A few corrupted files on project

Okay, so I originally created a project in my old version of FCP (I think it was version 5). Anyway, I am now working in version 7 and I've opened the project. I had to re-render a bunch of stuff because from the time that I created it until now, I had moved it to another drive -- media files and everything.

I was having a hard time getting it to render. Kept dumping me out of FCP.

Anyway, I isolated the problem to one section of the timeline by just rendering several selections at a time. My problem now is that it won't let me see which are the offending files. Whenever I try to look at them, it crashes.

I've tried copying the whole sequence to a new sequence. Same issue. I tried an XML export. Same issue.

I'm out of ideas.

Did you backup your project file? It hasn't happened yet, but a problem of this kind can lead to a corrupted project file. Back it up and date-/time-stamp it before anything more goes wrong.

After that, first thing I'd try is to disconnect the media without erasing it. Within FCP, press SHIFT-D and choose "Leave Files on Disk". Now reconnect the media. That "flushes" the project-media relationship and can eliminate some problems.

Other than that, there is no easy way to do it other than just to check one file at a time. You say the crashes occur when you render, so just select one file at a time and render it (APPLE-R). If the file renders, save the project file and render the next one until you find the culprit. Remember that FCP see all the parameters of a file (for example, a still image's RGB/CMYK mode), so you may have to go out of FCP to check the source files themselves. If you find the offending file, sometimes a simple open/resave in another application (eg. Adobe Photoshop, QuickTime Player) fixes the problem.


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