timeline just red

I am having weird problems on iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015) My main library that I was working on got useless because I was unable to open my projects, and when I was able to open some it did not look quite right. I created a new library and everything has been pretty smooth for awhile but now when I opened a project that was fine is now showing the timeline

all RED. Also every time I open FCPX background render on, I have disabled it probably 10 times.

What macOS version are you running?

I'd use the "FCS Remover" from Digital Rebellion to wipe FCPX off my drive totally (it won't touch libraries), then reinstall from the App Store. That's pretty serious.

Were you able to solve this issue? It’s happening to me too and it’s driving me up a wall. Some of the projects I open the video tracks will be invisible, but the audio will all be there. using the key commands to open the effects panel or shrink to fit the timeline will cause things to disappear, and eventually the whole timeline goes red like what you’re seeing.

Have you tried trashing Final Cut's preferences by launching it with Alt+CMD keys pressed?

if you have FXfactory then you need open it, go to the menu>Preferences>Apple Apps> and Push these buttons "Clean Up Plugins etc."

No luck. Trashing the preferences solves the issue temporarily. The next time I opened FCP the red was back, and now deleting preferences no longer works.

Did you find a remedy for this yet? The same thing happened to me today. I ended up opening the library from the back ups and it worked for a little while but it happened again with the back up library. I am assuming the library is corrupt.
I am now creating a new library and will copy the projects over to it to see if that works. Any help or solution you may have you be great. I am wondering if it is a OS problem or simply a corrupt library or some sort of combination.

Regards.
Jonathan

Two suggestions:
1. If you have Digital Rebellion's Pro Maintenance tools, you can use the project repair function to attempt to restore your project. This works pretty reliably.
2. If you aren't willing to purchase the app in #1 above, try to open the library in the finder by control clicking it and select "show package contents". Find your RENDER folder and drag it to the trash, empty the trash and restart FCPX. Possibly a corrupt render file is preventing the library from working properly and this most likely also propagated to the backup library.

Or there is nothing wrong except that the current version of FCPX is not really HS compatible?

Still no luck. Trashing render files is not clearing the red timeline issue, and now neither is deleting the preferences. I've noticed odd GPU behavior when opening the Photos app as well. This is now occurring on both my 2013 Mac Pro and my 2016 MacBook Pro. I'm fairly confident now this is an OS compatibility issue.

Back at work this morning it still acting up. The layers on the timeline have vanished although they playback. and i also noticed it has (null) written next to the project file name. One project was showed (null) / (null). The projects are playing back but I am unable to add to the timeline or click in the timeline. Apple needs to get on this. Pretty sure this is High Sierra issue. I'm on a Mac Pro with 32 gigs of RAM and was not having nay issues until the update.

-J

May I ask anyone who has this problem to provide the following information:

1. Version of OS
2. Version of FCP X
3. Computer model and year
4. Format (codec and size) of the clips you are using in the problematic project
5. Any third-party filters you are using in the problematic project

Thank you.

- Ronny

This is pretty clearly an OS compatibility issue at this point. I have the issue on both my 2013 Mac Pro and my late 2016 MacBook Pro. Both have the latest versions of High Sierra and FCP X installed. Both have been wiped clean and reinstalled. Happens with out any plugins installed on timelines of all types. Red, GH5, prores proxy, etc.

I'm using a Mac Pro late 2013 with 32 Gigs RAM running High Sierra 10.13 and FCPX 10.3.4
The codecs for this project avc1 and Linear PCM. No third party filters.
I have been trying to go back to Sierra but have not managed to do so since Apple has removed it from the App store.
It wasn't working this morning but appears to be working now but i don't trust that it's very stable.
Thanks for any help or advice.
-J

I just spent an hour on the phone screen sharing my set up with Apple support. They have escalated the issue to high priority and the engineering team at Cupertino are on it. Please do call them and walk them through whats happening. The more people we have telling them about this issue, the faster this will be resolved!

It's indeed a High Sierra compatibility issue. I think we will see a fix soon.

In the meantime I would advise anyone who has this issue to report it to Apple. If you have urgent projects to finish, the best thing you can do is reverse to Sierra.

- Ronny

Today's High Sierra update did not fix this issue for me. Anyone else still struggling with this? I'm hoping FCP 10.4 comes out soon.

This exact problem happened to me. I managed to trouble shoot it in my situation.

It turned out to be a media drive not being fast enough for FCPX.
Footage from original camera media was imported to the slower disk. The red timeline showed up immediately after the import was complete.


Moving the media to a faster RAID did not resolve the problem.
The only fix I found was to reimport the media from the camera source again to the faster drive.

Hope that helps.
S

Also have this problem. Working on a iMac 2014 with footage from multiple sources (GH4, JVC Hm200, FS5) on a Thunderbolt drive. Very slow response, crashes and after reopening project calls itself null and doesn't show clips in timeline.

Very happy that I can switch to the macbook with Sierra on it.

I found a solution to this issue which happened to me too, after upgrading to High Sierra on my 2017 5k iMac.

After calling apple and working through it with them for 2 hours, I narrowed it down to a single project in a single library. Once that project is loaded into the timeline, it first exhibits not normal behavior (view won't move, won't scrub) and then eventually the red box.

After that one project creates the problem, it seems to occur on that library and others. But really it all starts from that one project. (It may occur on more projects in my library, but I'll have to go systematically through one by one. But once the problem happens, don't assume it's everything in the library. You have to restart and load each project or clip until the problem happens.)

The solution was to export the xml of that project and then import it into a new library. (copying it to a new library didn't work.)

For others it could be multiple projects, or Multicam clips or other clips. Try exporting the xml out, and importing into a brand new library.

They had me upload diagnostics of FCPX and my system to them to give to engineers.