How do I reconnect media in FCP-X?

Hi all, I"ve been battling with a major FCPX media offline nightmare and found out something pretty interesting.

I went to the genius bar when FCPX was randomly dropping my online media and showing them as disconnected. With no "media reconnect" like the old FCP, I was scouring this thread for any help. I tried almost everything here and nothing would work for my problem.

Then FCPX wouldn't even import my files from my HD camera without immediatley showing them as offline. The guy at the genius bar opened up the library preferences in the "hidden library" located in the finder "go" menu. press option once in "Go" drop down menu to see "hidden library". Click on it. He then found the FCP preferences and trashed it. Then all the files I'd imported suddenly reappeared.

I'm still considering switching to Adobe Premiere since I will be working mainly from my Panasonic GH2 camera now, but I'm still doing the research on the promise of FCPX. I found some really intersting webinars on where to go next after FCP7. enjoy:

http://www.promax.com/s-113-FCP-7-to-FCP-X-Webinar.aspx

martavp wrote:

With no "media reconnect" like the old FCP, I was scouring this thread for any help. I tried almost everything here and nothing would work for my problem.

I'm still considering switching to Adobe Premiere since I will be working mainly from my Panasonic GH2 camera now, but I'm still doing the research on the promise of FCPX. I found some really intersting webinars on where to go next after FCP7. enjoy:

http://www.promax.com/s-113-FCP-7-to-FCP-X-Webinar.aspx

Yes, I got into this problem at midnight !

Why did major disastor always happened at midnight ?

And u r right we cannot re-connect media !

All my files are referenced, I don't remember moving or deleting anything but last midite when I opened up FCPX, to my horror all are missing.

Solve it using the Open Timeline method but doing this repeatedly for 120 clips at midnite can go crazy ! In FCE, all I have to do is link one file & the rest of 119 clips are automatically searched since they are in the same folder !

Looks like FCPX is getting less smart, hopefully Apple will do something about this !

Cheers

Honestly, I didn't have time to read all the posts in this thread, but I did find another solution here:

http://www.danmccomb.com/posts/1175/tips-for-reconnecting-offline-media-in-final -cut-pro-x/

That is not a solution. Read all the posts next time.

muffelstryk wrote:

That is not a solution. Read all the posts next time.

So, can we conclude that there is no solution. There is only a workaround ?

muffelstryk: For me, it was a solution. Was it absolute (as in permanently solves the problem and I'll never have to worry about reconnecting media again)? No. Like RyanManUtd said, there are really only workaround solutions. Now, if all you are ******** about is semantics, and your biggest problem with my post was my use of the word 'solution' well, then, you have much larger issues than reconnecting your media in FCPX. I didn't see the workaround I posted in any of the 75% or so of the posts I read, so I posted it, thinking it might help someone. My apologies if I missed the same link being posted earlier in the thread.

naw - Scott your post was completely useful for a certain problem - a good workaround and gives us more information. It is also a perfectly reasonable reply considering the thread's title.

But your post does not address the OTHER major problem here that nobody can seem to fix except using a bunch of tedious terminal commands, - which is "what do you do if you want to change a file that is already in mutliple places in a project?" (eg an audio mix or a rendered scene from an animation program or after effects). In the past you could just reconnect it with a differnent version of the file. Now you can't do that (without reseting the file's dates with ternimal and trashing the old version - and you're screwed if you threw away or replaced the original media file because you no longer have the original date data). This is actually the reason i've held off buying FCP-X.

In otherwords, we're all bringing good stuff to the table and it all has the possibility to help us make a better workaround, whether or not it helps our immediate problem. So lets be civil to each other.

Ok, this is what happened to me and how I fixed it, i.e. reconnected the media.

I moved files from one machine to another, then I changed where some of them were sitting on the main drive so FCPX obviously disconnects the media.

I found the file on the hard drive, selected the clip that was missing in FCPX, imported the file and it automatically replaced the missing clip, just as it would if there was a reconnect option.

I just tried multiple clips at once, and that works too.

Hope this helps.

PS: Here is my idea on how to replace old media with new media. Move the old stuff, then open FCPX so it all show up as offline. Make sure your replacement files have the same names as the old media and import as discussed above. Don't know if that works, but it could haha.

Good luck everyone!

pretty sure that's been tried. I think it just imports them as new files unless you set the creation date/mod date the same. Thanks though.

Figured out something interesting today that might help you guys. I had a similar issue... moving FCP Events from one HDD to another... disconnected clips, you know the story.

I was looking at the files in the in the "Original Media" folder in the Final Cut Events folder, and noticed that they were all shortcuts or references to files on the previous HDD. So, I just replaced all the references in the Original Media folder with the actual files... and everything in FCPX was automatically reconnected with the right clips on the right drive.

In my case, all the files I needed were in the Final Cut Events folder, just not in the Original Media folder, so all I had to do was move them into the Original Media folder. Since I replaced the references with the actual files there were no duplicates.

Maybe someone already mentioned this. If so, sorry. Too lazy to comb through all the replies.

Bravo! Trashing the preferences worked for me! Bless you MartaVP

I've had success with reconnecting files by just re-importing the files.

As many others have pointed out [but i can't verify myself] this probably won't work if you have modified the original file.

In my case, though, I imported a dozen movie files last night from my camera's SD card, spent a few hours editing in FCPX and then went to bed. Before I did so, I deleted the files off the card and put it back in the camera.

I woke to discover that all the files were missing. I hadn't checked "copy files to Final Cut Events Folder' when I imported, so FCPX expected them on the SD card, which were - gasp - now deleted!

I used Photo Recovery to find the files again and just used 'Import Files' command.

As I did so, the missing files alert icons dissappeared and FCPX reconnected to the media - this time, I copied them all to the original events folder.

Hope this was useful.

I'm dying. I just opened up a huge 200-300 hour editing project, and suddenly 95% of the project is disconnected. I didn't move anything or any folders.

O crap!!!!!!!!

I'm under a deadline, and I cannot figure out how to fix this. I don't know how many hundred edits there are, shots, etc. but it's huge.

IS THERE A SOLUTION YET???

What caused the disconnect? If you're on a differe t user, that can cause issues sometimes in my experience.

Go back to FCP 7. Don't waste time with FCP X just go straight back to FCP 7.

Merry Xmas all! 🙂