I am trying to open an old project that resides on my Mac Pro Tower that I haven't used in a few years. The library shows over 300mb of data reside within it yet I can't get anything to open nor even view the individual clips when I select "Open package contents". Does anyone have any suggestions how I can recover these files?
Mac Pro, OS X 10.11
What OS is your current mac running?
It seems to me that the problem is the following: in recent versions of macOS, FCP needs to be given "Full Disk Access" in System Preferences->Security & Privacy->Privacy:
There's sadly just nothing to show. Yes, I can get to the Original Media and High Quality Media folders but both appear to be empty - not a single file shows up. And yet, it the timeline SOME of the clips are there (very, very few though):
This is the entire folder that I copied over from the old machine:
When I select the last version of it and choose "Show package contents" this is what I find:
When I right-clicked on this "Muskegon" folder and selected "Get Info" (this is on the version transferred to my new Mac) it shows only 51.4 MB yet on the original folder on my old machine it shows 521.2 MB. But still, when I navigate to "Original Media" either on the new or old machine it always comes up completely empty.
Tom, thanks for your incredibly speedy response!
FCPX 10.3.4, Library should be the same, project is from maybe 2014. (I bought a new Mac since this one was no longer able to update)
1st warning: File cannot be found in it's original location, must save to new location...etc.
2nd warning: No such file exists
It's just odd that the library size is HUGE but I can't get to any of the files that must be in there. Been trying to run Disk Utility but it's showing the spinning ball for 30 min now...
10.3.4 is what? Your current version? The version of the old library? What OS are you using? Are you using the old Mac or the new Mac? Where is the library stored? On an external drive? Check that everybody has read/write permissions.
10.3.4 is the version of FCPX running on my old Mac. OS is 10.11.6 El Capitan. I am trying to open this library on that machine. I assume that the library is the same version since it's still on that machine. It is on an internal drive but I was/am attempting to get it to my new Mac in order to edit it further. I work alone and all read write permissions are in place. Thanks.
It sounds as if something is corrupted. It may be the library. but it may also be the system if Disk Utility is not opening. You said you tried Show Package Contents on the library. What exactly happened? Is that when you got the two messages? Is the media for the library stored inside the library or externally? If it's managed media, self-contained in the library. try copying the library to another drive.
I'm confused. So you have been able to open the library and can see it in FCP. Select a clip and try to relink it from the File menu. It will show you the file path for where it expects to find the location.
Yes, definitely. Package contents shows numerous files included the rendered and high quality media folders. When selected, neither shows a single clip and yet that IS where they ought to be. I'll try to copy as suggested. Thanks for the suggestion.
Yes, I'm very confused as well. I was able to export a library to an external drive and open on my new Mac. After updating to the current version though most of the timeline is red and almost all the files are missing...but not all. WHY that is I can't figure out! I follow the path to where it says the files are but there's nothing there. Not on the old machine nor on the new. I've now been able to run Disk Utility on the old machine but to no avail. Also, copying the project to another drive gave the same results. While it shows large amounts of files being transferred, nothing shows up in the resulting folders or files. Very frustrating.
Can you please post screenshots? You're bouncing around doing stuff that might make things worse. Let's stick with the old machine. When you Show Package Contents do you see events with Original Media folders? What's in Original Media? Show pictures. We need to find out where the media is.
The old machine is not currently on my network nor the web so screenshots are challenging from that one. But like I said, when I get to the Original Media folder there are zero files in it, there's nothing to show. I was trying to produce a travel show and only the intro was made with an iMovie trailer and I just use that for every episode as an opener. I simply saved that as a clip and imported into FCPX, there are no other media files in iMovie. Sorry this is dragging on so, I really do appreciate your willingness to help! I'm also being told by this forum that I'm exceeding my number of allowable posts. I tried to simply take a picture of the Original Media folder but this is telling me it's too large to upload...I'll try another way.....
You can resize an image in Preview to make it smaller. Large screenshots can easily go over the limit for the forum, particularly in macs with 'retina' displays. I always scale them down to 50%: Tools->Adjust Size...
I've got nothing else. I can't find anything more. My fear now is that one of the four drives on my old Mac is not mounting and perhaps the original library is there (Disk Utility/First Aid did nothing). I haven't touched this project in years and have moved twice since I did so where I may have stored it when I was working on it back in 2016 is beyond me. Thanks to both of you for all of your help though, I'm sorry to have wasted so much of your time, but it appears that this project is lost. Thank you again for taking the time to try to help!!!
No matter what I select (and this is the correct library) I get the same response:
Can't open old FCPX project files
