I'm having an extremely frustrating problem that has really been confusing the hell out of me. I've edited a film on FCP 5.1 - the first cut of the film was completed on a fresh install of fcp 5.1 on an Intel Quad Xeon Mac Pro with 8 gigs of ram and using an internal SATA 500 gig drive for media. Towards the end of the editing using this system, I started to have the problem: randomly, FCP would put little 3 second snipits out of place on my timeline and there would be no indication of a new clip or sound file in the timeline - it would appear as if there would be one continuous take but at a certain spot it would cut to some random shot but when I match frame to the original, the original would be intact. The only clue was in the middle of a longer clip, the render bar would show blue instead of gray in those random chunks where FCP would pop in something that shouldn't be there. Bah! I tried to reconnect media on places where this would happen and also done a select all on my timeline and reconnect media, I tried to roll the clip past this point and then roll it back, I tried clip disable and then re-enabling the clip, I've trashed prefs left and right with FCP Rescue all to no avail. The only way to fix this problem is to cut out the entire clip and then drag it back to the timeline from the viewer after matching back to the original but this doesn't bar it from happening again. It was very frustrating but I racked it up to being Intel mac bugs...

So, now I'm in the final stages of the final cut and I'm back home in LA on my dual core 2.3 powermac with 2.5 gigs of ram working on an exact mirror of the hard drive that was in the Intel Mac Pro sending updated project files back and forth to the original edit location and the Mac Pro to the filmmakers and I'm still having the same problem in my timeline. I'm at a loss and they're getting frustrated because they keep burning DVD's for viewing and selling purposes with random sound and video files popping up every now and then, they're not the most technical guys and I don't have a clear solution for them. What can I do?

Thanks so much guys...

[EDIT] - just noticed that on longer clips that have color correction and filters applied where the render bar is blue normally, there's no way to tell when random FCP shots have been inserted as the offending occurances are normally blue - in this case they just blend in perfectly - also the problem happened even on a text placeholder for a temp VFX shot, though all I had to do was roll the clip back and forth to fix this one, and with this one the text on black had a green render bar and the out of place shot it cuts to has the same blue render bar but the text clip in the timeline was not broken up... not much help but just thought it was worth mentioning...

I encountered the same problem when I tried to move an edit from my Macbook Pro to my G5 by copying the entire media folder and the program file. All the renders were messed up in similar ways to what you described.

I got it to work by using the Media Manager function to make a copy from the Macbook Pro to a firewire drive. No problems at all on the G5 now. I have no idea what is causing the "blue" bar symptom you are describing.

BTW - "WTF" means "What the flounder" I hope.

Hey, thanks for your reply...

Ish, that's not really an option for me as my files have to mirror those on the original edit machine which is located in Montana. Come to think of it though, I began the project by capturing telecinied tapes on the Mac Pro, reverse telecining them, copying over those files at night to my G5 and editing on the G5 during the day - then once everything was captured, I copied the G5 hard drive contents onto the Mac Pro hard drive (by this point in editing there were render files, temp music, stills etc. etc.) naming the drives the exact same and they were both internal 500 gig SATA drives. The only reason I chose to capture on the much faster Xeon was because it reverse telecinied files so much faster than my g5 and saved a day or so and I could still edit on my G5 while capturing. Hmm, interesting you had the same problem, so FCP gets very sensitive about mirroring hard drives... an important thing to note for other users.

I hope there's another way to fix the blue bar FCP problem-

WTF are my best friend's initials, I usually scream his name when things go wrong in FCP so I started saying WTF to shorten it down... ;)

WTF means "We Treasure FinalCutPro" (except when it means "We Trash FinalCutPro")...

Hey I wonder if something somewhere on the truly LONG list of improvements made in 5.1.2 might address your issue, Bryan. Going from 5.1 to 5.1.2 is not an insignificant update.

That's odd, I remember checking for updates just a couple of weeks ago and nothing came up - but now the 5.1.2 update shows up. That's strange, must be a fairly new update... I'll give it a try and report back -

That's odd, I remember checking for updates just a couple of weeks ago and nothing came up - but now the 5.1.2 update shows up. That's strange, must be a fairly new update... I'll give it a try and report back -

It's new but not that new. It arrived mid to late September. Seems odd that your system wouldn't have reported it unless you're on a G5 Mac and hadn't updated to the Universal Binary version. That's a pre-requisite for 5.1.2.

-gb-

No, I was on 5.1 on both the Mac Pro and my G5 and when I started to edit at the mid to end of September, the very first thing I did was check for updates on the Mac Pro for 5.1 thinking surely they'd have something new to 5.1 and hoping they had ironed out some of the kinks but came up with nothing. After that first day, I never had internet access again for about 1.5 months (we were out in the boonies of northern Montana editing on a lake). Eh well, never had problems until now in the last stages of the final edit so I can't complain. FCP only crashed on me twice on the intel, zero times on my G5...