FCP failure to launch

I have a Mac book Pro. I have 2.5g of ram in it. Three days ago I installed FCP5.1 on the computer. It ran perfectly. Today I downloaded FCP projects also in 5.1 into my computer that were sent to me via email. Since then FCP will not launch. I have taken the media offline, and still it will not launch. I was lucky enough once to get to the reset scratch disk window. I reset the scratch disk and FCP quit again. Since then I have tried to launch from only the internal hard drive. It refused to launch. I have two drives hooked up to the computer via firewire, A Lacie 500g drive and a G-raid TB tower. I have tried to launch with both of these drives taken offline to no avail. I downloaded the projects from my email account via a firelite hardrive. Using USB I hooked the firelite up to a PC (which was already connected to the internet) and then downloaded the projects onto the firelite drive. I then connected the firelite drive to the Mac book pro and the drive was acknowledged. I then tried to launch FCP, and that's where my trouble began. I am from LA, but I'm in Italy right now, Bellagio to be exact, on a working vacation, but I'm not going to get much work done if I can't get FCP to launch. Help!!!!

can you not launch FCP at all, or just not launch it by opening the project file?

It won't launch at all. Everytime I try to launch it begins but then quits in the middle.

It won't launch at all. Everytime I try to launch it begins but then quits in the middle.

So even with everything disconnected you can't get FCP to open? The USB thing could be part of the problem..

I reckon it's trying to open the busted file as the last open project and this is jamming it up.

Jude has an interesting point...that's why I advocate never turning on the "Open last project on launch" User Preference. It prevents you from taking certain files out of your equation while troubleshooting. Not to mention a waste of time if you work on multiple projects at the same time.

I take it if FCP won't launch, you can't get into User Preferences either?


www.derekmok.com

Move the problem project off your system before you open FCP. That will eliminate or confirm the project as being part of the problem.

Edit
Backup all the projects on the system and move them off or put them on an external and take it offline. Try all the suggestions above if and once you get it up and running.
Are any of your projects bigger than 100MB? If you have a huge project and not enough RAM to deal with it, the big file size can lead to corruption and difficulty loading sequences and a whole host of other issues.

Guys the problem is not the projects. Somehow the application itself got corrupted. What I think I need to do is completely take the application off the computer and then re-install. Only I don't know how to tkat the application completely off the computer. Even if I trash the app there is still some remnants of it in the bcomputer, and this is waht I think is causing it to quit even when I re-install. Can anyone guide me through removing all the FCP application from the drives?

have you trashed preferences and repaired disk permissions?

The way you have told us this it would seem that the projects had something to do with it, even if it is just pooched now regardless of what project you open.
Did the downloaded projects get opened successfully even once? I know you don't think it's the projects but I would still hide them and any projects, and that windows firelite drive. Try to eliminate any corruption that may have been introduced by the emailing and downloading of the projects. Try it once, just for us... please.

EDIT: If you want to play detective a bit, try creating a new user account on your system. Login as that user and see how far you can get in FCP.


Heres an apple doc on uninstalling FC Express but it should be similar.
Uninstall FCE
Note also the warning at the bottom of this document about uninstalling DVDSP
Was it a fresh install of Tiger as well? You might be better off, if you have the time and a drive to offload everything, to reinstall Tiger and then FCP. Especially since you have a somewhat non-linear failure.
If you go down this road I would try and get the projects sent to you again, to keep things clean, and if they weren't the first time, make sure they are zipped or stuffed to reduce the chance of corruption.

Andrew,
Your "EDIT" ROCKS. I forgot about the oft mentioned fix for certain ills: Make a New User.
I just made a new user and now FCP will launch. Oh happy day! Thank you, thank you, a million thanks.

I will just need to wrestle my Snapz license to the ground and all will go much smoother here.

Kevin Monahan
Social Support Lead, DV Products
Adobe
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro Community Blog
Follow Me on Twitter!

Um I hate to ask as im guessing this has been done but i see no point at the post when you've said you have trashed all the FCP preference and cache files.

The reason creating a new user has fixed the problem - is because it is creating new preference files for FCP and the new user.

-edit

Often if you find the application icon 'bounces' a few times in the dock and then disappears, its due to a problem with disk permissions - 99% of the time a quick fix of disk-permissions will solve the problem - in your case it sounds exactly like a pref/cache problem which is causing FCP to crash as it loads them.

I hadn't done that yet because I was unaware of where to look for the remnants of the program after I trashed it. I will now look in those files and trash all the FCP files.

I am trashing the preference and CAche files now. If this doesn't work then I will remove all the projects as well.

Already repaired disk permissions, trashing preferences now...

It worked!!!I got rid of all the preferences and and cache files and then re-installed it. It works perfectly. Thanks guys. I owe you big.

Brilliant, glad to hear its fixed. Its a good one to remember in future if you have problems with FCP my first stop is almost always to the preferences folder!

Craig - why did you show up as Kevin Monohan for one of the posts? Are you actually with him, or on his computer, or is this a Forum bug we need to look at?

If I showed up as Kevin Monahan on one of the posts then this is a bug. I am not with Kevin. Unless he is on the shores of Lake Como in Northern Italy....Kidding guys. It must be a bug.

Kevin, did you post this earlier up the thread?

"I just made a new user and now FCP will launch. Oh happy day! Thank you, thank you, a million thanks."

It just didn't sound like you, and you've not been in this thread at all otherwise. I'm trying to find out if this is a bug or if it was a weird cross post or something.

If it wasn't Kevin than it was a anomaly as I've been monitoring this forum pretty close and have not seen this issue. Wouldn't say it was a bug, just cosmic.

Michael Horton
-------------------