file-name corruption on export???

Hi there Gang!

All's been peachy here at TED, we are in the midst of our transition to Raid storage, and eventually to SAN...

This is a small, but troublesome, little phenomenon. When I export an uncompressed QT movie from FCP, sometimes, and it seems utterly arbitrary WHEN, the end of my file name dissappears and then there is a # sign and some random seeming letters after it.

It has been inconsistent, sometimes it happens from a long filename, others a short one, and sometimes not at all. I do both individual AND batch exports...

We work FAST here, and my colleague Michael does very extensive compression from these exported files, for many different platforms (ipod, phones, web, radio, etc), so it's vital that we do not lose the thread between his files and mine, for future re-dos and archiving.

Thanks for any wisdom, or anecdotes, in advance,

Marla-in-New-York

I am currently working with:

FCP v5.1.2
QT v7.1.5

And Working On:
Machine Name: Mac Pro
Machine Model: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP11.005C.B04
SMC Version: 1.7f8

M A R L A


Current System:

FCP 7.0.3 on an MBP 17" from early 2011, running OS 10.8.3

Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB
Software OS X 10.8.3 (12D78)

Can you post one of the sample damaged file names and what you intended it to be?

Koz

> This is a small, but troublesome, little phenomenon. When I export an uncompressed QT movie
> from FCP, sometimes, and it seems utterly arbitrary WHEN, the end of my file name
> dissappears and then there is a # sign and some random seeming letters after it.

I get those too, and I can't nail down a cause either. From what I can tell, it happens when your filename is very long. Also, the "code" with the # sign seems to be what the file is called when it's being made but not yet completed. And sometimes OS somehow fails to update the temporary filename to the one you'd designated.

If it really bugs you, I'd suggest shortening your file prefices. However, I also like putting a certain amount of information into my movie-file names, so my filenames tend to be at least 20 characters as well. Just make sure you check the name before you send it to your partner.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks, Koz and Derek(mok), for your thoughts.

Here is a sample of the actual file name:
30i 16x9 2004 James Howard Kunstler 070418 FC v09

And the corrupted one, after export from FCP:
30i 16x9 2004 James Howar#E9497

On second peruse, on another file, the # sign probs also occurs on the 26th space of the name - I had thought we had 32 characters, but perhaps it's a 26 character bug in the export function of FCP?

Marla

Mac Classic (OS-9) pooped out at 31 characters. Joliet Volume/ISO9660 starts having troubles at 64 characters.

As long as you stay safely bundled up inside the OSX home, you should be able to go with the advertised 255 characters in the name. The first time you do off to CD, Joliet bites you.

It's still possible to run into the Windows 2G file limit from five operating systems ago if you play your cards right.

Koz

Well, this machine wasn't even born pre-OSX, so how does one explain this? Perhaps it isn't the number of characters, some longer names export fine, and some simply do not.

Naturally now I am renaming before passing them on but there are times when i am not around to do that...


What the heck is Joliet? I thought that was a prison!

M A R L A


Current System:

FCP 7.0.3 on an MBP 17" from early 2011, running OS 10.8.3

Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB
Software OS X 10.8.3 (12D78)

It was years before I figured out that "Up The River" and "Sing Sing" were really "Ossining, New York."

Joliet and the cousins were down-home names for the file standards when they were designing recordable CDs, etc. Who could possibly need more than 64 characters? It's not like we're writing Webster's New Collegiate here.

Do you ever use two spaces next to each other? I know you don't use illegal characters, but do you use naughty ones? Anything other than dashes and underlines could cause problems. Lots of characters mean things to UNIX. Two periods next to each other can cause all sorts of problems.

Koz

No periods, except before the extension, no double spaces, we are pretty god bout that stuff. We have since abbreviated our naming conventions further and designed them to be more sort-able, but even before we were pretty careful...

Thanks for the lore,

Marla

<<<Thanks for the lore, >>>

But no example of the failure?

Koz

Hey Marla - I just tested that filename with an export out of FCP and it worked fine here.



I'm on 5.1.2, 8 core, 10.4.9.

> Hey Marla - I just tested that filename with an export out of FCP and it worked fine here.

Hey Jude (don't make it bad), thanks for the test, but one of the bitchy things about this bug is that it doesn't happen all the time. Same filename on two consecutive exports out of the same timeline with the same set of render files (video and audio) will have this bug one time, and not the other.

That's why I can't nail down the cause. When I do movie-file exports, I actually get a little stricter -- underscores, lower case, fullstop and numbers only, no dashes, no spaces. I seriously doubt it's an illegal-characters issue.


www.derekmok.com

Weird. I'll keep an eye out for it. But then, I'm an Aussie. Most of us couldn't be bothered with more than a few syllables, let alone a mouthful like those file names. So maybe I'm not likely to see it much.

Jude - you are cracking me up!

But it is bloody perplexing. The good news is that the files themselves seem fine, it's just a naming problem as far as we can tell...

-Marla

PS-Koz - the examples are in the 4th message from the top of this thread.

<<<the examples are in the 4th message from the top of this thread.>>>

We have almost overlapping messages.

<<<I had thought we had 32 characters>>>

You do. The total new filename is 31. I'm betting it left room for one more "mystery" character.

When you installed your machine, did you "leave room" for OS-9 applications and services? I didn't on all my machines because I'm a Mac Nooby, but I know it always asks. "Do you ever want to go back?"

Koz

<<<I'm betting it left room for one more "mystery" character. >>>

I appear to have gotten that wrong. 31 is the real number. So whatever happened converted the name to OS9 standard. The mystery numbers are a way of converting so that file names will never overlap. For example, if it rolled all your names over and they all had the first 31 characters in common, they would clash. So this is the equivalent of file1, file2, etc.

Koz

I get similar problems rendering from PC to a MAC server.
And vice versa.


Do you get this on short file names as well?

Koz's explanation seems logical.

Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com

<<<Do you get this on short file names as well? >>>

I've never gotten this problem. I'm extrapolating from the resulting filenames. That's why I asked the original poster to give us the desired name and the name that the Mac picked. Certain results stand out, like 31 characters. So the error isn't an error as much as a misunderstanding and the occurance may be random, but the results are not.

I didn't get any response to the question of whether or not the OS install of the people who get this error included the OS9 extensions. That's an option while you're building your machine. I'm betting OSX by itself has no idea what 31 characters means, but OS9 sure knows.

Koz

Koz, the reason you:

"...didn't get any response to the question of whether or not the OS install of the people who get this error included the OS9 extensions. That's an option while you're building your machine. I'm betting OSX by itself has no idea what 31 characters means, but OS9 sure knows..."

Is because I still don't know - trying to find that out... Will write back, hopefully soon. Can I tell just by looking in some extensions folder somewhere?

The fellow who did the install will probably get back to me today, but maybe all this time the answer was right under my nose as, with so many of life's questions, it tends to be...

M A R L A


Current System:

FCP 7.0.3 on an MBP 17" from early 2011, running OS 10.8.3

Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB
Software OS X 10.8.3 (12D78)