab and edited from there for every individual transition added. I say “unique” because it never has a problem with the simple CrossFade and DipToColor transitions I use countless times.

I know it’s not much of a quick fix, but perhaps it’s a place to start when anyone encounters this error again.