FCP keeps dumping my render files

I can't understand this. I am using FCP 5.1.2 on a PowerMac G5 Dual 2.5
When I render video in my sequence everything is fine. The sequence plays, the red line above the timeline disappears as it should. Then when I quit FCP and then either immediately restart FCP or even some days later start FCP, everything is unrendered, the red lines are back and I get the media offline prompt to reconnect media. When I locate the media, the files are always in the trash. It seems to happen when I shutdown the computer, because when I boot up my trash shows content, and even before I launch FCP I can check the trash and it always contains FCP render files.
Anyone any idea what is going on?
Thanks in advance.

Hello and thank you to all that have replied to my troubles. Very big apologies for the delay in my response. Other work issues forced me to move on from this problem. Needless to say, this one hasn't gone away!
Here is a bit more info:
I have used FCP Rescue. I have deleted my FCP prefs folder. The root to my scratch disk is HD2/Final Cut Pro/Capture Scratch. This drive has between 60 and 100GB free most of the time. This drive is not my startup volume.
Just for reference, I am not sure if the folder heirarchy is correct for FCP. My Final Cut Pro folder on this drive contains the following folders in its' root:
Audio Capture Scratch
Audio Render Files
Autosave Vault
Capture Scratch
Render Files
Thumbnail Cache Files
Waveform Cache Files
Should all these folders be in the root of my Final Cut Pro folder? The reason I ask is that when I look into my Render Files folder the most recent projects I have worked on do not have project folders within this folder. In fact they do not seem to exist anywhere, apart from in the trash!!!
I hope you can pick back up on this issue for me. I am really only just getting to grips with FCP having been an AVID Media Composer person in a previous life. The software seemed fine for me when I didn't need to know what it did behind the scenes. Now I do and as you can tell, I'm struggling.
Thanks again.

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Not that I can think of.
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Jerome Colas wrote:
If I manually change it for every source file to progressive (which should be done automaticallt by Compressor), I then get a progressive output.
But that defeats Compressor's purpose and is a source for error.
Jérôme.
I'm not sure what this means.
And I wonder whether it's a metadata thing and, and while disconcerting, whether it will have any practical effect on your project.
As a test try a single clip. Turn on frame controls with output fields set to progressive. See if it is now identified correctly. If it is bring that into FCP and compare against that against the one that is identified as interlaced.
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Check where your render files are set to. This may be a non-existant location so that they are not actually being saved to discl. Go and re-set the render file location and physically re-select teh drive and directory location. Ive seen this before and although at first glance the render location looked ok, when you actually re-set it to a drive/directory it started really saving the render the files and all was well.

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Render files have a very tenuous relationship to specific points in the time line. It is not reasonably possible to link your reading of a render file name to a particular point.
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Hello Hello
I remember from using various PC Video Editing programs that each program established for itself a 'Render Folder', or sometimes called an 'Auxiliary Folder'.
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Well - (aside from increasing Re-Rendering Time in regard to a new DVD burn), is it safe to delete the contents of the 'Render Folder' in an effort to free up hard drive space?
Thanx
Mike

Hi Mike,
You may have a couple of things mixed up.
In FCE the Render Files and Audio Render Files folders hold the render files produced by FCE. FCE uses those render files when you play the timeline, print to video or export a movie. You can delete them at any time because you can always re-render in FCE. However, you do need to be careful at the point when you export a movie from FCE (for example, to use in iDVD)
If you export to a QT Self-Contained movie, all the media for the movie you export (including rendered video & audio) is incorporated into the resulting QT movie file. Assuming a successful export, you no longer need the FCE render files.
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In iDVD, after you burn your DVD, you have the option of keeping the 'rendered assets'; these are iDVD render files and are inside your iDVD project file; they are not the FCE render files.
If you really want to save time burning subsequent DVDs, in iDVD you should Save As Disk Image (instead of Burn DVD), which gives you a completely finished, fully encoded & formatted DVD disk image. You can then use the Finder, Disk Utility or Toast to burn additional DVDs for only the burn time, you won't have to go through iDVD's menus & re-rendering just to burn an additional DVD.

How to view FCPX Render Files?

To start with a simple question: In what format does FCPX store render files? I used to be able to view them in Quicktime with older versions of FCP. How can I view these files in FCPX? These are the sort of large files that show up in your "High Quality Media" folder with names like "Frame 28672 - 29695"
I had a catastrophic hard drive crash. The footage was lost but some fairly recent render files from the project were on a separate drive and remain intact. I also have the project file. Isn't there SOME way to fool FCP into showing these render files in the sequence and letting me at least view them (in sequence) in FCPX and then perhaps somehow, even if it's just real-time recording from a screen-capture program or by outputting through the display port, retrieve some of the lost footage? I don't need the audio, FYI.
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I've been having a vexing problem that's been costing me a lot of time. FCE keeps losing the render files for my projects, or more accurately, it is overwriting them or otherwise making them disappear. More background:
I have a large master project that is quite lengthy. I am also breaking that project into smaller videos (it's a concert and I want to have individual song videos as well). I render the large file and get it edited the way I like it. I do a "save as" to the project and create a working copy to clip into songs. However, once I start modifying the copy, if I reopen the original, I am told that the render files have gone offline, and even when I do a manual search i can not find them.
Shouldn't a copy of a project get its own set of renders? Or am I doing something wrong?

