Re-rendering in each open

Hello!

My name is Andreas (...obvious ) and I am new here!

Now on topic, whenever I open FCPX 10.3.1 why it keeps re-rendering the whole project although it was rendered before I closed FCPX (even worse if it has crashed)? It really bothers me because it has long rendering time the specific project and my whole mac is slow in everything I do until the render is finished. Is there a way to prevent that and remember Final Cut the last render?

For starters, in FCPX select preferences and under the playback tab, turn off background rendering. With this on, the application renders your timeline whenever you are not moving the mouse or selecting any function in the program. Second step if that doesn't help, restart FCPX while holding down the Option and Command keys and choose to delete preferences when the dialog box appears. You'll have to go back into preferences to turn off background rendering again after you delete the preferences.

There could be other issues (especially if FCPX is crashing) but try the above tips first. If you still need help, post your computer specs, model, GPU, ram, etc., and media and project information (codec, project settings, where your media is stored, etc.) and we can go further.

Thank you for your response dgwvideo! I cleared the preferences but nothing. The background rendering is not something it bothers me but anyway I followed your advice. The project still needs rendering every time I launch FCP X although it was rendered before I closed it.

I have MacBook Pro 15" Mid 2014 with Intel Haswell 4-core i7 at 2,5GHz, nvidia 750m and 16GM RAM. I use Final Cut Pro X 10.3.1 with these free plugins installed from lenofx.com and motionmastertemplates.com :

• Bullet Points (Titles)
• Rounded Lower Third (Titles)
• Leno Slideshow (Generator)
• Circles of Love (Generator)
• Reflective Flooring (Generator)
• Simple Background (Generator)

I used everything except "Rounded Lower Third".

Do you need any other information?

Hello Andreas,

Before we can know if Dan's excellent advice really has worked or not, you wil need to delete all the render files first. You do this right inside FCP X: select the Event in the browser and choose File > Delete Generated Event files > Delete All Render Files. Then re-render your project, close the application and launch it again. Check if the project needs to be re-rendered or not.

If the project still needs to be re-rendered:

Check if everything needs to be re-rendered, or only some parts of the timeline.

If only some parts of the timeline need to be re-rendered:

Check if these parts relate to a specific plugin or title you have used on the timeline.

If the issue is related to a specific plugin or title:

Re-install that plugin to make sure you are using the latest version.

- Ronny

Hi,
I'm having this issue in 2021. I have background render switched off. I render the project completely. The next day much of what I rendered the previous day now needs doing again. This project is based on a 3 video, 1 audio multicam clip with film convert and neat noise reduction added in the multicam angles. Noise reduction isn't switched on until the final render (after editing and returning to optimised/original). I rendered it yesterday ready to give it the final once over today for export. Now I'm rendering much of it again today. It's 25 minutes long. I'm using a max spec. 2015 iMac and Catalina and it's still gonna take a couple of hours.

I wonder if it might be something to do with the combo drive? FCP looks for the render files on the SSD but the OS has since moved them.
I use the 3TB system drive then archive the library and remove. I know, advice says no but it's all about the money. I've been doing it since fcpx was launched and never experienced any issues other than exceptional stress situations or plugins failing and causing a crash (audio plugins in particular)

Andy Codling

Same here, any other ideas?
Macmini M1 using external SSDs for media.

I have a theory that I just tested.
I'm a fairly new user of FCPX having finally left legacy FCP6. I used to keep all my footage (remember capture scratch?) on separate drives and the Project files on my main HD. So the new FCPX way of packing everything into the Library was a little confusing, until I realized you can modify these locations for the imported media. So that's what I've been doing, leaving the main Library on the Main drive and putting all the media on my external drives.
So... thinking this may have caused the issue with the renders, I created a new test Library and left every thing in the Library on the main drive, created a project with some titles and rendered it. Closed FCP, then opened it and the titles were unrendered, BUT instantly appeared, when I assume it found them. (the little render check box had a "buffering" icon instead of the render clock.)
When I open a Library where the media files are on the external drive, it has to re-render them. For some reason FCP cannot "remember" the rendered files.
Anyone else confirm this?

dtmp wrote:

Same here, any other ideas?
Macmini M1 using external SSDs for media.

