Titles disappeared (red screen with "Text missing") after update to FCPX 7 // difficulty relinking media files
I recently updated (somewhat accidentally) to FCPX 7. I want to access a recent library from May 2023 to find a project I want to use as a template for a new project. When I tried to launch it, a pop up said the library would need to be updated.
So, I made a copy of the library in my movies folder on my laptop and left the original on the external drive, for safety.
I allowed FCP to update the copy of the library in my movies folder. But when I opened it, many of the text titles were missing and only showing a red screen with a big "T". And a bunch of media files were also missing, which I was able to relink once when I created a new media storage folder in the same location. After that, when I trashed and retried to launch new copies of the library, the message said there were no files to link and I had to manually locate files and drop them into my project using replace and time to fit.
I also tried opening copies of backups and am having the same problem.
By the way, some of titles were from a Pixel Studio plug in. I spoke with someone there and they guided me through a uninstall and reinstallation of the plug in to see if that's why they weren't appearing in the project timeline. This didn't help.
Weirdly, I did manage to get the titles to appear once when I did this updating process. But then, when I closed down FCP and reopened that same updated library the titles were gone again.
I can't even manually replace the titles because the inspector doesn't show any information about which ones were used, so I don't know which title I used in which instance (it's a lyrics video so there are a lot of different titles.)
I'm assuming there is some sort of problem with FCP trying to find titles after the update. In particular, it appears that it is having difficulties with anything that is inside a compound clip. Unfortunately, I did not do any prep for the installation or save an xml file (which, to be honest, I don't even know what to do this even if I had.)
PS, I've checked that the titles folder contains .localized in its tree description.
PPS, I had to manually copy the library from the external drive to my laptop, since I couldn't open the library without updating it. There was no way to copy it from within the FCP browser.
Question 1: Anyone else having this problem after updating to version 7? And if so, how the heck do you fix it? I'm finding the whole library management thing to be very confusing. So, any advice would be appreciated.
Question 2: is there any way I can revert to 10.6 where my project / library actually works? And if not, why not? Hey Apple... why can't I downgrade?
Question 3 (more of a rant, really): Why doesn't apple give you a pop up warning before you download an update with a list of instructions of things to do in preparation (ie, save an xml file, open up compound clips)? I am an intermediate, probably average, user of the program. I am not an IT person and am only finding out after the fact that there might be a bunch of tech things to deal with before the update. I've been caught by surprise and now I can't access old projects that I need as templates. If I can't solve this problem, then I am going to have to waste hours and hours and hours rebuilding the template, only to risk it being destroyed next time Apple does an update. Sorry to be so cranky about this, but it doesn't seem reasonable that I need a degree in computer science to use film editing software!!
End of rant: still looking for a solution to my problem of missing titles. Any ideas?
I'm using Ventura 13.6.2 on a Mac pro M1
Thanks for reading!
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 13.6