Issues using External Hard Drive with Final Cut Pro X

Can you try placing every folder except for "final cut events" into a new folder on the drive and name it anything other than private or untitled? Otherwise, using Onyx you can show hidden files or folders on that drive. There could be something hidden.

Also, what is the drive formatted as? Mac? exFAT?

Seems like there has been some threads here and there on issues with thunderbolt drives and FCPX after upgrading to Mavericks...hopefully will be fixed with a patch...I was considering getting a Pegasus R4 but am kind of gun shy now.

After I posted this question yesterday, the drive randomly appeared and I was able to archive the project I was working on. But today the original drive did the same thing (I see it while it's loading and it disappears once everything is fully loaded). I don't think there are any duplicate events on the drive. See attached. Thoughts on any next steps?

Here's some additional info, if it might help.

• Using Mountain Lion OSX 8.5
• WD My Passport USB 3.0 drive via Anker® USB 3.0 7-Port Hub
• Drive formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Try removing the hub from the chain.

Removing the hub doesn't help.

I have two drives that this problem is affecting. Before I removed the hub, I was able to get one drive (it would switch occasionally to the other one). But after removing the hub, I'm back to zero. Neither drive is showing up (even though I see them both when it's loading).

Plugging in the hub again doesn't bring back one drive or the other. Both are now disappearing. Man, I'm stumped as to what this could be. No duplicate events. Not a permissions issue. Drives appear to be functional (and diagnostically ok). Totally intermittent.

-FCP can't load projects and events with identical IDs. Did you create clones of the projects and events? If so it won't load them both.

By ID, do you just mean the project name and event name?

No. FCP assigns IDs to these things. When you duplicate an event or project in FCP you can keep the same name, but the application distinguishes them with separate IDs. If you duplicate these in the Finder they will have the same FCP ID and will not load them both.

Western Digital?

www.macrumors.com/2013/11/26/western-dig...mavericks-data-loss/

I have one WD MyPassport USB2 drive I use for Time Machine backups, and (fingers crossed) I haven't had any problems with it. However, I've refused to buy more on account of not being able to nuke the stupid SmartWare partition. Glad I didn't, now.

This may have nothing to do with your situation, but it's worth checking.

OK. I'm tracking with you. I think I did everything through FCP but I could be mistaken. Is there a way to change the IDs after the fact? Where and how would I get access to that info? Thanks for hanging with me and helping me get to the bottom of this!

End users have no access to the UUID numbers.

Have you ever used "Event Manager X"? It's been invaluable and is only $5. You can use it to easily hide or show events and projects. You can use it to troubleshoot your events/projects by hiding them all, then adding them back one by one restarting FCPX each time to see which one may be the culprit.

In the past when I have had something like this happen is when I get a drive formatted for windows from a client. I have to copy the events/projects to a mac formatted drive. (This is the only time where using the finder for fcpx projects is advised) Windows exfat is supposed to work, I just don't trust it with FCP X.

Can you try copying an event or project over to another drive that is working using the finder as a test? If that works consistently then you know it's the drive. Yeah science! (Sorry, still suffering Breaking Bad withdrawal.)

Thanks Darren! I purchased Event Manager X. I hide every event and project. One drive is still missing. Does that mean FCPX just doesn't like my drive? Would doing a reinstall of FCPX resent the IDs? Or do I just need to move my events and projects from the "missing drive," reformat it and try again? And I'm guessing I need to move everything within FPCX, is that right?

If I do need to do it through FCP, how will I be able to if my drives don't show up?

So further troubleshooting. You say drives plural. Are you saying that none of your external drives show up? If you have one that does work, you can use the finder to drag your final cut projects and final cut events folders to that drive as a test. Make sure you don't have the other drives hooked up.

This would be pretty much the only time you would use the finder to do something FCP X related.

The main question though is what are the drives formatted as? Most drives are formatted for windows out of the box. If that's the case you need to reformat them with a GUID partition, and Mac OS. (Make sure you copy everything off them first obv) If it is formatted for Windows, it's entirely possible there is a hidden file that causes FCPX to think it's a camera or something it just doesn't like.

All the drives are definitely Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I'm in the process of transferring data to different drives to start taking each project and event one by one to see which one to narrow it down that way. Starting with a newly formatted drive. It took most of the day so while I was waiting and there definitely was an identical ID (because of copying to the new drive). And it sent an error message saying exactly that (see below).



That makes me think the identical ID isn't the problem. Especially when its visible and then suddenly not visible with no error message. This is what I see when it's loading (sometimes).



UPDATE: I moved info from my WORKING drive to my ARCHIVE drive through the Finder. I formatted my original WORKING drive and magically everything worked when I opened FCP. I closed it down and opened FPC a second time and suddenly my ARCHIVE drive (where I moved the data from my WORKING drive) disappeared again. I used Event Manager X to hide everything on the drive and it still did not reappear.

My next step is to delete the project and event data from the ARCHIVE drive and see if the issue is some hidden file, identical ID or permissions issue buried within the drive. At this point, instead of randomly switching which drive I see, it's become predictable that it's the drive that carries the data of my original WORKING drive.

Digital rebellion has an app called project repair. You can try that on your events and projects.

I'm having the same problem here as well with FCP 10.0.9.
I know 10.1 is out and all but our production environment is still running 10.8 off course.

I noticed that when logging in with a different user FCP X does see the external drive.
Is this also the case with you?

Or did 10.1 solve this for you?