Missing FCPX files won't relink

How exactly did you import? Did you drag and drop? Don't do that. Import using the import function so the files can be properly converted or rewrapped as necessary.

You probably have leave in place as your import preference. FCP will never allow you to leave files in place that are stored inside a camera card or camera archive structure. The application has to copy the files to the designated storage location. That's why you have to use the reimport from camera function so the files can properly process the files.

Archives and camera card stores should never be used in production. They're your last fall back if there is an application or hardware failure. They should be stored separately from your production media and backed up.

Then the process wasn't completed. The files might appear in the browser, and you might be able to work with them before the import process is completed. If you're creating proxies, or optimized files, or running analysis, you have to wait till all the process are completed before you can close the application, or you get the situation you describe. You can't use relink, because they haven't been imported and are still referencing the card. The card structure is not the storage location for the media, which is somewhere else. What is your designated import location, inside the library, or an external folder? Where is it?

I don’t know. I can only comment on the symptoms you reported. You cannot relink to a camera card structure, and the camera icon indicates the files hasn’t finished processing. Despite what you may have read FCP does not have true background processing. It only processes while the application is ideal. So if you worked on the timeline steadily for six hours and you had ordered a lot of processing it may very well not be complete, depending on your drives and your system capabilities.

As Tom points out, Background Render actually fires up when FCP X is idle. So when you are actively editing no background processes occur.

When you are having break with the system on, it will start to Background Render.

Mostly you can leave BG Render switched off in the FCP X preferences and leave it off.

The best thing to do during Import is to hit Command-9 to bring up the Background Tasks HUD. This will tell you everything going on in the Background.

Al

AFAICT, you have copies of the camera cards in AVCHD format.

These are to be considered, for all intents and purposes, as a "camera".

When you do an import, FCP X lets you use the clips right away, but will proceed to import "in the background" (well, not really, because it will only do these "background" tasks when the user is not actively interacting with the program).

It seems that some of these imports did not finish completely.

For these clips, you have to do a File->Import->Reimport from Camera/Archive, and then allow the application enough time to copy them (and, if you have it that way, also transcode them; you probably don't need to create optimized or proxy media).

Press command-9 to see the Background Tasks HUD.

Do not quit the application until you check that all pending operations in the Background Tasks HUD are finished.

That says the media is supposed to be stored inside the library bundle. Use Reveal in Finder to confirm the media is in the library bundle. If it isn’t the import is not being completed.

Where are your camera archives? How is the external drive formatted?

Let us consider the 20.2GB file that you pointed at in one of your screenshots.

This file is in a copy of a camera card. It cannot be used in place.

When importing that file, it has to be COPIED to your library (the media location is set to "In Library"); furthermore, if you have create proxy media and/or create optimized media set in your import preferences, it will have to be transcoded. Since this is a relatively large file, this process may take a while to finish.

The media storage location you show above is In Library. That means the media must be stored inside the library bundle or the application will not find it. Again, please use the Reveal in Finder function to take you to the correct storage location. What happens when you do that? What do you see in the correct library storage location inside the library bundle?