Firestore, Unknown Error, and LASTCLIP.TXT weirdness

D

dougcabot

Member
Basic problem: I have some critical footage delivered to me on a Firewire drive by a shooter who used a Firestore. There seems to be something wrong with it -- if only I could figure out what it is.

What's happening:
I can successfully add the reel to log & transfer viewer; all clips appear in Log & Transfer with correct name, media start & duration, BUT:
--No thumbnail
--No preview
--If I select a clip and add to queue I get: "Error: Unknown" in Status column of queue

Looking deeper, here's one anomaly I found:

The last video clip is named:
1745TW.mxf

...whereas the LASTCLIP.TXT file reads as follows:

1745FS
1.0
1746

I don't know why or how this discrepancy between lastclip.txt and actual last clip's name got introduced, but it's there.


Troubleshooting efforts, all attempted individually and in combination:
-- Edit the LASTCLIP.TXT file, changing the clip name to match the actual last clip but otherwise leaving the file the same.
-- Move both "log" folder and fwxdc.dat files out of reel folder, so that it contains only CONTENTS folder and LASTCLIP.TXT.
-- Import the reel using FCP 5.1 (on a different computer).

Same result. (In FCP 5.1 the "Import P2" window doesn't load the reel at all: it remains blank.)

-----

More info, if it offers any clues:
Reel ("FIRESTORE") folder contains four items: CONTENTS and log folders; LASTCLIP.TXT file; and fwxdc.dat file.

CONTENTS folder:
seems to have complete complement of audio, video, icon, and "clip" (.xml) files
nothing in "Proxy" or "Voice" folders

log folder contains three files: log.txt; FSconfig. txt; and 20040226-013546-00000FBA.inf, a unix Executable file.

My setup:
running FCP 6.0 on a Powerbook G4
OS 10.5.1
1.5 GHz PowerPC G4
1.25 GB DDR SDRAM

Help? Thanks!
 
I don't know what's going wrong with what you've got; if you've got the individual AUDIO/VIDEO/CLIP/ICON folders then it seems like "Organize P2" must have been run.

Longtime readers will know I hate the P2 import window in FCP because it does this to people over and over; I advise you to avoid it. Raylight and P2 Log Pro can both import clips that FCP refuses to.

Hopefully someone will advise you how to successfully import the clips, but if not, look to Raylight, HD Log, or P2 Log Pro as any of them should be able to rescue you.
 
thanks Barry et al -- I'm downloading the demo version of P2 Log Pro now and will see if that helps. The shooter tells me he did indeed perform an "Organize P2." Will post the result here as soon as I get the drives all hooked up again, which may be a little while as i'm moving my office.
 
Barry_Green said:
Hopefully someone will advise you how to successfully import the clips, but if not, look to Raylight, HD Log, or P2 Log Pro as any of them should be able to rescue you.
Click to expand...

I downloaded the P2Log demo and it could do little with this P2 volume either: the preview screen was black and while the audio played, it sounded stuttery. All of the information that the import window displays seemed correct for the first clip, such as frame rate, size, audio settings etc.

The demo version of HD Log has a utility called "Repair P2 Volume" and when I pointed it to the volume in question, it returned an Error message: "The video mxf file is missing for the clip 1690ZW." Which is interesting since the .mxf file for that clip is right there in the Contents/Video folder, where it should be.

Raylight doesn't offer a demo version and I'm reluctant to spend $195 on a very uncertain prospect for rescue.

Finally I would call attention to one piece of the puzzle that has not been addressed by those who have responded: the fact that the LASTCLIP.TXT file, as it was delivered to me, did not match the actual last clip's name.

Anybody who likes a puzzle, please please help... thanks...
 
still no progress - yet more clues

still no progress - yet more clues

I spoke with John at Focus and he also seemed stumped, especially by the fact that the ostensible last clip identified in LASTCLIP.TXT does not conform to the actual last clip in the media folders within CONTENTS.

The one suggestion he had was that perhaps there were native and non-native footage formats included on the same firestore volume. This, he says, tends to create difficulty for P2 import utilities. He said that in his experience Avid has been the only application to deal successfully with this situation.

One last anomaly that I didn't mention before: all the clip names (56 of them) end with "W". i.e., 7548AW.mov, 7549DW.mov, 7550LW.mov, and so on. I'd always figured this was just a characteristic of the Firestore file organization system, but John at Focus informed me that he'd never seen it before.

This is a weird problem with all kinds of clues and I'd be grateful if anyone in the community would pick the thread up again! Thanks...
 
I've run into a Firestore problem that seems somewhat similar. How did you end up making out with your project?
 
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