First, welcome to the Final Cut Express forum!
Questions
What exactly do you mean by +large master project+ and +quite lengthy?+
What do you mean by +manual search?+ In the reconnect dialog? in the Finder? Somewhere else?
What kind of video are you working with - DV, HDV, AVCHD, something else?
Did your source media clips (video) come directly from your camcorder or some other source? If a camcorder, what make & model?
What are your sequence settings?
_Possible explanation_
Render files are associated with a project name, and no two projects use the same render files. What I suspect is going on is that when you do your +Save As+ and give the project a +new name,+ FCE is carrying the render files forward +associated with the name of the new project.+ That would explain why they are no longer available to the first project.
Suggestion
If you are basically using the same source media clips for your complete concert plus individual songs, imho it would be much better to confine your work to _one FCE project._
In that single project, create your _master sequence_ (the whole concert, as you have already done) and then just create a new sequence for each individual song video that you want to create. This is a much more efficient workflow than creating +separate projects+ to accomplish what you appear to be doing.

Trashed Render Files

Hey guys!
I'm in serious need of some help.
Been working on a business showreels in FCP 6.
I have finished my final edit and all looks great.
Filters have been applied and edit is rendered BUT as soon as the render is finished I am then asked to render AGAIN!?
I checked my trash and all the rendered file have been placed in there.
Is there is setting of some sort where rendered files get trashed immediately?
Really confused as I have never had this before.
Hung

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rh

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thanks in advance
Rob Grossman
Monrovia, Liberia

Welcome to the forum!
Render files can always be regenerated if needed. I dump them before backups.
If you keep your original footage on tape, the only stuff you need to back up is the FCP project file, any still images, AE files, etc. This takes VERY little space in the scheme of things.
The final quicktime video file (if that is what was created) can also be sent back to tape.
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x

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I'm trying to export (using compressor), and every time I try, I get an error in FCP that "some files went offline - render files".
I've tried everything I could thing of. I've rendered, I've re-rendered, I've deleted all render files and started over - nothing.
The render folders are names right and in the right place. I even took the tower to an Apple store for tech support, and they agreed everything looked good, as far as folder names/placement. They didn't know what was going on either.
So when I try to reconnect the media after the error message pops up, I get another message that says "there are no clips selected that have files associated with them". I've even used the render manager, deleted the clips, and re-rendered.
Nothing seems to work. What makes it more puzzling is that the audio render folder keeps popping up in the trash. I've moved it to the right place, and poof - it appears in the trash bin again. And some other render files seem to be going there instead of the render folder.
So how do I remedy this? I tried deleted all the render folders, and that didn't help. I'm going to try it again in a few minutes, just in case.
When I go into File/Reconnect media, I get a bunch of render files missing, along with a bunch of my media files listed under 'online'.
If I reconnect the online files, I have to render, and the whole thing starts over again. There is no red render bar in the timeline. The video plays audio and video just fine - just can't export. Any ideas?

My suspicion is that it may have something to do with your scratch disk filepath. What is your scratch disk filepath - drive name, everything...
Patrick

FCP keeps asking to re-render audio

I have a file - original is :
mpeg 2 muxed
1280x720
fps 25
- i used mpegstreamclip to convert to dv stream
now it's dv - stereo 44.1
after import to FCP - it asks to render audio - so I do It - then if I move the stream to new seq. it asks again?
the dv plays fine w sound in QT - why does it keep asking to re-render audio?

Thank you both.
I did check: convert to 48k so that worked well
- so my result file was DV stereo 48k. When I imported to FCP - it played fine in the viewer window - but when I dragged to the timeline it still needed to re render the audio. I looked in the FCP audio folder and saw that the format was changed to 32 bit float - little endian.
I looked in timeline setting and didn't see any special audio settings regarding this....
Q: Is there some other settings I can do so it doesn't need to re render in the timeline?

FCP Deleting Render Files

I'm currently running the latest version of FCP (7.0.1). However, it appears that whenever I close/quit FCP, it deletes all my recent render files. Is there some type of setting or known bug that would cause FCP to delete render files?
Thanks!
lance

Hi Tom,
I've returned to this project, and I'm still having similar problems - once I've tried to export a sequence, many (but definitely not all) of the renders are lost on export, or if the export was cancelled.
I've been careful to ensure that every option is enabled for the "Render All", and we've reloaded the FCS 3 software, but we're still editing from the same original projects (one project per artist for a batch of artists that we're making DVDs for).
I'd love to hear any more ideas or suggestions.
Cheers
Andrew

My FCP X render files are taking up my hardrive space!

When I use HD footage for my Final Cut Pro projects it takes up 20 GB per project....
I have a 3 TB external Hardrive, is their a way I can use that to move my render files to it and still be able to edit my project?
Can i delete my render field without messing up my project? Cant I just serenader them later?
My high quality media folder takes up 50 gbs, can I move that to my external drive then delete off my computer? When I edit i will have my drive plugged in.
Thanks.

You should definitely use the external drive - preferrably it should be connected via USB3 or Thunderbolt.
How you move things from here to there depends on what version of FCP X you are using.
In 10.1.x, assuming everything is inside the library, all you have to do is quit FCP X, drag the library to the external drive, let it copy over.
Then double click on the new library in the external drive and make sure everything works. After that you can delete the old one.
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FCP is saving render files in the trash

FCP is saving render files in the trash,. Why? How cant i change this

video capture, audio capture, video render and audio render all checked and set to- work drive/my project folder.
Waveform cache/work drive/my project folder.
thumbnail cache/work drive/my project folder.
autosave vault/work drive/my project folder.
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Audio Render Files
Autosave Vault
Bounces
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Live type
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Thumbnail Cache Files
Tunes
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FCP keeps dumping my render files

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