clips disappearing in timeline

I have talked with some people about this.

1. Make sure you are NOT using FCP X 10.1. This version had a bug that could be related to this issue. Update to the latest version.

2. While sparse disk images were useful before FCP X media management changed, they can be very unpredictable with the new Library structure. As Ben and Tim said: sparse disk images should be avoided by all means at this time. Two weeks from now I will write an article about working with the latest version of FCP X in a real-life enterprise shared storage environment. If you still use sparse disk images I would advise you to contact your systems integrator to change your workflow.

3. When working with FCP X 10.1.4 on a shared storage system, even one without project collaboration, you never should need to relink anything. With the exception of replacing existing assets with modified ones, of course. If you need to relink media there is something wrong with your shared media management workflow. In the coming week I will do extensive tests on a fairly large shared storage system, I will certainly test for this particular issue as well.


- Ronny

Thanks for all the comments. Like I said before, this workflow was not up to me, but I will be sure to bring these things to my IT dept so that they and Small Tree can create a new setup for us.

Great comments Ronny.

aerikson09, I can tell you from experience that sparse images are absolutely not the way to go when using a shared storage system like the one you have.

1) There will be performance issues, especially over a network where you're writing small changes to the library constantly any time you do something in FCPX. Also, I believe sparse bundles themselves will make your disk access slower. And don't forget, putting everything in a sparse image eliminates one of the prime advantages of shared media: the fact that multiple users can access the same media at the same time.

2) We have a shared storage system that is not an XSAN, but from another company. It's very fast (10 GbE) and has a lot of advantages, but it runs on Windows Server via SMB. Yosemite fixed all the issues we were having with running things over the SMB protocol. In Mavericks, we had intermittent performance and connection problems, as well as media sometimes DISAPPEARING without a trace. Long exports would often fail. As you can imagine, having good backups was the only way we were coping. Mavericks had terrible bugs with its SMB implementation, so I cannot stress enough the importance of getting all your machines on Yosemite ASAP if you're using shared storage.

3) We've found this to be optimal in a shared-storage environment: all Libraries should be run locally, and all media is external and kept in a well-organized project folder (for each project). This makes archival super simple as a side-effect.

4) Hopefully, your system can set read-write permissions on either a per-folder or per-volume basis. Our system can create an arbitrary number of "spaces" that can access the entire pool of storage (or your can limit how much space is allocated). Then you can give read/write permission for each user on the system for each space (you can do permission by group or just individually). That way, you can control who has read/write access to whatever projects you want.

UPDATE:

My IT guy talked with Small Tree, and they recommended the following (which has helped keep this issue from occurring all day today - I'm hoping this will help in the future too):

Close out of Final Cut X.

Hold down Option + Command while clicking on Final Cut X to launch.

A window will pop up saying "Do you want to delete preferences?"

Click on "Delete Preferences".

That has actually helped us today, as some of our machines have been using FCP X for 2.5-3 years, probably without caching the preferences. If you're having issues too, try this and see if the deletions stop occurring.

Here's a more in-depth look: www.larryjordan.biz/improving-fcp-x-performance/


Alyson

I'm suspecting that you are probably using an old version of FCPX was well. Best to upgrade to the most recent version. Also from the original poster a year ago, Ronny suggested resetting preferences. It was the third link

www.fcp.co/fcp-forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-f...ng-in-timeline#41075

I've had clips disappear as well. (I have not been using sparse bundles; using 10.1.4; haven't touched preferences). As best I can tell, the plot of this mystery unfolds as follows:

(i) Media assets copied from camera onto "the system."

(ii) Assets imported into FCPX.

(iii) For whatever reason, the import is interrupted (e.g., FCPX is shut down, crashes, editing begins before the import and transcoding are finished, etc.) such that FCPX's copy of the assets is not fully baked (technical term )

(iv) Once the import is interrupted, and after FCPX is up and running again, FCPX will not, sua sponte, resume the import. (This is HALF of the problem).

(v) However, even though not fully baked, FCPX allows the clips to be used in the timeline. Moreover, because the original assets reside somewhere on the system, FCPX continues to reference them in the timeline allowing the user to close and open FCPX many time and over many moons without alerting the user to any issue. (This is the OTHER HALF of the problem).

(vi) The user cleans up the system by moving or deleting the original assets, reasoning that they are redundant since FCPX made a copy which resides happily somewhere in an FCPX library. Well, because of the failed import, it doesn't.

(vii) The problem finally manifests itself, when the project is accessed at some point after step (vi)...which could be months hence. All along, FCPX was referencing the original media that resided outside the FCPX library structure and which has now been moved or deleted. The user gets a "missing file" or "missing camera" error message.

As I started the other topic on this issue... I'll update into here as this has become quite active.

