What is quicktime error -50?

This error occurs when there is corrupt or invalid media in your timeline. Check that the codec of all clips in your timeline are recommended for use in FCP X.

Andy

It's worse than an error -49, but not as bad as an error -51 😝

(sorry - I know that won't help)

-50 is usually a drive error.Maybe a bad sector on the drive that the cache is being written on. Or a permissions problem. Or something like that.

I just got this error trying to render H.264 format video files in compressor 4, and I know normally Compressor just hangs up and I have to force it to quit when I do that. It clearly doesn't like compressing compressed H.264 format files (I usually just convert to either ProRes or ProRes Proxy before sending to compressor now). Though I just bought a 12 core Mac Pro, this accepted the H.264 and started, probably because it had the power to get passed some labour intensive task my 8 core couldn't manage. Though it still didn't render them and just resulted in a -50 quicktime error message after a few minutes....

...anyway, so I doubt it's a drive error, and I doubt it's corrupt file issues, probably something to do with codec incompatibilty I would have thought... and if you are using h.264 that might well be the problem, though other formats probably could cause a similar issue. If you want smaller files for upload then maybe try ProResProxy, I've never had a problem with that, though that can still be quite large for some uploads.

..anyway, hope my experience may help someone in someway!

JohnSmfifth wrote:

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...anyway, so I doubt it's a drive error, and I doubt it's corrupt file issues, probably something to do with codec incompatibilty I would have thought...

Actually, the very handy Edit Codes app says it's corrupt or invalid media.

As to h.264, I have not run into the problems you describe. Try running Digital Rebellion's Compressor Repair and check the trash preferences option.

Russ

I experienced the error in Compressor FCS3, and it turned out to be a frame size problem when watermarks are used.

My setting was set to resize to 854x480 (essentially 480p 16:9 with square pixels). Whenever I tried to add a watermark it would fail ("3x crash service down", quicktime error -50). It worked fine without the watermark.

I tried different file locations, files, codecs, and Compressor Repair. It wasn't that. As soon as I changed the resize to something else like 864x486 (with watermark), everything worked.

I had the same error, and found this post.

This was the answer! Thanks!

My sequence setting was H.264, and this was the issue. Who knew?

I simply went to the sequence settings and changed to ProRes and it rendered it all again. This created new render files, and all was well. I sent it to compressor and it all worked well.

From now on, I'll make the sequence for ProRes.

LeRoy H.

I'll bump to add my solution. This was driving me crazy.

My export was crashing at about 14% each time. So, I looked at about 14% down my timeline. I had a short slow-mo bit, and that was causing my Quicktime Error -50.

jeremyzimmermann wrote:

I had a short slow-mo bit, and that was causing my Quicktime Error -50.

Sounds correct to me. That error is often (but not always) seems to be caused by a clip (or clips) that are corrupted or invalid media that are giving FCP trouble.

Russ

This same problem seemed to happen to me out of the blue. I've been using the same process for nearly a year now, shooting with the same camera and editing on FCPX. Now, nearly every video I edit this problem occurs. All I do is duplicate the project and it exports fine (whether to Youtube, Vimeo, or an H.264 file).

However, if I try and export that same duplicate project again, Error-50...

Very aggrevating.

Not to mention, I use to be able to export multiple projects while simultaneaousy working on others. No more, one export at a time, find something else to do for 20 minutes while it uploads. If not, a 2 minute video could take close to an hour or more.

I had the same problem.It's really a drive error.

I try using mobile hard disk drive,and set the destination in that.It will be OK.

I don't know the inner reason.Apple's engineers should focus this problem.

Sometimes it indicates a drive problem, but not always. Many users who have had this error had bad media – often including render files.

Russ

I have this issue, too. It is crashing at about 8% and I found that there was a very big jpeg there (an original export image of a poster). I deleted this jpeg and now it is running at about 11%.

(Even if I don't really now if it will eventually work...)