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Helpful articles for Final Cut Pro for Mac, Final Cut Pro for iPad and Final Cut Camera:

⏺ If Final Cut Pro doesn't work on your Mac after an update

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⏺ If Live Multicam in Final Cut Pro isn't working

⏺ If Final Cut Camera isn't working

User profile for user: jjrecort
jjrecort Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Urgent Help with Final Cut Pro 11: I Lost My Entire Timeline!

Hi everyone,




Something just happened to me that hasn’t happened since 1995… I’m working with the new version 11 of Final Cut Pro (which, by the way, crashes a lot), and right after finishing the project, the app crashed once again. So far, nothing out of the ordinary for this version’s instability, but this time, something much worse happened: I lost my entire timeline.




The worst part is that none of the backups recover the timeline. I can restore the event content and markers, but the timeline is completely empty in all the backups. It only shows two test audio clips I added back then to check recording levels a month ago after shooting. But the main edit? It's all gone.




Here’s what I’ve tried so far:


• Restoring from Final Cut’s automatic backups.


• Searching “autosave” projects within the library.


• Opening the backups from the finder directly.




At this point, I’m starting to worry that I’ll have to rebuild the entire documentary from scratch, and honestly, that thought is terrifying… Has anyone ever faced a situation like this? Is there any way to recover the full timeline (project) that I might be missing?




Any help or advice would be massively appreciated. Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.2

Posted on Dec 19, 2024 2:53 AM

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3 replies
User profile for user: Luis Sequeira1
Luis Sequeira1
User level: Level 9
68,014 points

Dec 19, 2024 3:01 AM in response to jjrecort

It looks like this would not be a mistake that you'd make, but still... often when a user says "my project disappeared" it tends to happen because the user, unwittingly, was editing not a project but inside a clip or compound clip timeline. If the last version had been corrupted, then the backups would have the project, which seems to give more credence to the above hypothesis.


So, just in case... check if some clip appears to have about the duration you expect for your project...



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User profile for user: terryb
terryb
User level: Level 4
2,710 points

Dec 19, 2024 1:55 PM in response to jjrecort

As a last resort, you could try making a copy of the library and then right-click on this copy and choose Show Package Contents. Move the CurrentVersion.flexolibrary file to the Trash. This can *sometimes* help resurrect a damaged library. Be very careful in there. Do not delete anything else. Be sure FCP is not running while you do this. Then launch FCP and try to open the copy of the library.


I would also delete FCP preferences. Hold option and command when launching FCP and choose Delete. The default Untitled library will open. Reset the Preferences/Settings to the way you like (disable background rendering, etc.).


This probably won't help the current situation, but paste a report from Etrecheck https://etrecheck.com into a reply using the "Additional text" button and we can have a look to try to determine why your system is so unstable.

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Urgent Help with Final Cut Pro 11: I Lost My Entire Timeline!

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