how do you find missing titles, effects, and generators in final cut pro x?

In the timeline, turn on the timeline index Shift-Cmd-2 and see if anything appears with the yellow warning tag next to it.

Sometimes even after making sure that nothing is missing, I still get that same error. Today I found a strange but simple solution.

I decided to copy all the elements in the timeline to a new project to start looking for the problematic clip (I know, I could have simply duplicated the project, but for some reason I didn't). I selected all the clips in the timeline (Cmd + A) and copied them (Cmd + C). Suddenly, the dreaded missing media triangle disappeared. I repeated this process on all my projects with this issue it worked every time.

Perhaps copying all the videos in a timeline causes some sort of project media refresh that can't be triggered otherwise. It would be great if this could also be triggered when media in the project is relinked. #justsaying

So just for clarity, the solution is below:

Solution

1. Make sure there isn't actually any media missing.
2. Select all elements in the timeline (Cmd + A).
3. Copy selected elements (Cmd + C).

That's it. The error should no longer be displayed.

This may be an old thread, but I hope someone checks on it.

I'm having similar problems as pneumadeux, but I DO have little yellow flags appear next to items in the timeline index when I hit Shift-Cmd-2.

Question is: now what? I see a yellow flag, but I don't know what the warning or missing effect/title is for each piece...

I Did the solution below from 17xande with the addition of actually having to paste the time line I copied into a new project.

Solution

1. Make sure there isn't actually any media missing.
2. Select all elements in the timeline (Cmd + A).
3. Copy selected elements (Cmd + C).
4. Then paste (Cmd+V) in to a new project.

That's it. The error should no longer be displayed. (in the new project.)

pneumadeux, did you ever find a solution to this problem? I am having the same issue and have been searching for a couple of weeks trying to find out how to identify what part of the timeline is missing the effect. Before I actually open the project but have it highlighted in the project library window, I can see the yellow caution sign in the inspector window taunting me by saying "Missing Effects" and it starts to list what effects are missing but only shows the first couple, I've tried clicking, double clicking, right clicking and clicking with my fingers crossed, but cannot persuade the inspector window to give up any information on the mysterious missing effects. I suspect there is a way to get this information from FCPX but I don't know what that is. So, if you did find a solution would you post it here? Thanks.

Hey all,

Two years later the same thing still happens with FCPX 10.1.3

IN my case I DID use Motion, and created an Element that had a media well. Everything was fine till I exited and reopened FCPX. The project showed up with a bunch of missing title clips, and a mystery clip in the project that crashed FCPX everytime I tried to move it to trash.

FCPX would try to render and just loop over and over unable to render one of the clips flagged as something missing.

I went through each clip and filled in the media wells, and eventually FCPX showed no "yellow triangles" in the timeline or timeline index, nor undrendered

bits. Yet when I went to share, it complained "... has missing titles or generators"

FCPX would try to render and just loop over and over unable to render one of the clips flagged as something missing.

Where is your Library located? On the root drive but outside of your User folder? I noticed this behavior when I tried starting a new library on the root level of my internal drive (it doesn't happen with libraries on external drives.) When I tried rendering a generator, FCPX would go into this "infinite loop" of trying to render, displaying a dashed orange render line, and the only way to stop it from rendering was to make a change to the storyline (not even going into the background tasks dialog and attempting to stop the render would work.) Everything "righted" itself when I (shut down FCPX) moved the library back inside my ~/user/Movies folder.

— Hope this helps...

All my libraries are on an external RAID drive.

What made you suspect the location of files was part of the issue?

Another symptom was that FCPX would still show the orange need-to-render bar when opening the project, and sometimes after a full render of the timeline.

Apple?

I recently added a new plugin (mObject) and was experimenting with it. I decided to create a "temporary" library on my root drive since it's the fastest in my setup. I prefer to have major files like the library at the top level of my drives, and for the internal drive, that's outside my User folder. That's when all the trouble started. I would manually start a render and FCPX would not stop... would not completely render the clip... I would get "dashed" orange render lines over the clip. The only way to stop the rendering was to add something new to the storyline (that includes going into background tasks and trying to stop or pause the rendering from there!) Once I moved the library back into my user folder (and inside Movies), all the rendering problems stopped.

The only connection I can make is that FCPX is getting hung up on user permissions and the "current user". A lot of these issues started when I upgraded to a new iMac and restored all my old software (from the previous iMac) from Time Machine. It made me alter my user name for the new machine and I had some segments on this new machine with the older user permissions which I had to manually change to the new username in many cases.

If you have strict (user only) permissions on your RAID, try loosening them or make sure that you add your username to the list with read/write permissions. (? perhaps.)

I ran into this same issue. Had the original edit on a client's external drive, copied over the file to an internal, fired it up to make a few changes and kept getting this message. Tried the index tip above to see if I could find the offending clip(s) but there was nothing. I did see a few old markers left in place (and being a neat-nick, deleted them as they were no longer needed) and poof; yellow warning off, file exported perfectly.

I don't know why this worked, but it did -- on both this, and a second project copied from the same drive -- just deleting one marker seemed to fix the issue so either I got lucky and hit the one causing the problem, or deleting a marker 'reset' whatever it was FCP X was detecting as the problem.

Deleting the first marker in my project solved this for me too. None of the other variables were similar. Library was local and I was actively editing yesterday. Opened that project today to export and ran into that "missing titles..." message. I'd agree with KBriand that it was just a "reset".

Who would have thought such a strange little process would fix it. Thanks for being prepared to not only try something that didn't seem that it needed to be done, but also having the presence of thought to note what you had done. Just wanted to say thanks 🙂

At first I told myself, great! problem solvedI

As an IS person this hunted me for a few days until I had the time to go back and look at the problem again and after a few hours of searching and trial and error my conclusion is FCPX has a GREMLIN inside that pops up under certain conditions that are very difficult to replicate.

So KUDOS to 17xande and his CmdA-CmdC solution!

(noob case warning): in my case it was a clip with a timelapse shot on a SJCAM4000 action cam, probably because of different frame rate 😝 I didnt see it until now 😝 I duplicated the project and deleted clip by clip (or a couple of them) and trying to export (cmd+e) until i found the little ***#$%&. I removed it, used another clip, solved the problem. I removed all the transitions, marks and audio, leaving the clips only with all the effects before. No more yellow triangle and no more message warning me. My bad 😝 Hope it helps anyway. cheers