See prior discussion of this in the below threads. I speculated it might be partially related to 3rd-party plugin behavior using the FxPlug3 framework, and maybe it would be improved when those plugins are re-written for FxPlug 4, which is mandatory for Apple Silicon. However there have long been some anomalies about not using render files in certain cases, even when no 3rd-party plugins were involved.

If you are seeing a failure to use valid render files or unexplained loss of render files, that indicates the problem may still exist on Apple Silicon and FxPlug 4.

Make sure any plugins are updated and are native Apple Silicon. For Neat Video that version is 5.4.7 (SR).

I don't think it has anything to do with hard drive configuration. Unfortunately I don't yet have an Apple Silicon Mac to test this.

www.fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/...se-or-project-switch

www.fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/...has-no-effect#110389

Okay, still investigating this.
I assume, all of the render files are now all put into the Cache?
I checked the size of the cache for the Library, then opened the project, titles re-render, then noticed the cache is now bigger. Opening up the cache I can see a render file with the same size being generated each time I open it. This seems a little wasteful, can't remember if legacy FCP would delete unused render files when changes were made on the timeline.
So maybe you need to keep the cache on the main drive if you don't want it to re-render each time.

There is a good reason why unused render files don't get automatically deleted. E.g. you render an effect, you change a setting on that effect or you just change the duration of the clip, you render again and you don't like what you have done, so you Undo that change. If FCP would have deleted the previous render file automatically, you would have to re-render the effect again. So, that's a good thing.

Here's an older explanation on how FCP renders work. But it's still valid today: larryjordan.com/articles/fcp-x-delete-render-files/

The downside is that you can get conflicts if you have lots of unused render files on a clip.
That's why we advise only to render something when it's absolutely necessary for playback reasons, and why you should leave Background Rendering turned OFF if you want to try out multiple changes to a clip.

This said, there have been quite some reports about render files getting "lost". And the issue is not restricted to FCP, just google it for any NLE like here:

https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=95711

community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-disc...r-files/m-p/11884033

Lost render files can be related to many factors, we often see it happen with third-party plugins or older native effects that haven't been updated. But it's not restricted to that. I also saw it in classic FCP.


- Ronny

True Ronny, had my share of timelines becoming unrendered in legacy fcp,
but still seems unusual to have to re-render on each launch.

I've just been living with it but as the thread has just updated I'll add this:

I've looked at the other threads and can confirm that a lower third into a clip with Neat plugin employed has to be re-rendered every time.

I have noticed that sometimes there is less to be re-rendered after each re-render the next time I load the project. Although I don't really have enough cases to be sure.

It looks like (in my case) it's probably Neat related but it is inconsistent. Neat is used on every clip in the angle (copy, paste) but only fails on the same one or two at each fresh load in. Maybe removing and readding either clip or plugin or both would fix it. I would have to test, but suspect it would.

On one occasion I left FCP to get itself together for a few minutes. Ignoring lower thirds, the dots disappeared and fcp was now able to find the render files that it couldn't initially.

Andy Codling

I find it does it with built in FCP titles, so I don't think it's just a third party plugin issue.
dinmakers, where is your cache?

Everything is in the the library on the boot drive. 

Andy

I think we all agree that losing render files should not be an issue anymore, especially seeing how much technology has evolved. But the fact is that it is still an issue in every NLE. And it's very hard to prevent because there are so many things that can cause render files to get disconnected. So, I'm afraid it's something we will have to live with for the time being. 

Fortunately, even smaller computers have become very powerful now and rendering is becoming less relevant. I recently finished a project with some heavy keying, color corrections, noise reduction, multiple mixed frame rates and frame sizes etc... and I could play the timeline in full quality without having to render anything. And that was on an entry-level M1 MBP with 8GB RAM. 

- Ronny