Source files gone Offline but still exist - Can't export sequence!

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Level 1

13 points

Source files gone Offline but still exist - Can't export sequence!

Hi folks,

I'm hoping someone can help me out of a predicament, please.

I began a brief project a year or so back in FCP 3x for a friend to send to her kids. Since then it lay fallow until she brought me some new footage to add, but still have the Scratch disk intact as it was and the FCP Project files library with it. In the interim I'd upgraded the FCP Studio 3 and opened up the project in FCP 7. Strangely, some of the clips in the bin were listed as offline. I couldn't discern any pattern or reason why some clips were still linked with their raw source files and some not. In any case, I finished editing the short sequence in the timeline and went to export it to QT. I should have realized that, predictably, the exported sequence included only those segments that were not offline. I checked again and all the source clips from the camera exist, but was unable to reconnect them to the clips that access them.

For instance, the source file might be named, 100_2347.MOV, while named in the bin, ELS - Windshield Before JLM.

I'm notified that 20 of the clips are offline, but any attempt to reconnect fails. I'm not as savvy in FCP as I probably should be, otherwise this would not have happened, or I could reconstruct the actions that got me there, but I was fairly proficient on a Moviola and fluent on a Steenbeck about a 100 years ago, though.

What can I do at this point? Is there any way to force a reconnect? Manually? Will I have to start a new project re-import the clips and recut the thing? I hope I won't have to edit the thing from scratch at this point. What am I forgetting (Doh)? Thanks in advance for any help on this.😕

All the best,

David

MacBook Pro (17-inch Late 2011), Final Cut Studio 3, TimeCapsule 1G

Posted on Oct 31, 2012 7:26 AM

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Answer 1

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Meg The Dog

Level 6

13,567 points

Oct 31, 2012 9:48 AM in response to davidas3

Control-click on an offline clip in your FCP Browser, and choose Reconnect Clip from the drop down menu. In the top box of the pane that opens, you should see the clip listed as offline, and the directory where FCP was expecting to find the clip.

Is FCP expecting to find the clip on a drive that you no longer have connected, or have renamed?

What happens when you press the locate button?

Don't worry that you have renamed the clip in the browser to something other than than the source file name. FCP will keep track of that.

MtD

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Answer 2

davidas3 Author

Level 1

13 points

Nov 1, 2012 4:55 AM in response to Meg The Dog

MtD,

Thanks very much! Pretty much solved the issue for me. I've been using the same scratch drive I set up for FCP 3x when I began the project. And did not change any names. In the event, yesterday,the listing for Offline Files showed no usual clips suspected of being the source or in any location. That's what had me confounded. Figured I'd have to review the source files and try to guess which clips Today, after I successfully linked some wayward audio file links, suddenly FCP comes through, as you mentioned, and the Files To Connect pane list the names and the location on the HD where said source suspects are expected to be (and are!) Go figure. I appreciate it.

All the best,

David

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