Some clips went black in timeline and the event window.

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Level 1

28 points

Some clips went black in timeline and the event window.

This has been constantly happening. I restarted the project fresh by deleting everything three times because of this before and now its happening again. I am two weeks into a project and all of a sudden some of clips gone black. Audio is there but the clips are black.

I did not touch or change or move anything. These are old clips that are edited and imported without any issues. One minute they were working fine and the next minute some turned black.

Deleting and re importing, creating new event and importing media again, deletingrender files, delete generated event files, nothing works. This did hot happen becuse I touched or moved things, its just randomly old media files that were already imported successfully turns black.

I have been googling and I do not see any solutions. So far this this happened all my edit trys. But this time I cannot start fresh because I have 2 weeks invested into this edit. Lates mac version, latest FCPX. Absolutely no reason for this to happen. It just keeps happening in the middle of edits. Just out of blue.

What is going on here?

Posted on Jul 11, 2020 6:29 PM

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Answer 1

zekiegeli Author

Level 1

28 points

Jul 12, 2020 6:29 AM in response to zekiegeli

Ok I have found a solution and since there are so many people affected by this bug out there and absolutely no one has answered what is happening here or how to solve it, I am going to share my solution here. I am hoping this works for all of you affected by this bug. I know first hand how frustrating this is, happening randomly out of blue messing up all your edit. I have actually lost edits since I never managed to find a solution for this and just restarted projects from scratch.

But first for the sake of answering the questions about my gear/setup:

Camera: iPhone 11, media type MOV file, computer 2018 MAC book Pro - latest OS (Catalina 10.15.5), FCPX latest version.

Analyzing the bug:

Media imported successfully, all works flawlessly, I edit without issues, media plays in finder as well as FCPX, AND one day you start editing and some old clips you already imported and edited turns black. Its all random. Because some other clips from the same folder, same camera, same file type, imported at the same day works fine. Its just some random media turns black and doesn't show any image in preview window, in Library and in timeline. This doesnt happen after you take a wrong step. It just happens!

The feeling is almost like your computer corrupted something and some files got broken. The problem is this happens on every edit attempt. Not immediately but withing couple of days. Without exception. On my last edit took 2 weeks for this bug to kick in. But the only feedback we get on forums so far is to delete render files, clean cache, delete optimized files, create a new library, import the same media back into that new library, check if your media plays fine in finder, restart from last backup etc. None of this fixes the issue.

ALSO this is not a media type, corrupted media, camera type, missing file issue. Files are fine. They import fine. You can edit them fine. You can preview them in FCPX fine. One day out of the blue some of those files that worked perfectly just turns black.

Think about the issue like this: you are working on a word file, you have been editing it for days, you know how to write on a word file so you know you are not doing anything wrong, just typing in words, and one day in the middle of your edit things freeze, and you are like I didn't do anything. I didn't move anything, I didn't delete anything, I am just following the same process I always follow, why would this happen all of a sudden?

Solution: Now here is what worked for me. Simple solution really but this was super scary to do since I thought restarting the computer, unplugging the external drive etc before fixing this issue might further corrupt these files and mess things up forever. My initial instict was to some how solve this issue before restarting everything but since nothing fixes this and there is no solution on the net I did it.

I first closed FCPX, then unplugged the external hard-drive, then restarted the computer, connected everything back again and the blacked out images seems to be working now.

Couple of observations here. After loosing 3 edits (deleting everything starting fresh) because of this bug I decided to move the project to a 2 TB external drive thinking this might be some sort of memory issue and that once the project size starts consuming most of internal memory space some files are being corrupted. For two weeks I edited my 4th project without issues on an external hard drive and yesterday it all started again. So this blacked out media issue happens both on computer (internal memory) and on external hard drive. No matter where I move the project this bug persists.

Why do I think this is a bug? By all means I am not a programmer and cannot give you technical explanations, but I know that this is not a corrupt file or camera/file compatibility issue. I also know that this is not a user error, deleting original files, moving things around, messing up your folder structure issue. This happens without the user taking any action. One minute media previews fine the next minute some of them goes black. Also the fact that I need to restart everything for the media to preview/show ok on FCPX makes me think this is a bug.

Final words: I am still super paranoid because I do not know if restarting the computer every-time will keep fixing this issue. This happening again is not a question of if but when. I have experienced this bug on every singe edit attempt and no matter the project size & complexity it always happens. Raising your heart rate, hindering your process and leaving a terrible taste in your mouth. For now I am hoping I can keep restarting things to get media to work when this happens. Just hope restarting works every-time. But I completely lost confidence in FCPX.

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Answer 2

zekiegeli Author

Level 1

28 points

Jul 31, 2020 5:18 PM in response to Alchroma

I have an update, but first answer to questions:

Did you Optimise the iPhone clips?

Answer: yes and it happens to GoPro images as well. It is a random thing that happens to random clips at random times. Videos work perfectly for couple of weeks until they got broken out of blue.

What is the formatting of your external drives? -

Answer: Formatted to Mac. This has nothing to do with the external drive though since I bought the external drive after clips started going black and all the memory of my computer consumed by FCPX. So the issue started when videos were saved on my desktop. External drive was purchased to fix this issue and the memory problem.

