The project file from hell

Had a client for months back, who started up a multicam project with 6 angles and 2 hours duration but couldn’t get it running properly

They did not know FCPX, just went happy go lucky, the event and project was one big mess of synced clips, synced again with other clips, and multicamclips as angles in new multicam clips, total mess, the project file was more than 200mb without any edits

I cleaned up the project, adjusted settings and made their multicamclip running nice and smooth like its suppose to, and all was fine

Yesterday he called, its so slow when we edit, the event/project almost cant open, it takes hours loading, bla bla
I asked him when it started, it don’t get slow over night, but he is not sure, bla bla

He came with his hard drive and Imac (just to be sure it wasn’t his machine), he was right, took almost 1 hour to launch, and I have now struggled a full day trying to solve this

The project is the problem, I have the event running almost ok, slow but I give that to the FW800 drive

The project file was 320mb, I have used Pro Versioner project repair to get it down to 240mb

That helped a bit, but it’s still slow as hell

The first time I helped them, I moved all the media to my raid, 1.3 TB, and I still got it, so I have tried to “rebuild” the new “sick” event/project on my own system, where I know there is no hardware failure, but having problems to relink to the original files, who are one big pile of DSLR, GOPRO, SONY F3, XDCAM and soundfiles

I am narrowing down to some specific files now, but its hard when every restart of the app takes 10-15 MINUTES, it kills me, AND FCPX sensitivity for “incorrect” files attributes in the relink system sucks, that part is like Avid do it, Apple, you take my freedom..

But when I get it up and going, I need to go review every single edit in 2 hours and 9 minutes to find out where the problem is, and for that I would love a brake apart clip items/multicam flatten/consolidate “get the original clip in the timeline” function, to be sure that what I leave behind stays that way

So any suggestions or ideas how to get a project file smooth, and/or how to manage a messy timeline from someone else? In FCP7 I would know exactly what to do, but X is another universe

1. Open Project.
2. select all timeline and make COMPOUND Clip.
3. Close FCPX.
4. Move Project to another folder for hide from FCPX.
5. Open FCPX.
6. Open just made Compound Clip
try how it is.

Then convert all sources to PROXY and switch to PROXY in settings.
Just try.

one year ago I made a project
(10 projects every about 3 minutes-tutorials how to shoot) It in Russian. Sorry.
3 FullHD Cams, one was 5D Mark II. Made MultiCam and.......F*ck it was very slow, My hard drive was on USB 2.0, I changed to FW800 got little better. converted to proxy and got much better. after edit was ended I switch to source and render master file.

I advise against doing a Compound Clip of your entire project. That contributes to the slow down. My guess is that there are several corrupt clips in your timeline. Aside from doing the regular tricks of trashing prefs, etc. etc. I would render everything in the timeline and then zoom in enough to see if there are any un-rendered or 'red bars' in the timeline. If it does, I would replace the clips - shift+f to reveal in event browser and then replace edit those clips. I had a similar problem on a 60 min project that caused a lot of slowdowns, crashes, and export problems. Hope this helps. Good luck. After doing the suggested process, my timeline has been smooth.

Removing Project and making Compound Clip let start FCPX MUCH MUCH FASTER because loads only EVENT. You can work in compound clip like in a project.
What differents load 15 min. only event or 15 min. event and 15min. project?
What you lose if try?
Only if you need export XML to transfer to ProTools or somethings else you need a project, then creat new project and place compound clip there.

Backup event file anyway.

I have tried proxy files, and compounds, same thing..

yes the red bars show where clips are missing, but every single clip, is a multi cam clip, made of compounds inside, so reveal in event browser wont take me to original clip, but to the multicam clip, need the function to collapse multi clips

You say compound inside? What is it like? Do not understand. Multicam is not like ordinary multucam but you select clips and made compound and name it Multicam?

they have used a compound as source to a multicamclip, and other mulicam clips as source for multicamclip, compound in compound
but I'm not even there yet, cant open the event on my own system, only on that stupid FW drive..

So I want to move the entire event/project to my Raid from the FW drive to work on a faster machine and faster drive
If I use the move function inside FCPX, it will move the event and the project folders, but when the mediafiles is not located inside the event-folder, the original files folder will contain aliases pointing to the files on the FW drive, not to the duplicated files on my raid, and I will get the same reconnect problems as I have now, where I duplicate the event/project files and try to reconnect to the duplicated media-files from last time
So how do I trick the aliases in the original files folder to point to the mediafiles on my raid, would like to know before I move it from the FW drive, there is no undo, and it will take 5 hours or so

You joking me yes?))
Open Finder and just COPY event that you need from FW to Your Raid.
Copy Project to your raid.
Disconnect FW and open FCPX

no im not joking you, and its a little more complicated than so, I have off curse tried that several times :dry:

O sorry. I just understood. My English is poor.

In Finder Copy Event to your raid.
On the FW move same event to another folder
Now open FCPX
Select Event and in the main program menu select command to collect media.
I am not sure how name it. No Mac at me now.

did just that :dry:

YEEESSS. I found it.

File menu
Organize Event Files

This command copies all the Source Media Files into the Event folder that had only Alias files there before. This is important to avoid potential broken links with Media Files that are located outside the Event folder.

your right, thats the one
thanks a lot

But now I see why your project sloooow:)))
compound in compound in multicam

F*ck:)))) it's like many cars in underground train:)))
Unfortunately many compound in compound in co in co and so on just slowing down all work. Maybe more RAM rescue situation.
On my MacBook 16gb ram and time to time it is not enough.
Maybe next OS X Maverick help us.