I setup a new admin account today but as it's missing all my plugins and fonts I need for the project and it'd take a bit to install them all I reverted back to editing using my normal account. I've decided next month I'll wipe the laptop clean, fresh install and new user account then reinstall what I need. When I upgraded to Yosemite, I did a fresh install but then migrated my old user account over.

I've been editing my present project for 3 days, not an issue, then today, about an hour ago a load of footage just disappeared out of the connected storylines. I've been noting down what I've been doing recently, just incase, to see if it occurs when doing the same kind of thing. Today I was adding and changing the length of gap clips in connected storylines, deleting some clips within a connected storyline leaving a gap clip rather than rippling and blading the connected storylines to remove the gap clips.

Thinking back to the last project, I'm sure this was the kind of thing I was doing when it lost its clips then.

At present, I just open up one of the last 2 backups FCPX makes and copy the connected storylines back.

Paul- please look at this post that I submitted a few days ago. I would try deleting your preferences. This will not effect fonts, generators, or projects. However, it has solved the problem of my disappearing media.

aerikson09 wrote: UPDATE:

My IT guy talked with Small Tree, and they recommended the following (which has helped keep this issue from occurring all day today - I'm hoping this will help in the future too):

Close out of Final Cut X.

Hold down Option + Command while clicking on Final Cut X to launch.

A window will pop up saying "Do you want to delete preferences?"

Click on "Delete Preferences".

That has actually helped us today, as some of our machines have been using FCP X for 2.5-3 years, probably without caching the preferences. If you're having issues too, try this and see if the deletions stop occurring.

Here's a more in-depth look: www.larryjordan.biz/improving-fcp-x-performance/


Alyson

Hi Alyson

That's always my first FCPX troubleshooting step, I've done it before to no effect. I did it again just incase. 20 minutes later a load of clips have gone again. So it hasn't worked for me.

Paul Cryer wrote: 20 minutes later a load of clips have gone again. So it hasn't worked for me.

Bummer that this is happening. I'm doing extensive work in secondary storylines and have never had this happen myself. I wonder if you might consider recording your sessions to try to isolate this behavior.

Also you mentioned a little bit about your setup. Can you give complete specs? Your Mac model, Storage, FCPX version, how you are storing libraries, etc.

Paul, are you working with external HD? Try repairing permissions in the drive or rebuilding file structure. Or maybe change the HD. I was thinking if this issue happened always here and i think it is probably happening with a specific external hd, but i'm not quite sure yet.

Is anyone familiar with the way final cut writes secondary storylines data? Maybe there remains the answer, since it only happens there. And also, the transitions normally remain while clips disappear.

Lets keep trying to solve this.

What camera were these particular clips shot on? Were they all the same camera? Is there a different camera? I have seen this problem with specific cameras in the past.

You can try doing an XML RT, or try manually dragging the footage back into the event, (not relinking) that may work as well.

Specs: 15" MacBook Pro (mid 2012 model), 2.6GHx i7, 16GB RAM and on Yosemite 10.10.2 and FCPX 10.1.5.

I am using an external HD, USB 3 one. So today I copied the library to another spare external drive I had and opened it on there and worked off it. 2 hours later nothing has disappeared though I've not been doing anything with gap clips, blading or deleting from connected storylines today, just trimming.

I have previously done a repair perms on the drive, nothing was detected. I'll try a rebuild of the file structure over the weekend after I've backed the drive up.

I'll also continue to work on the other drive for this project and if by the time I've finished it the issue hasn't occurred, it'll be looking like a drive issue.

Paul Cryer wrote: FCPX 10.1.5.

I assume you mean 10.1.4.

Right?

- T.

Yes, 10.1.4!

What little I know about the database nature of FCP X is that keeping drives healthy and directory structure free of problems is probably important.

I'm listening to this G-Raid Studio next to me chugging and whirring like a popcorn maker every time I touch a compound clip in a feature I am making changes to.

I check my edit drives with disk warrior and there is always something that needs to be done most of the time after I've been using it for a while.

The other thing I come across with people I'm trying to help is their drives are formatted to exFAT, which is supported, but I don't trust it.

Its formatted Mac OSX format, not exFat.

Is Disk Warrior the best tool to use? Put it this way, I've had it 18 months and not done anything to it in terms of maintenance ....

Just for the times it has saved my neck it's worth the money, they just did a major update as well so it's a good time to get it. There is also disk drill, but that's for more severe cases.

Diskwarrior is what I would use when I couldn't get a drive to mount at all yet disk util can still see it. Now I use it preventatively. An editor friend of mine had his Promise R4 completely crap out on him in that the directory vanished.

BTW, the exFAT statement was more to add to the knowledge base on this forum, I hope people don't get offended by mentioning things, I know that looking at unrelated problems has helped me in the past.

Double post! Grr... :whistle: