Final Cut Pro timeline is suddenly glitchy on playback, seems corrupted

I've been working on a project in final cut for a few weeks. It's been working fine. I'm not sure if it's related, but tonight I imported some footage from a phone, into a new event. Then I started getting the spinning beach ball. This happened sometimes when I was placing still photos in the timeline, but I would simply quit FCP and restart, and things would be fine for a while.

Today though, after importing that media, the playback was very glitchy. The picture would freeze, but I'd hear the audio continuing. Or the audio would blank out for a few seconds, and then continue.

Seems like this is "corrupted" but I have no experience with trying to resolve such things. I've been using FCP 10.6.7

I've restarted my media server. I've restarted the computer. I've tried restoring library from back up. I keep getting the same issues. If the back ups are corrupted too, or you can't open a backup without it linking to the corrupted file, I'm not sure how to shake off this corrupted file. When I say file, I mean the project file to open the whole project: Library might be the more accurate term.

I'm a little worried since I don't know how to fix it. But I have faith this isn't the first time, and someone might have some suggestions.

iMac Pro, macOS 14.0

Posted on Feb 8, 2024 4:33 PM

Top-ranking reply

terryb

Level 4

3,370 points

Posted on Feb 22, 2024 4:53 PM

Booting off an external SSD with a fresh OS install allows you to confirm whether or not there are issues with the macOS installed on your iMac's internal drive. For this simple external SSD test just create a new user in the new OS and go from there. Install FCP, create a new library and import fresh media onto the external SSD.

Migration means using Apple's Migration Assistant to copy a System's info and Users from another computer, Time Machine backup or another backup drive. This is great when you buy a new machine and want to migrate yourself from your old machine to the new machine. The caveat is that it's best to only migrate User info, no Applications or System files.

Correct, just to rule things out, no disk encryption (FileVault) to make the test as straightforward as possible.

Ultimately the goal is to quickly take the iMac's currently installed macOS out of the equation to see if it's the problem.

If there was a bad drive in the Jellyfish that could also cause glitchy playback and random freezes.

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Final Cut Pro timeline is suddenly glitchy on playback, seems corrupted

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