file error (wrong type) -lost sequence

Okay. Calm. Deep breath. I had saved my sequences and final cut of a project I have been working on for six months in a FCP movie file. I then proceeded to do everything wrong. I bought a G5 upgraded to FCP 5.0.4 and then tried to continue working on the project. I did it because Tiger was screwing up my FCP 3.0.4. I also stopped autosaving somewhere around a month ago, possibly longer. I now get an error when trying to open up the main file: (general error 27) When I try to open the FCP movie I get (file error: wrong type) All my clips were imported perfectly into FCP 5. I even had some old sequences that were imported through an autosave I had from a month ago. IF there is someway to get that FCP movie to open or fix it (it might be corrupted) that would be the ticket. Any help is appreciated. I'm in dire straights. I also tried reinstalling an older version of OSX and reinstalling FCP 3.0.4 in my old G4. It didn't work.

> stopped autosaving somewhere around a month ago, possibly longer. I now > get an error when trying to open up the main file: (general error 27) When I
> try to open the FCP movie I get (file error: wrong type)

A corruption is possible, but before you write off the file, try a couple of things:

a) Simplify the file name to "XYZ.mov"; sometimes an application can be fooled into thinking it's incompatible with a file just by virtue of what the file is called.
b) Open the file in QuickTime Player and re-save it to a QuickTime movie;
c) Open the file in another non-FCP application (eg. MPEG Streamclip) and see if you can access it.

Look at the size of the movie file. Does it accurately reflect the length of the media that's supposed to be in there -- say, 13GB for an hour's worth of media in DV codec? If the movie file is corrupted, it will often display an abnormally small file size, like 10MB.

Don't use non-timecoded movie files to edit if you can avoid it. Also, did you manually backup your project files? If you don't do that, and you don't have Autosave turned on, it's attempted suicide.

Also, where are you keeping your project file, and where are you keeping the media? Run DiskWarrior on the drive, and also repair permissions.

Thanks so much for the info. Alas, I think my G5 is smarter than I am. I tried everything you suggested and it didn't work. The file is 576mb. I think I am going to keep on the path I am on. I found a qt movie I saved and I am piecing it back
together. Luckily it is only a 3 minute project. I wish I could find out what "not a quicktime movie (-2048)" is...... Is there a place where I can look up quicktime error codes?

576MB is larger than usual corrupted files (which tend to be under 100MB), but smaller than most editable movie files. What settings were used to initially create this file? Is it in DV NTSC codec, or already been compressed with something like Sorenson or Motion JPEG A?

Rule of thumb: Any piece of media that's not batch-capturable (ie. on a tape with timecode, logged properly), and being used for editing purposes, must be backed up to guard against corruption. Even if you re-create the file verbatim using the same original media used to create the file, you will not be able to relink. Once you have the movie file back, burn it to a non-rewritable medium like a data DVD. And get into a routine of backing up your project files if you haven't already.