Why does FCP X re-render projects that have already been rendered?

but stil, if it renders completely - then it is rendered, and those files are somewhere (the rendered files) so why after closing and re-opening does some of the storyline show up as unrendered - I mean its a completely legitimate question. Please update if you figure anything out, I'm very interested! Thanks pjslo - I'm with you!

pjslo wrote:

> why wouldn't FCP "see" the existing render files in the project folder and simply use those?

Yeah, that's crazy. The only reason I can think of is that it is losing the connection, the pointer, to those files. It would be interesting to locate your render files and see if they are erased or ignored at each launch.

Whenever you're trying to figure out a software bug, it's essential to reduce the problem to something very simple, the simplest setup that reproduces the problem. Maybe make a project that has just one jpeg that rerenders. Find that file on your disk (Spotlight: last modified date) and watch what happens to it when you quit and when you rerender.

If it's not a lost pointer, it might be incorrect permissions. You could try doing permissions repair (Disk Utility).

Stuckfootage, brilliant post - I'll try it and update...

pjslo wrote:

I'm going to a comedy show tonight.

Ha! I get it. Final Cut would be funny if you hadn't spent so much time and money.

OK, so it seems that FCX forgets that it rendered the files in one project. Maybe it's just a case of the project's being corrupt. Can you build a new project with the same media? Same problem? What if you delete half the files from your current project? Does the problem persist? See how beta-testing can be fun? We can spend our weekend doing Apple's job for them.

It might be useful to know your project settings: codec, size, etc.

Normally when you edit video into a timeline it does not need to be rendered. Titles and transitions and effects need to be rendered, but normally in editing a program, the entire program does not need to be rendered. You keep saying your whole program needs to be re-rendered, and I'm curious why the whole program needs to be re-rendered, when nornally the majority of the media in a project does not need to be rendered let alone re-rendered. If the whole media needs rendering, then it's possible there is a problem with the media that's causing this, but whatever.

I'm havin ghte same issue but it appears to be intermittent. I was editing a long project (100 minutes) and while using Proxy Media, it would re-render every title (roughly 15) everytime I restarted the program. When I switched back to native media to export, which is a mix of ProRes and AVC HD, it seemed to have stopped. I also moved it to a different folder within my FCPX Projects folder. I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it or if it was switching from Proxy media but either way I'm in better shape so far. Completely bizarre though...

pjslo wrote:

> I didn't optimize any of the media (jpeg files) on import.

Interesting to note the jpeg is not in the list of still image formats supported by FCX 10.0.3:

http://help.apple.com/finalcutpro/mac/10.0.3/#ver2833f855

I think that's a typo

Still images including PSD, BMP, GIF, RAW, JPEG, PNG, TGA, and TIFF.

No video in the project means no video specification and no frame rate is set.

Did you make a custom setting, or just drop stills into the project? If you're going to use stills only you really need to make a specific custom setting or weird things can happen.

That said it obviously should not be re-rendering all the time.

So I have been reading this post because I had a similiar problem. I know that the last reply was send some time ago, but I simply want to help, as I have found one solution for the problem.

You said that only this particular project was "mixed up", meaning it re-rendered the whole project over and over again. I had the same problem and created a new project to see if it was possible to work with the original media. It was. But because I'm producing quite a long movie, too, I didn't want to do all the work over and over again. So what I did was the following (make sure FCPX isn't open before you try it!): I opened the Finder and went to the "Movie"-folder. There you should find one "Final Cut Projects" and one "Final Cut Events" Folder. In these folders you will find the names of your projects/events. Open your event folder, select "Render Files" and copy the folders you find inside (should be something like Peaks Data etc.). Then open your project in the project folder and again the "Render Files". Paste the copied folders. It will ask you if you want to paste and replace the data. Say you want to replace every file and wait several minutes. When the process is finished, open FCPX and your project. It will say that you have to render several files. Do this. Once it is finished, you can work/export etc. your project and it should not re-render again.

It worked in my case, but I can not guarantee that it will work everytime...
Hope I could help!

Same thing here. Project (all media optimized) has been finished (and rendered). The next morning on opening the project again (nothing had been changed over night...) it's starting to re-render some areas of the timeline, mostly titles and compound clips.

What version are you using?