Crash during transcode - not working

FCPX crashed when I was importing footage to the Event, and transcoding to ProRes. The job was 97% done.

I think the crash was caused by an internet dongle (I normally never use other programs when editing, but the import was taking so long)....

This was a big project, an important corporate job for me, with over 80gb of footage.

When the crash happened the spinning beach-ball appeared, but the whole computer became unresponsive (dock not working, top bar not working, keyboard commands not working). In the end I had to force shut down the computer.

When I restarted FCPX it seemed fine to begin with, and some of the clips in the Event browser were working correctly. However, when I put the mouse over some clips in the event browser I get the spinning beach-ball and FCPX locks up (though the computer is responsive in this scenario, only FCPX crashes). I guess some of the files that were not fully transcoded during the crash have become corrupted? If I try to manually delete these clips (by right clicking them) the beach-ball reappears, so it seems their presence has corrupted the entire event.

As I had not started editing yet I am willing to cut my losses here and delete the project and event and start from scratch. Is this the best way forward? Can I delete them directly from within FCPX (I am wondering will trying to delete the event cause FCPX to crash again)? Do I also have to manually delete the Event folder from within the Final Cut Event folder on the hard-drive?

Should I be 'trashing preferences' as well? I see that all the time here, but still don't know what that is, what it does, why you do it, or where it actually is?

Any help appreciated!

BTW: I am running 10.0.5 and OS Lion.

I just tried opening a recent Project from a different Event (on another hard-drive) and FCPX seems to be running fine with that; so its definitely a problem with this specific Event.

I'd do this. First, close FCP X, in the Finder, move all of that Event's render files to the Trash. Also maybe the render files for the Project, too. See if that helps.

If not, yes, you can manually move the Event's own folder to the trash in the Finder. FCP X looks for and reads event/project databases when it launches. It doesn't keep any data about them outside of those folders.

Hi Ben, thanks.

I eventually deleted the whole event and started from scratch.

This thing had really been bugging me, so I decided to systematically start importing big individual interview clips one by one - and sure enough the same thing happened when I imported a certain clip - FCPX went into melt down mode, and had to be force quit. Once I had it shut down I went and checked that interview clip in Quicktime, and though it played fine in the beginning, it stopped and froze during the end. So that clip is in some way corrupted.

This is where it gets strange though. I had copied all the clips to an external hard-drive, and FCPX was importing from there. However, I still had the original clips in a folder on my laptops hard-disk. When I played this with Quicktime it was fine!

So somehow the clip became corrupted when it was transferred to the external hard-drive? Is this even possible?

simonpwood wrote: ...
This is where it gets strange though. I had copied all the clips to an external hard-drive, and FCPX was importing from there. However, I still had the original clips in a folder on my laptops hard-disk. When I played this with Quicktime it was fine!

So somehow the clip became corrupted when it was transferred to the external hard-drive? Is this even possible?

It certainly is... I'd check the external drive for problems. Verify/Repair it with Disk Utility at least, preferably Disk Warrior if you have it.

Ah, OK will do. So there might be some issue with the actual disk? Curiouser & curiouser.

In the meantime, I had deleted that clip from the external disk, replaced it, and reimported that back into FCPX; the new clip played fine with no crash. Stroke of luck too, because if I had not checked that original clip I would have had to reshoot the whole interview (which would have been a disaster as the guy works for a very security conscious company that don't normally permit interviews).

The thing is that the clip had been transferred over with 80gb worth of other clips; I'm guessing if it happened to one then there might be other bombshells in the folder waiting to be found. Oh well. Looks like its going to be a long import session.

I'll check that disk tomorrow, got to get some sleep in the meantime...

Glad you got things sorted out, Simon. To answer your question about preferences - these FCPX files can become corrupted like any other OSX pref file, and when they do all sorts of issues can arise. To wipe them out and allow FCPX to generate new clean preference files at the next restart, get yourself the free "Preference Manager" program from Digital Rebellion. This app allows you to select the programs that you want to trash prefs for. Choose FCPX and Compressor (and Motion as well in most cases). Select "Trash" and then empty your trash. The program will do the correct preference files safely and quickly. You will have to reset those applications' preferences when you restart them, but that is simple and fast to do..

You'll also have options for trashing prefs from Soundtrack Pro, Color, DVD Studio Pro and some Adobe apps as well.

Once you get things working again, you can use "preference manager" to LOCK your preferences so no other application, installer, etc. can alter them. Likewise you can backup prefs files to go back to a later working version.

This is definitely a worthwhile program to have.

simonpwood wrote: ...So there might be some issue with the actual disk?.

If the original was fine, that would be my suspicion. After having a few problems with corrupted files or just plain dead drives, I always check my disks around once a month even if everything seems fine. Use Disk Warrior or Disk Utility on external drives and run fsck from single user mode on the system drive. So far so good...

Disk Warrior will verify if a drive is going bad or not. Disk Utility not so much (Disk Utility almost never fixes anything at all).

Also be sure you have at least 10-15% of the capacity of all drives as free space, otherwise you can get corrupted files and wacky behaviors.

Thanks guys!

I dont have Disk Warrior (yet - but its on the list); but disk utility could not find any errors.

The disk is a G-Drive 3TB, 7200, and it is practically empty. It is not bus powered though (unlike my other externals).

As I continued importing new clips to the new event I kept getting the same problem; checking them with Quicktime has proved that many are corrupted. The initial transfer of all the clips from my laptop to the external drive took about 25 minutes, and I left the room during that process. It could be that there was a power problem during the transfer that caused a problem (very bad electricity supply in Uganda - I have an inverter system but its not foolproof).

I have ordered a new bus powered external drive for this project, and will start from the beginning.

Luckily I had all the original files on my laptop; normally once I copy clips to an external and confirm the GB and file numbers are the same in both locations I then delete the originals to save space. Luckily I was lazy this time around.

Sometimes I really miss tapes; keeping backups of all this digital info is such a hassle; and it seems you even have to keep backups of the backups....

Disk Warrior rebuilds the directory of your drives, which means verifying the data on the drive. Disk Utility only verifies SMART data, permissions (super minor thing), and doesn't verify any data. So DU can actually claim a defective drive is fine. I haven't run DU in ages, just not worth the time. I do run DW once a month.