Render issues

Hello all, this is really weird. I have a project open in FCPX 10.6.5 and background rendering was turned off. I'm ready to manually render the project, went to "modify", "render all" and I get nothing. I have the dotted grey line above the edit rule showing through the project as you'd guess, everything play when directed, but I can't get rendering to work, not even a small section when selected. Strange, any suggestions? Disk space is fine too.Thanks!

It isn't necessary to render your timelines before exporting unless you really want to. I never have. I will occasionally render short segments that have complicated compositing if they drop frames, but on output just let 'er rip!

Are you seeing something odd in your output file if you don't?

gillfinn wrote:

... "modify", "render all" and I get nothing. I have the dotted grey line above the edit rule showing through the project as you'd guess, everything play when directed, but I can't get rendering to work, not even a small section when selected....

As dmetz said, it's not necessary to render the timeline -- except if needed for editing performance. 

However, it should render if you do Modify>Render All. There are some cases involving optical flow retiming or optical flow rate conforming whereby it seems to get stuck and may require several tries. In some other cases, it apparently refuses to render -- or at least the timeline render dots persist. 

If you delete the render files via selecting the library and do File>Delete Generated Library Files>Delete Render Files>All, then relaunch FCP that might help.

However that will not delete optical flow analysis files. If you feel comfortable doing so, and if you have a library backup, you can go inside the library package with Finder and delete those. A better way is using the third-party tool Final Cut Library Manager. It does that plus many more things:  www.arcticwhiteness.com/finalcutlibrarymanager/

Thanks so much for your replies! I've tried to export and also get nothing, really strange, this is a new machine and newest version of fcp. I go to share and it does nothing but allow me to choose a path for export. Also, some of the music beds I've imported will be fine initially and out of 8, two have stopped playing, they're still in the timeline, but are not audible, they were fine yesterday. Ghost in the machine, lol.

Try these things:

- Reboot the machine.

- Make sure all files are on locally connected hard drives, formatted as either APFS or MacOS Extended Journaled, not ExFAT or network drives.

- Create a new library, import one file, and try to export it. If that works: in your normal library, right-click on the project, select "duplicate project", open that duplicate project, select all clips on timeline with CMD+A, then do Edit>Remove Effects. Try to export a version of the timeline with no effects. If that works but the normal timeline does not, it may be some plugin or effect.

- Make sure you have at least 20% free disk space on all drives. I know that's almost certain on a new machine, but check all drives.

- Verify that FCP has Full Disk Access. That's in MacOS System Settings>Privacy & Security>Full Disk Access>Final Cut Pro>Enable

- Reset FCP Preferences:  support.apple.com/en-us/HT203477#:~:text...%20custom%20settings .

- Verify you have installed the latest version of Apple Pro Video Formats. That's in System Settings>General>Software Update. If you aren't certain, you can inspect it in OPT+Apple Menu>Software>Installations>Pro Video Formats. It should be at least 2.2.7.

Thanks for all the help! I've gotten to the point where it will export through "share", but none of the music audio files have come through. They don't even play within the timeline now, I can see them, they're not greyed out, but they're just not playing. Any thoughts? Thanks again.
Graham

In the timeline, select the audio clip that is not playing. Then enable the FCP Inspector (CMD+4 toggles), and select the Audio tab. Examine the characteristics of each audio component. Make sure each one is enabled or it won't play in the timeline. 

In the View menu, try enabling Skimming, Clip Skimming and Audio Skimming. That enables waving the skimmer over individual clips in the timeline OR in the Inspector's Audio tab, and hearing the audio. That can help track down what you can or cannot hear.

If you click the little audio bar graphs below the viewer, those will become larger bar graphs to right of the timeline which you can see better. Click the little bar graphs below the viewer to toggle that off.

If that doesn't work, select one of the audio clips in the timeline which won't play. Do SHIFT+F to find that clip in the Event Browser. See if you can hear that by skimming it in the Event Browser. If not, select that clip, right-click and pick "Reveal in Finder". See if the file will play in Finder. If it won't play in Finder, this isn't a FCP problem, but you have a system-level audio config issue.

Thanks very much, this is what's so confounding about this, all is working fine outside the timeline. I bring it in and get it situated, levels adjusted, all is well until a bit of time goes by, sometimes 5 minutes and it goes silent, sometimes it'll be okay along with all the others, the next morning, all appears okay until I click play. Audio in the clips within the timeline all work fine as well as audio within those clips, it's only the music clips added which seem to get into trouble once they're added to the timeline.

So all audio in the timeline is audible except for the music you added? And that music is sometimes audible but sometimes not?

When you can't hear the music in the timeline, are the waveforms still showing on the music clips? With clip skimming enabled, if you skim a non-music audio clip in the timeline, is that audible? Then if you immediately skim a music clip in the the timeline, is that audible? Do the audio bar graphs move if you skim a music clip in the timeline during that period? 

To see the waveforms more clearly, Do CTRL+OPT+1 to view as waveforms only.  CTRL+OPT+3 to show both thumbnails and waveforms.

Anytime you are debugging an audio playback problem, it's best to turn off any external speakers or wireless audio -- no bluetooth earphones, no external speakers. Just use the built-in Mac speakers to avoid any possibility of an audio config issue.

Select the music clip, do CTRL+4 to view Inspector, select the audio tab, and make sure no audio processing is enabled on that clip. If voice isolation or other audio DSP effects are enabled, that can intermittently suppress music.

Make certain in the Inspector's audio tab that all sections are shown. Hover your mouse over the grey bar for each section header to view the show/hide option. Make sure they are all shown, not hidden. It is easy to have "Noise Removal" or "Voice Isolation" accidentally enabled on an audio clip, then not notice it because that section of the audio inspector is hidden.

gillfinn wrote:

Thanks very much, this is what's so confounding about this, all is working fine outside the timeline. I bring it in and get it situated, levels adjusted, all is well until a bit of time goes by, sometimes 5 minutes and it goes silent, sometimes it'll be okay along with all the others, the next morning, all appears okay until I click play. Audio in the clips within the timeline all work fine as well as audio within those clips, it's only the music clips added which seem to get into trouble once they're added to the timeline.

Are the problematic audio files you're using MP3 files?