I have had FCP 7 up and working for several months (upgraded from 6.5) and not run into this before. In the middle of a project, it crashed. No problem, right? Just restart. The project came up but the moment I did anything, it crashed again. Then again, Then again. I get a "Final Cut Pro quit unexpectedly ..." notice. I trashed the FCP plist. Same thing. I shut down the computer and restarted; same thing. I am not sure what to do next. There is plenty of space on the main drive and all external drives (from 120 GB to 600GB). Right now I am running Disk Warrior on all the drives but I don't think that will solve the problem. Any ideas?

MacPro
Intel processor
4 GB RAMM
FCP 7
10.6.8

Chances are it's corrupt media or render files. Move the project to the system drive and then disconnect all external drives. Open the project file on its own with all media disconnected. Then reconnect the media in small groups.


www.derekmok.com

Derek:
Let me see if I understand you properly, because if I disconnect all external drives and try to start the project from my main drive, FCP doesn't seem to want me to designate the startup drive as my scratch disk. So, I moved the project to my main drive. Now, I think I disengage all external drives, then shut the computer down. Then restart so all drives come up. Then open the project on my main drive and reconnect everything. Is that the procedure you indicated?

Derek:
Also, all but one drive is internal. How do I reconnect the drives, and therefore the render files, without opening up the computer, pulling them out and pushingthem back in?
Stan

What you need to do is to open the project while it can't actually access any of the files it refers to. If that means disconnecting from the network, or unplugging externals, or even physically moving files off a drive where the project file is looking for them so it can't find them, then do that.

I would personally just trash all the render files, you can always re-render, so there's no point in hunting for corrupt files in that lot.

Also, grab a copy of Digital Rebellion's Pro Maintenence Tools. There's a free trial that might get you out of your current problem, but it's well worth investing in.

[Also, all but one drive is internal.]

You can Unmount and Mount any internal drive using Disk utility. Just select the volume name and click Unmount. Leave it unmounted while you attempt to load the project. Then re-mount when needed for Reconnect. This is one way to determine if you have corrupt media on a specific scratch disk, internal or external.

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Invoke the big TimeCode Viewer with Control -T !

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide? Power Pack
with FCP7 KeyGuide --
now available at KeyGuide Central.
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