Unable to Parse FCP XML File

This is very useful information ant thank you. I haven't upgraded to FCP 10.6.6 due to the many bugs it seems to have and I am in the midst of preparing files for my color team. That along with having a lot of RED footage mixed in with BRAW via BRAW Toolbox, I am trying to minimizing anything breaking at right now. Chris Hocking of Latenightfilms and developer of BRAW Toolbox, CommandPost and other apps also has expressed concern over the many bugs in FCP 10.6.6, but I haven't gotten the impression yet that these bugs would cause XML problems with X2Pro. My only solution so far has been to do everything through Resolve.

I haven't been able to get EDL-X to work either to deliver EDLs to the color team, but again, I pass my FCP XMLs to Resolve and do it that way. Not ideal, and there are some import XML errors about overlapping footage, but it will import the XML and output an EDL.

Coincidentally I did try my XML of my timeline(s) using XML 1.9 as well a while ago when I started this process and X2Pro came back with with the same errors. I've considered reaching out to the folks at Intelligent Assistance to get their their thoughts at some point being that they also know FCP XML very well and they've saved a few times in the past.

Hi Tangierc

Am sorry you have been through the mill, I agree it would save an awful lot of stress and work if FCP only created XML's it was happy with, but I guess they are weighing up the work needed to fix a project, or not have it created in this way against creating something that could still be used at some level. Have asked our Product Management to raise again with Apple

Yours Sincerely

James

James.

Hi Ward,

Have you tried to re-import the XML back into FCP, does it import without errors ? Can you provide the XML, if so we can see if we can manually fix it.

Yours Sincerely

James

I've gone through many tests with the help of smarter minds than me (including the developer of BRAW Toolbox) and the amazing Joe Marler and the only way I could get this done was to use Da Vinci Resolve. Other FCP users concurred on this strategy. The unfortunate part is that I couldn't manage my roles like I can in X2Pro for my sound team, but it was literally the only way I could get this project out.

In all fairness and full transparency, my timeline has a lot of BRAW clips using BRAW Toolbox, but that didn't create problems in the XML. They were all audio files (WAVs) and one mp4 that kept causing the issue. After removing them though I still couldn't get it to work and FCP always gave an invalid edit warning when attempting to reimport its own XML. Apple needs to make FCP validate the XML on export so we know what the problems are up front.

Hey guys

I am having the same problem since updating to 10.6.5 all xml's are having errors and therefore I can't export an aaf...

This really sucks... Is there any thing that will be done to adress this?

For now I am forced to make aaf's with logic...

Thanks!

Ward

Hey guys

I am having the same problem since updating to 10.6.5 all xml's are having errors and therefore I can't export an aaf...

This really sucks... Is there any thing that will be done to adress this?

For now I am forced to make aaf's with logic...

Thanks!

Ward

Can you confirm whether you can re-import the XML file into FCP without any problem and if you can whether all of the media relinks to the timeline? If it can't be reimported then we will not be able to open and parse it to generate the AAF.

I received some useful advice from Chris Hocking (Creator of BRAW Toolbox, Command Post and other apps), and cleaned up my timeline for the XML quite a bit. I am still getting parsing problems. Please see XMLs attached:

Thank James for isolating it. Just to be clear I understand what you're saying - you're saying that it's 11 minutes, 20 second 20 frames into my edit (and not a timecode position)? I ask because I have nothing there for that clip. See image:

Hi Tangierc,

I cannot find an asset-clip 17 only r17.

Its at11:20:20 and 19/20ths of a second in and its 00:01:49 and 1/3rd of a second into the clip 1a_v2.wav I believe.

Hope the above helps.

Yours Sincerely

James

<asset-clip ref="r17" lane="-1" offset="4898513620/120000s" name="1a_v2.wav" start="13116103/120000s" duration="13013/12000s" format="r18" audioRole="dialogue">
<adjust-volume amount="10dB"/>
<audio-channel-source srcCh="1" role="Ruby Head Voice.Ruby Head Voice-1">
<adjust-loudness amount="40" uniformity="6"/>
<adjust-humReduction frequency="60"/>
</audio-channel-source>
<audio-channel-source srcCh="2" role="Ruby Head Voice.Ruby Head Voice-2" active="0"/>
</asset-clip>

Sorry about that. Here it is attached:

Hi Tangierc,

You would need to attach the XML you modified that gives that error please.

Yours sincerely

James

Thanks for the reply James. I've removed a lot of the clips from my edit that seem to be an issue and will handle them a different way.
Are you able to at least makes sense of the very first error so that I can target it? My timeline has timecode reader and cropping matte the entire timeline sit it's not clear what clip 17 (if that's the issue) would be. I don't think it's an actual clip 17 because that would be just a text generator and when I copy the 1st minute and a half of the the project (that's more than 17 clips) to a new timeline, then export the XML, it re-imports just fine.

:

Hi Tangierc,

There is not a lot we can do unfortunately, there is at least one missing asset in the FCPXML, we have no idea what it is or any details about it. FCPX advises this in the errors when you reimport the XML, see attached this is clip "729", There is also a plethora of invalid effect ID's, you would need to manually fix them all, fundamentally the XML is corrupt.

I do hope you can understand that if FCPX cannot re-import the XML successfully then it will be almost impossible for us to process it. Depending on the issues in the XML it can sometimes be manually corrected when there are only a couple of issues.

I am sorry but we cannot in this instance correct the XML manually.

Yours Sincerely

James

There must be something else going on. I deleted every instance of those clips, and exported another XML and X2Pro still could not parse the document.