Export stops at 75%

My first time here - so hello Everyone.

I have a huge problem exporting from fcpx - it stops at 75% and just sits there for hours. I 'm not trying to share to vimeo, youtube, etc. only trying to export a master file (Prores422HQ). This is a big project - 2hours and 25 minutes.. - already overdue as I had huge problems in premiere pro cs6 - that's why I switched to fcpx which I have found 10 times better - so far..

Now if I could only export a master file.

This is only my second project in fcpx so I'm not very experienced.

I did delete the prefs, ALL render files. No help.

Then I tried to send it to compressor but compressor hangs (not responding) about 10 seconds after opening the fcpx project - again for hours. WTF.

What i did next was split the project in half in fcpx and the first half exported (from fcpx) with no problems. The second half export from fcpx STOPS at 56% - which would probably be the moment/clip/effect at the 75% of the total unsplit project. I'm trying to find the culprit clip right now at around that area of the project but I'm losing hope.

Would anyone have any suggestions?

I'm on a mac pro, 12 core, 48gb RAM, osx 10.8.2, fcpx 10.7

Please help

What drive are you exporting to? How big and how much space on it? How much free space on the system drive?

hd 7200 rpm with 700 gb free - no success.
ssd with 300 gb free (the estimated export file of the half-project was to be around 150 gb) - no success.

system drive - ssd - 100 gb free.

1st, Go to the Project Library, highlight this Project, go to the File menu and delete its Render files. Do the same for each Event this Project accesses. Yes, Events can have Render files.

If you're going to the web, export a Master File as H.264.

I mentioned I did delete ALL render files - and for both events and projects.

And yes, I did try to also export h.264 - same thing.

Anyway, I have to deliver it on a dvd and bluray - through adobe encore - so I think my only option is prores, right?

Is the project rendered or are you exporting without rendering? I have run into something like this when troubleshooting for a friend. The issue was that he had added a dissolve transition to a preset title clip. FCP X would not render (nor export) the dissolve. It would stop at that point every time. When the transition was removed (it was not needed anyway, the preset title had a built-in transition) all was well. You might try looking for something like that. I have also seen where a guy stacked up 7-8 title clips and added a cross-dissolve to the head of every clip. That wouldn't render either. I removed all dissolves, compounded the title clips and added one dissolve to the compound clip and all was well. The funny thing was, I could not replicate the problem on my own machine which is essentially the same hardware.

I agree with anickt that there could be a defective transition, effect or title causing the hangup. If you've gone thru the project and don't seem to locate something peculiar, I would try to duplicate the project. Once duplicated, try to create a master file using Prores 422 (not the HQ variety). If that works, then try again using HQ.

Maybe export as XML, then import that XML as a whole new project.

Hey Everyone,

Sorry for not replying sooner but it was a really hectic week for me.

Anyway, I have been able to export the project in prores - as anickt and dgwvideo suggested and I suspected, one of the clips was corrupt. It was an 8 second clip with stabilization, color, time remap, time reverse and optical flow and it was placed above the main timeline. The problematic spot was exactly where its opacity went from 100% to 0%. So I just recreated the clip with exactly the same effects and everything worked fine. Also, I had in total about 15 of such clips throughout the project with these same effects but they were working fine.

And how I found this one faulty clip? I had the project placed in 4 compound clips and to answer anickt I did not render the project before the export. But after the problems with export, when I rendered the whole project and came back to the computer a strange thing happened: the render percentage gauge (in the center of the screen) was showing 100% done but the orangish glowing stripe above the timeline (indicating the need to render) was gone for about 75% of the project length but still there for the rest of it. So when I zoomed closed enough, the border between these two was exactly at the 2-second opacity change. So yeah, at least good it was pretty easy to find the problematic clip.

But coming back to anickt's question whether I rendered the project - I always thought the rendering is just for the previews and it has no bearing on the final output which may be a copletely different codec than the previews - am I wrong in thinking so?

I agree that rendering, besides showing the effects in the fullest available quality that the timeline codec allows, would be a good way of spotting such problematic clips but that should be all, as at the export the whole project has to be rendered according to the final output codec, which is probably most often different than the timeline render codec. Am I wrong in my reasoning?

And thank you again all for your constructive suggestions.

Derek

I have experienced this with a couple of projects. 17 minute timeline stalls at 44% for hours. This was nearly always a corrupt clip, more usually a compound clip or Motion graphic. I cleared renders and preferences. No joy. How to find the corrupt clip though? The % is a pretty good indication as to the equivalent timecode of the corrupt clip. Just replace the usual suspects. Or you can do targeted selected range shares to pin down the issue. Selective rendering the timeline doesn't necessarily highlight the offending clip.

However if you Share to MPEG2 you can playback and analyze the resulting (failed) encode. My 17 minute timeline resulted in a 47 minute long MPEG2 file with a freeze frame from 7 minutes to 47 minutes - showing the offending clip was 44% of the original duration into the timeline. The reason the progress stalls at 44% (or whatever) is because it is still encoding but doesn't get closer to the end because it is extending the final encode duration into infinity - it'll never go beyond 44%.

So when yours apparently stalls, stop the Share. Check the clips around the duration indicated by the %. Try a test Share for a range around the suspect clips (preferably in MPEG2) but don't let the encode go on once it stalls, and that should render out the offending clip, shown in playback as a freeze frame.

PS Tried DR's Corrupt File App and that didn't find my corrupt files.

I was having export issues just yesterday. Initially, it crashed twice . Then, it starting giving me dialog prompts saying "there was a problem with frame 768" or similar. I replaced what I estimated to be the offending clip. Tired again, got further along and then "there was a problem with frame 1268". One more replace clip and then all exported normally.

Had never seen the dialog box before but it was super helpful in that it enabled me to identify the problem clip.

bluepoint wrote: But coming back to anickt's question whether I rendered the project - I always thought the rendering is just for the previews and it has no bearing on the final output which may be a copletely different codec than the previews - am I wrong in thinking so?

I agree that rendering, besides showing the effects in the fullest available quality that the timeline codec allows, would be a good way of spotting such problematic clips but that should be all, as at the export the whole project has to be rendered according to the final output codec, which is probably most often different than the timeline render codec. Am I wrong in my reasoning?

If you come from Premiere, this is a noticeable difference in FCP7/X. In fact, this is one of the things I don't like about Premiere: it doesn't really have a 'native' mastering codec like FCP and Avid. Premiere wants to prioritize playback performance, and its rendering really is more for previews. In practice, I've found that FCPX is just as good at real-time performance.

When it comes time to output a master, Premiere can take a really long time as a result. In FCP and Avid, you can render along the way in whatever codec you set the timeline. Most often, that IS the final output codec. If everything is already rendered, it pretty much just writes your project to disk.

I've had one or two issues with exporting when auditions have been involved - specifically if I hadn't 'fixed' the audition on one clip and it was still in the project as an audition it would hang at that point. Took me a while to figure but all good when I did.