FCP Project stalling when trying to open, takes 10 min to open can't copy and paste

Question

The other day a final cut project I've been working with for a long time (only 23mb in size) started to seize up and stall at 37%ish, then take 5 or 6 minutes to actually open. Once it's open if I try to copy and paste anything into a new project it completely freezes up and I have to force quit every time.
I've gone through and deleted all the render files and ejected the two external drives I have all the media on that are attached to my imac, and still have the same problem. I just opened another project I haven't opened in a while and it opened no problem.
Any ideas why this project stalls when trying to open and also when trying to cut and paste within the project once I've got it open. I have work in this project I need access to asap!
Help!
M

Answer 1

Before you go through the following process, make sure all your still images are in RGB colorspace (NOT CMYK or Greyscale) If they are CMYK or Greyscale, use Photoshop to convert them to RGB.
With the certainty that the still images are not the problem,
Put all the media from the problem project on the external drives
Make sure the Project file is on an internal drive.
Turn off the computer
Disconnect the drives
Start the computer
Launch FCP
Find and open the project.
It will tell you there are missing files
Click ok to go ahead and open
The project should open with all the media marked as off-line.
Did the project open in a reasonable time?
If no, you likely have a corrupt project file. You could try going into your autosave vault and opening an earlier version.
If it did open in a reasonable time, there is likely a problem with some of the media.
Depending on how many files you have, you can either reconnect one by one to test or use the binary method.
Turn off the computer
Reconnect the hard drives
Start the computer, launch FCP and open the project
One by one method (works better when there are not so many items)
- with the project open
- right click on an offline file in the browswer and select "reconnect"
- bring it in
- play it in the viewer
- play it on the timeline
- if it works, go on to the next file
- if it doesn't you have found a corrupt file (DO NOT assume all the other files are ok, keep testing)
When you are complete, you simply need to replace the corrupt files with clean originals. If you do not have other versions saved someplace, you'll have to do without or recreate them.
Binary Method (works better when there are lots of items)
- with the project open, select half of the items in the Browser and select reconnect
- play them in the timeline.
- do they all work?
- If so, the problem is in the other half.
- in the Browser, select half of the remaining files and reconnect them
- test
- do they work? if so, select half of the remaining unconnected files and reconnect them.
and so on until you find the file(s) that will not play.
Have fun.
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