Update: 2 weeks in just now I sit down to edit and lo and behold the blacked out clips came-back. Some of the clips turned black just like before causing my heart to start racing. I cannot tell you how stressful and discouraging this bug is. I just get all motivated to get some work done, sit down and when it happens kills all my mood and its just unnecessary waste of time when I could be editing.

I hold my breath, closed the FCPX, then disconnected the drive, then restarted the computer. Then crossed my fingers and restarted FCPX hoping this will solve the issue like the last time. Lucky it did. Second time in a row I managed to solve the issue by restarting the whole system.

Now I dont trust this software and am paranoid using it. So I decided to finish this edit right now and not leave things to luck. I already spent so much time on this edit and I cannot leave it to luck. I am just scared FCPX will break something and will ruin all the work. So far I managed to fix it by restarting but I dont now if this will be the case the third and the forth time.

This is clearly a software issue, I don't know what is happening and every 2 weeks or so FCPX corrupts something and messes up clips. Its unreliable. Moving forward I will keep my edits fast and will not keep them dragging. As I said before, this is not if but when situation.

For those who are experiencing the same bug (a Google search shows that this is a common issue a lot of people facing without a solution), in my case the steps I listed above works. None of the other solutions listed on forums worked for me.

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Answer 3

Aug 1, 2020 7:51 AM in response to zekiegeli

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here.

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Answer 4

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,889 points

Aug 1, 2020 8:51 AM in response to zekiegeli

Use the additional text button to add the full report to your reply. Use EtreCheck preferences to give the application full drive access.

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Answer 5

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,889 points

Jul 31, 2020 10:39 PM in response to zekiegeli

There isn’t much information about your system here. Could you please tell us exactly what the computer is from About This Mac and exactly what the media is. The iPhone shoots multiple formats and different codecs. Where is the library stored? Is the media stored inside the library? What’s in the external drive that you keep disconnecting? Where is the cache? Inside the library or outside? Have you deleted the cache?

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Answer 6

zekiegeli Author

Level 1

28 points

Aug 1, 2020 6:27 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

I have shared most of the information on my initial posts. My comments are long so you probably not reading them. But let me lay everything here and maybe you can spot something:

I would like to start with my import and playback references.

Here are more info:

2018 MacBook Pro - Latest software Mac OS Catalina 10 - 15 - 5
iPhone 11 shoots MOV and MP4 and this happens to both.
Initially Library renders and backups all were stored on my local computer drive. This issue appeared right of the bat after I got FCPX for the first time and started editing. Probably 2 days in. Then thinking that this is a memory issue, and because it consumes so much internal memory I bought a 2T new Toshiba hard-drive just to fix this black screen issue and moved libraries, projects, backups, renders and everything to the hard drive. This however did not solve the issue. Again the issue is not connected to the hard-drive. This issue started without me even purchasing this hard-drive.
I tried deleting render files, cache and optimized files initially since most forums advise this first. This never solved the issue for me.

I have searched all over the net for this issue, and I can see that there are a lot of treads without any solution or conclusion. All I can find is clean cache and render files advice which doesn't work. I don't think anyone knows anything about or understands this bug based on my research. FYI I started editing fresh with FCPX factory settings, I did not do any modifications whatsoever when I faced this issue. It appeared right out of the box. Its not like i am playing around with settings and breaking things.

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Answer 7

zekiegeli Author

Level 1

28 points

Jul 12, 2020 6:25 AM in response to zekiegeli

NOTE: I am writing this long explanation since on all forums people who got affected by this bug were asked the same questions and were offered the same none working solution. Its clear that no one out there knows why this is happening and what is causing it as well as how to solve it. Since I am being asked questions like what is your camera, what file type, is the media works in finder I wanted to make it clear that this issue so many people are experiencing is not a media issue. Its FCPX corrupting files in the middle of edits without a user generated triger. I see this as a bug that happens for whatever reason that is not caused by a user error.

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Answer 8

Aug 1, 2020 9:13 AM in response to zekiegeli

Uninstall avast.

Only run MalwareBytes manually if you have any reason to. Deactivate the launch daemon.

Regarding Full Disk Access for Etrecheck: in addition to grating access in System Preferences->Security & Privacy->Privacy, there is a setting for this in the application itself.

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Answer 9

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,889 points

Aug 1, 2020 11:01 AM in response to zekiegeli

"Use EtreCheck preferences to give the application full drive access."

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Answer 10

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,889 points

Aug 1, 2020 8:37 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

2018 MacBook Pro - Latest software Mac OS Catalina 10 - 15 - 5

This is not adequate. Please give full information from About This Mac. iPhone shoots different codes and resolutions and frame rates. The video framework is insufficient information.

And what Luis said.

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Answer 11

zekiegeli Author

Level 1

28 points

Aug 1, 2020 8:49 AM in response to zekiegeli

Unsigned Files:

Launchd: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.google.keystone.agent.plist

Executable: ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent -runMode ifneeded