" " is missing " while trying to reconnect media. File is named something different.

I lost about 40% of my clips to offline mode today.
All worked fine a few hours ago and then about half of the clips in my browser went offline. They are all the same type of files (from Canon 7D) and they are all in the same exact folder on my hard drive.

I tried reconnecting from the timeline and browser but no matter if I try to reconnect 1 or 20 clips all I get is: " is missing.
The clips are still in the folders, but named 100208.mov etc and I renamed them in the FCP browser so going after then manually in Finder and renaming them there isn't an option since there are over 1,000 files and I just went through all of them.

Help please / Pierre Wikberg

It almost sounds like a random file corruption.
I had this happen once, it is very hard to track down.
I feel your pain

> The clips are still in the folders, but named 100208.mov etc and I renamed them in the
> FCP browser

Unfortunately, you're paying the price for a bad work habit that we warn against: Never rename clips in FCP without also renaming their source media clips to match. Because now you have no way of knowing which clip is which.

Did you already start editing? And did you convert the clips to an editing codec like ProRes before editing? Because if you didn't, and you had used the H.264 clips straight from the Canon 7D, then you have an added problem: H.264 clips have no timecode and even if you manage to match each clip to its media file, they may not reconnect properly.

There are only three options left I can see.

1. Open up an archived copy of the project file and hope that it was a project-file corruption that had caused the problem, not media corruption.

2. Usually files go offline because the clips have been moved, or the file path (eg. any folder or drive in the file system) got changed/renamed. Restore the original file path -- every folder must have the right name -- then open up the last archived copy of the project file and see if they come back automatically.

3. Reconnect the clips one by one. It's the only way to preserve your editing decisions at this point.


www.derekmok.com

I've come to understand that renaming clips in the browser doesn't fly with FCP (first time I've ever done it). But there are still clips in the same browser that are online.. very random.
I tried looking in the auto save vault for older copies of the project, with no luck.

I move files all the time and reconnect them, but when I do that there's always a clip name that comes up and you either locate or search for it. Now there is just: " is missing, with no other file names.. just blank.
So that's the issue. Can't reconnect then in groups nor individually.

I googled this and there are a handful of others with the same problem, none have a solution to it. Very lame.

> Now there is just: " is missing, with no other file names.. just blank.

One common cause of that is illegal characters (such as "/" or ":" ) in file names or folder names. That doesn't really help fix the issue, though, once the problem manifests. The only good fix is prophylactic -- good file management. I've had this issue two or three times without the illegal-character mistake being part of the equation, but I always had matching names so I could force a reconnect.


www.derekmok.com

If you do have to rename in the browser, make sure you right click each renamed clip and choose 'change file to match clip'. This will rename the file at the browser level to match the change you made in FCP. If you do this before quitting and restarting FCP you won't get this problem. I think this came in in FCP6

Corrupt Clip Finder can be used to see if any of your media files are corrupt:
[www.digitalrebellion.com]

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...

if clips go offline while you are in the middle of working, (like if somebody rips out your drive by mistake)
then you get the " is missing thing in the browser source column, and when you try to reconnect,
and reconnecting is impossible.

if you quit FCP and re-start, the connections come back, and even if they dont, and you have to re-connect, you get the actual file-path back.

that's been my experience, anyway.



nick