Having clips become unrendered when you try to export is not normal. You are right that if you have unrendered clips when you export, FCP will render them. However, after the export, the clips in the seq will still be unrendered (that’s normal). Rendering the clips first, before export, is the correct workflow.
BTW, did you repair permissions after trashing your prefs? Also, if you have Disk Warrior, I’d run it. The directory could be corrupt so clips suddenly become unlinked or missing. DW could fix that. So might repairing permissions. If you run DW, repair permissions after DW finishes.
John
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FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.1, Motion 4.0.1, Comp 3.5.1, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.1)
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