Hi there,

So I have been editing my show reel using FCP7, on my 2012 MacBook pro, for years now. The project file includes clips from many different video sources, which the edit is pointing to, you know, the way FCP does it. I never had any problems with it, even after Mac updated their OS to Yosemite and beyond.

A few days ago, I tried to open this project file, and in the process of opening up and reading all the video sources, FCP7 kept crashing. Every time. I tried opening FCP7 on it's own, without this or any project, and it opened fine. But just that file (and its several backups which were made over the years) keep crashing the software.

I called Apple, and they claimed that the problem is the OS I have on my Mac (Siera), which "is not supposed to be compatible with FCP7". But that doesn't make sense as like I said FCP7 still opens up ok on my Mac. It's just those files, that seems to be crashing in the process of connecting to all the video sources. It also doesn't make sense that all these files became corrupt at the same time... so something else is going on here.

Any ideas what could be causing this, and how to overcome this issue? I do need access to this project file, as without it I can't update my Reel! :-(

Thanks!!

if this didn't happen BEFORE you upgraded to Sierra, and is happening AFTER you've upgrade to Sierra, then Sierra may well be the problem.

if you suspect the media is causing problems, a good approach is to take the media off-line,
that is, remove the drive/s with the media, but keep the project file available to open.
open the project with NO media, see if you have any problems. hopefully you won't.

after that you can connect your drives, and start reconnecting the media.
while you reconnect, do regular saves, after each volume say.
that way when you hit a snag (a possible crash?) you won't have to start over.


hope that helps
nick

"if you suspect the media is causing problems, a good approach is to take the media off-line,
that is, remove the drive/s with the media, but keep the project file available to open.
open the project with NO media, see if you have any problems."

Thanks Nick!

I tried opening the project without the drive where the source media is, but right away i got a message to "reset the scratch disk". So it wanted me to connect the drive where the media is, or re-set the scratch disk to another drive, like my internal hard drive, in which case, all the media will be marked as missing. How would you proceed then?

Thanks,

AJ

just set a temporary scratch disk, and proceed.
hopefully your project will open without issues.
yes, the media will be off-line, but that;s the point
no, it won't forget the file paths.

when you plug your media drive back in, you then start reconnecting, and then you should be able to find the bad media.

most likely it is over-large graphics files.
do you have an you these?
CMYK graphics also cause trouble in FCP


cheers,
nick

to be clear, setting the scratch disk is just telling FCP where to put newly captured or created media (renders etc)
it has nothing to do with FCP's tracking of media.


nick