Media offline after moving events FCPx 10.2.3

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Media offline after moving events FCPx 10.2.3

Hello everyone,

I have multiple fcpx library's (4) for my own company, all stored on an external USB 3 1TB SSD harddrive.

I wanted to merge 3 of them together in the 4th library. So I opened FCPX (10.2.3) and opened all my library's. For every library (except 1, which was going to be the complete library - hereafter named: merged library) I selected the event and went: File > move library to > merged library (I made sure all library's had an extra empty event in them). So I did this for the 3 library's and closed them all except the merged library.

Now all my media from the moved events is offline (except for the media which was already in this specific merged library). When i look in the finder, all library's are smaller than 1MB and my merged library has not gotten any bigger. When i look in the original media map for the merged library and then go to an event and the original media folder, i noticed all media are links.

So FCP moved all original media from the library's, placed links in the merged library but didn't copy the actual original media. It did remove the original media from the library's tho...

Any suggestions on how to get this back? And no i don't have a backup of this media (I know.. I know..)

Thanks in advance..

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Feb 10, 2016 6:40 AM

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Answer 1

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,010 points

Feb 10, 2016 7:09 AM in response to R Stolman

NNot sure I fully follow this, but first questions, were the original libraries using managed media or external media? Is the merged library using managed or external media?

IF there are links in the merged library original media folders, use right-click on the symlinks to show original file.

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Answer 2

R Stolman Author

Level 1

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Feb 10, 2016 7:20 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

I had 4 managed library's, with 1 event in each of them (all media was in the library's itself). Let's call them A, B, C and D. D being the one all others were suppose to merge into.

So i moved the events from A, B and C to D via: File, move event to library > D. I waited till it was done and closed the library's (except D).

When i clicked on the just moved events in library D, all media was offline. I went to the finder to library A, B and C and found that their size was under 1MB and that there was no media in the original media folder. Library D however didn't get any bigger and indeed in the original media folder of the moved events there were only links to the media.

When i right click a link and click on "show original file" it says: The alias “DSC_6186.mov” can’t be opened because the original item can’t be found.

..... So it seems like the Move option of FCP has deleted all my media on its original place and only put symlinks back, which are useless without the original media...

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Answer 3

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,010 points

Feb 10, 2016 7:52 AM in response to R Stolman

Sorry, but I don't know why this would happen. I can't reproduce the problem on my system.

Check inside the original libraries to see what's there. The Finder info can be misleading when hard links are being used.

Is the USB drive OS X formatted?

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Answer 4

R Stolman Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 10, 2016 7:59 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

The original library's are empty in the finder (except for the dummy event i created so i could move the event i wanted).

The drive is ExFat formatted.

I've looked around quite a bit in FCP and the finder.. but it seems all my media is just gone ....

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Answer 5

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,010 points

Feb 10, 2016 8:03 AM in response to R Stolman

I Don't have a Dave I can test this at the moment, but ExFAT may be the problem as it doesn't support hard links. Uunless you have original camera archives I don't think there's a way around this.

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