Avid Hide-and-Go-Seek

Avid Hide-and-Go-Seek: "

Avid’s error messages are the stuff of legend. I’ve been in the biz for a while and I have yet to get one that tells me exactly what the error is. Usually it’s some clandestine mumbo jumbo that makes no sense and prompts most users to shutdown the computer and hope for the best. Giving Avid a break is sometimes all the error message needs to go away. No matter if the problem is fixed. Just go away!

In Avid’s defense, the error messages probably mean something. In fact, I’m sure they do. That meaning hasn’t been conveyed to me, but there are a few things that you can do to help out your seemingly dire situation.

One, and this is a given, read the error message. Sometimes there will be clues such as the name of a file that is corrupt or a bin that is misbehaving. You have to get around all of the punctuation and capital letters to get to it, but it may be there.

Two, hit the Avid Community forums. Chances are someone else out there in the big ol’ universe has had your problem before and someone else in another universe had a solution. Many an error message have been solved in this manner and bless all you Avid forum contributors from saving my last patch of yet unpulled hair.

Three, do the Play IN to OUT trick. Well, it may not really be a trick but it is cool to do. You may have noticed that the sequence isn’t playing a certain chunk. For whatever reason (I don’t know why but I am glad that it works) if you press play in a sequence with a corrupt clip, it probably won’t play. However, if you Mark IN at a point and Mark OUT at another and press Play IN to OUT it may play in-between the two points. If it doesn’t, there is a good chance a corrupt file is within the two points. Progressively move the IN and OUT points closer and closer until the clip or clips are identified. Selectively remove clips from this section of the sequence and the moment the sequence plays you know you have found your culprit! But be mindful that there may be more than one corrupt clip!

Avid error messages, despite their confusion, let the user know that something is wrong. There isn’t an arrow directly pointing to the issue but guaranteed something is amiss. Worse comes worst, take a screengrab of the message and let someone else figure it out!

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