Opening a specific library crashes FCP X after upgrade - FIXED

My upgrade to FCP X 10.2 has gone fairly smoothly and all of the libraries I updated worked except for one. No matter what I did I couldn't get it to work. It went through the whole update routine and loaded all of the events etc. and then it would crash.

I still had the original library on a second RAID so I opened that on an iMac which hasn't been updated and exported the XML. The XML opened fine in FCP X 10.2 (most of the media was mirrored on the RAID attached to this computer) but I had to relink some files and one of the projects gave me an XML error message about items being "not on edit frame boundary". I have to look into that further to see what it means.

The new projects are not perfect. There is some footage that will need to be replaced because it's not compatible. I had converted some footage to Pro Res without audio and the editor used the original footage which had audio instead of the converted footage. Too bad I can't force relink...

Also, I should know better than to use layered Photoshop files with FCP X. There were a couple of those in this mess. I have never had a problem with Photoshop files except when they are layered. They don't seem to carry over well from FCP X version to version in my experience.

So anyway... all is not lost. Most of the work is back in place through the use of XML and maybe this will help somebody out there!

Hey Nick,

Thank you for posting your solution. Very helpful.

- Ronny

I cannot open a specific library I want to use without upgrading it, according to the screen message. As I have this library on only one external drive I am afraid to go ahead. Can anyone suggest a way to achieve the upgrade without losing/ damaging my work please?

Hi Sylvie,

You can make a safety copy of the Library. If the update is successful you can delete the copy afterwards.

- Ronny

Select it in the Finder, hit Command-D.

I made a safety copy as Ronny suggested (it took 4 hours) on another drive. Now when I try to open that copy I get the same message as I did with opening the original: It has to be updated before I can open it! But the updating which was done on the original has wiped off all my last work. I am in despair of Apple.

The library created pre-10.2 has to be updated to work with 10.2 no matter what. If you right-click on the library icon in the finder and choose 'show package contents' do you see a folder that has the name of your most recent work? If so, delete the 'CurrentVersion.flexolibrary" file and try to open the library in FCP again.

It IS updated. The library opens and my current work is missing.

Did you open the library by right-clicking and choosing "show package contents"? If not, close FCP X and do that. You may find a folder in the Library bundle that contains your missing work. If that's the case, deleting the 'CurrentVersion.flexolibrary" file (with FCP X closed) should make it show up the next time you open FCP.

The package contents don't show my missing work. What would happen if I delete CurrentVersion.flexolibrary anyway?

If you're not seeing the missing work then it's not there. Trashing flexo won't help. I have had events that were in the library and would not show up in FCP. They would show up after trashing that file so I thought it was worth a try.

Look at your FCP backups to see if the missing work is there. By default they are in users>movies>final cut backups