HELP! HELP! Unable to parse FCP XML file

Hi
Just a thought, in the timlineindex with clips and either all, video or audio selected you should seen some audio clips with the triangles in them meaning they are missing there linked file. IF they are just audio clips in the project they will still look as if they have audio (but maybe no waveform). I think that if you have the project selected and you go relink files they will not show up as missing either. ? FWIW you can also type missing in the timeline index to bring up all missing clips.

cheers angus

PS would also be great to have a warning that there are missing clips x2pro and maybe also listening the clip names?

Glad to hear you go it working. Thanks for letting us know

This is awesome. Interestingly enough I played with fcpx and removed the clips from the project by going through and removing all references to these clips. It took hours but I was able to clear the exclamation points and literally 40 mins before you posted this I created the AAF files. Hah.

That said I will take the copies you have made and save them just in case what I did has problems.

Thank you for all you help! You guys really stick by your customers and that means a lot. I'll let you know how things turn out.

I agree, it appears to be an FCP X bug, and you should report it to Apple - they may be able to offer you some way of working around it.

It would be quite a complicated change to make X2Pro just skip those clips, but if you wanted that for this project, I can help you there... I have edited the fcpxmls to remove all assets with an empty src, and I've also removed all clips from the sequence that reference those assets.

I was able to convert the edited fcpxmls and open them in Pro Tools, If you want to try them, you can download them here , but be aware that I have removed clips from the sequence, so you should check it over very carefully.

had a lot more time with the XML and now understand what you're talking about fully. That said, I guess you're right i'll have to find a way to repair those links. It's definitely some sort of FCPX bug that is causing this.

It would be cool though if x2pro would just notice that these values for particular references are invalid and just listed them as potential issues and continued. It sounds to me like it wouldn't affect import as the reference doesn't exist anyway. Just skip it.

Just a thought.

i'm currently trying a few things to fix the exclamation points. Will report if I find anything.

I've tried doing a copy and paste doesn't seem to fix it. In fact episode 6 was once part of 5 and I cut and pasted into a new project. Still the same thing.

Perhaps finding an old library backup then copying project into the library might work. The library has the same source files.

Perhaps setting the duration to 0 and setting the start location to something?

Also, the start for all of them is 0s, which seems unlikely to be correct.

I also took a look at where the assets were used in the sequence (e.g. search for ref="r149"), and the duration of the asset that was used in all cases is greater than 0s, so even if you editing the fcpxml to point to the correct file location, there will be an issue with the reference using more of the asset than is available (according to the fcpxml).

I think the only real way to get this to work is to somehow get FCP to put the correct information in the fcpxml. Maybe by removing and re-adding the clips, or making everything offline then relinking, or copy/pasting the whole project into a new one, or something like that.

I've just noticed that all the attribute elements with an empty source all have a duration of "0s". The only other asset in either of your fcpxmls with a 0s duration is a jpg (which makes sense), but I think the rest should have a duration longer than "0s"

Just an idea, but you may be able to remove those 27 clips from your event and re-import them. When you do that it might make FCP fix its "broken links" to the files.



If you want to look at editing the fcpxml, you need to find lines that containfor example in this line
The src attribute should point to a file like on this line:

Graeme,

As I mentioned I have all of the files. FCPX just seems to think they aren't there for some reason. I literally search for the clips in my project they pop up and play fine. Seems a lot of folks have this issue with FCPX time to time.

I'm trying to pull my project from backup. But I've made so many changes so perhaps I can pull a backup library file then import my XML to FCPX to get my latest changes and I won't get the exclamation.

Alternatively, perhaps I can do a find replace on XML as I know the location of each of the files in the library. Can you tell me an example of the general syntax in the XML to find the missing spots? I'll try a find/replace.

P.S. Oh and allowing X2PRO to load the XML with missing spots would still be a cool feature as long as it warned be before hand. In fact if it just told me a list of all the missing media like you did but gave me the option to continue I think you'd have something.

Oh, I see. In which case that won't work for you. The problem in your case is not that the files aren't where the FCPXML says they are (which is what this shift+click method if for working around), but instead that the FCPXML says that they are nowhere (the file location is in the fcpxml as an empty string like this: "").

Unfortunately in my case the start button never allows me to click it cause the file is not parsed. Or will it work in this case?

I'm going to try a few things.

aperture01 wrote: Wish there was a way in X2pro to just tell it to ignore missing media and continue.

There is an undocumented (and unsupported) feature where you can make X2Pro convert a project if the media is not all online. If you hold the shift key down when pressing the start button, you will see an option to convert your project without including the media. This feature is intended to help with support issues rather than as a feature for use in production, and as such is subject to change without warning, and it also doesn't display any warnings about clips that were skipped because they were offline.

Using this option used to include no media at all in the AAF (it would just create clips in the right place with offline media), but in more recent versions, it should include any available media, and skip anything that is not available.

I'm not recommending that you use this feature, but if you want to try it at your own risk, you now know that it's there.

Hi Graeme!

The funny thing is that in Final Cut these clips appear to be fine in the timeline. You giving me the names though does help cause at least now I can probably find them and delete them to get the XML to work.

Wish there was a way in X2pro to just tell it to ignore missing media and continue. These XMLs still import into FCPX in their current state.

The reason that X2Pro is reporting issues is because the FCPXML contains information about a clips that are used in the project, but it doesn't contain the file name or it's location, so X2Pro doesn't know where to get the audio from.

In Episode 5, r249 is a clip called "01 Bounce It (Wes de Graaf remix)", and it appears to be used in a compound clip called "LazerHawk AD Entire", which is used twice in your project. I'm not sure why the information is missing from the FCPXML, but you should check that the clip is really online in FCP because it could be that the yellow exclamation mark is alerting you to the fact that there are offline clips in your project. This is not the only clip in the project with this issue. It also happens in 7 other clips:

• "01 Bounce It (Wes de Graaf remix)"
• "Laser hawk Test"
• "Walk Of shame TRACK"
• "Bottle Pour 1"
• "212688__robinhood76__04701-trailer-hit-rising-metal"
• "Title Laser Hit 02"
• "Xplosion"
• "Explosion 3"

In Episode 6, the same thing is happening, but this time with 27 clips:

• "01 Bounce It (Wes de Graaf remix)"
• "Laser hawk Test"
• "Walk Of shame TRACK"
• "Bottle Pour 1"
• "212688__robinhood76__04701-trailer-hit-rising-metal"
• "Title Laser Hit 02"
• "Xplosion"
• "Explosion 3"
• "41348__datasoundsample__glass-shatter"
• "32.50"
• "Hey Man 3"
• "Hey Man Not Enough 2"
• "Hey Man Not Enough"
• "Metasexual Live (Rough Mix)"
• "02 Undefeated (Evil Nine Remix)"
• "City 2"
• "Door 15"
• "City Fire Engine Sirens 01"
• "51135__rutgermuller__closet-door-2"
• "120353__cemagar__towel"
• "161750__alvinwhatup2__fumbling"
• "03 Maluco"
• "Body Hit 02"
• "33630__themfish__distant-ambulance-siren"
• "Bodyfall on Wood 2"
• "Bodyfall on Wood 1"
• "02 Walk of Shame"