Re: Export: General Error

I've just encountered a vexing problem.
I cut 5 pieces of a educational seminar. Part of my workflow is to export from FCP to Soundtrack Pro for sound fixes.
4 of the 5 pieces export properly, but one of them keeps resulting in a "General Error" message., with no file created. I've tried a couple of different work-arounds, re-started the computer, and even also gone back through the piece and put compression markers at every transition that involved a render. I keep getting the same result.

Even more vexing is the fact that I completed all of these pieces before, successfully exporting all including this piece, and then decided, with my colleague, to go back and implement a series of changes into each piece. These changes were not major; there were jpeg slideshow images cut in, I went back and used a better method of creating the jpegs and then I went through the piece and substituted the old with the new. Some of them were extended, so there is slightly more information in the video tracks, but not so much that it should cause a problem.

I can't find anything in FCP help or in your previous message index that refers to this problem; I figure it might be a simple fix, but as of now I'm baffled. Any ideas?

A General Error can mean about anything, but following your explanation I would suggest that you first check all your jpegs in Photoshop and make sure ALL graphics are in RGB color mode.

One of the most frequent causes for a general error while exporting is the presence of corrupted or non-standard clips on your timeline, such as CMYK graphics.

If you are sure all your stills are OK, a next common cause is that your FCP preference files have become corrupted. Trash the FCP preference files and see if it works now.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Thanks Ronny
I tried trashing the preferences first, since this was the last clip I exported, but that didn't fix it.
The jpegs were indeed CMYK ( as exported from Powerpoint). and I presume I'll have to replace all of them to see if it works, but I'll let you know.
At least the 3 I've converted so far don't show any degradation. I think that there's over 20 of them.

Andy Rovins

Hi Andy,

CMYK is a big NO in any video environment. Changing the color mode will not affect the quality of your graphics. But as you work with JPEG, which is a lossy compression format, you get one genereation loss each time you open, change and save them. In your case you won't see any difference. But it's better not to use JPEG as a production format.

If you still have the PPT you could also just export RGB TIFFs from the presentation and use the TIFFs instead. Powerpoint presentations are RGB by default, so you should not change the color mode. CMYK is only and exclusively used for press purposes.

Best wishes,

Ronny

OK Ronny,
I converted every CMYK jpg to RGB, imported them into FCP and one by one replaced the bad sections on the timeline.
I re-rendered everything, saved it, and tried another export to Soundtrack PRo. Same problem: General Error. ??????

The only other difference from the older version of the piece, which had exported successfully using degraded RGB jpegs, was that I extended the playing times of many of the still insertions, and occasionally ran them together with a push slide transition.
Any more ideas?

Re you recommendations for TIFF files; I believe you meant this as a means of producing better quality graphics, as opposed to more compatible ones.

The only other thing I can think of is to edit down the 3 video tracks into 2.
Andy Rovins

Hi Andy,

Sorry, I hadn't seen the error you get is while sending your timeline to STP. My bad. Anyway, changing the pics to RGB was a good thing to do. Tiffs are indeed for better quality only.

Extending the playing times should not cause any problems for your export.

Try this: select only the audio of your sequence, then R-click the selection and choose "Send to STP" from the list. Does this work ?

Best wishes,

Ronny

I'm trying your suggestion.
The first time I selected : Send to SoundTrack PRo Audio File (2 tracks) figuring that it would combine 2 L & 2 R, the way it did when I did the Export FCP-> Soundtrack Pro. But it didn't; it only sent the 1st two tracks, and, while it did send 28 (????) files to the selected destination, it also had an error message about skipping files.
I tried it again as a multitrack file, and it did export 1 big file.

I presume that the next steps would be to do the sound fixes in Soundtrack Pro, re-export them back to FCP, make sure that the audio & video are in sync, and then try again to export it as a self-contained QT movie (my final product)?
AR

Hi Andy,

Try to export only the video to a QT movie and see if you get the General Error again.

If the video-only export works, convert your audio to AIFF 16 Bit 48 KHz. That is the best audio format for FCP. Then export your timeline, this time with video and audio.

If the video-only export does not work then you have a corrupt video file in your sequence.

- First delete all the render files for this sequence, including the Renders in the Undo cache.
- Select Sequence > Render All and make sure ALL render options are checked, including the Full (dark green) option.
- Then press ALT+R to do a full render of your timeline.

If the timeline starts rendering, wait until it finishes and then export your QT movie. It should work.
If the render suddenly stops at a certain place and gives you an error message, that's where your corrupt video file is. Check the file and replace it (may be another CMYK graphic or a corrupt title clip). Then press ALT+R again to continue the render until your entire timeline is rendered.

Best wishes,

Ronny

The video -only export worked, but the audio was already in 16 bit aiff ( the preset for capturing). It had even converted the 24 bit .wav files that head been recorded on my SD 744T.

So I tried to do a regular Export>Soundtrack, the command that had not worked the last couple of days. All of a sudden it worked.????? GO figure.

I did the audio fixes in Soundtrack, but it wouldn't export the clip as a QT movie when I was finished. I was able to export it as an AIFF, import it into FCP, sync it up and delete the old tracks, so I'm good to go. The work is finished and ready to turn in.

Maybe I forgot to burn incense for the gods.

It's a drag that FCP doesn't like , or isn't as good with, 24 bit, because that is a far superior digital sound -- much warmer, and more inclusive of harmonics. I doubt Walter Murch is editing in 16 bit.

I found a good utility called .bwfxml for importing the wav files. Maybe using the one of the other import codecs will allow it its use in native 24 bit.

Anyway 16 bit is fine for web streaming, so we're allright for today.

Well, I was able to do most of the fixes in Soundtrack Pro, except for the last step, which is Convert to Mono, which can only be done with 2 tracks ( I have 4).

I exported that as a 24 bit 48 Khz .wav file, brought it into a copy of the FCP sequence, synced the trax, deleted the old tracks, and tried to export. Same result: General Error.

Clearly, there's some kind of artifact in the video that's probably causing it, but what?

Andy Rovins