what is happening to my "offline" media here?

Hi everyone. I'm following this thread since I got my M3 Pro in December. Same probleme here. Same filetypes as mentioned above.

Some thumbnails show "Media Offline" randomly in the project and render causes crashes. The only "solution" is to disable the hardware encoder which is an absolute no-go for me due to reduced performance.

If I can provide anything that makes investigating this problem easier for BM I'll do so!

I'd suggest trying the 19 beta, and if it still crashes on render, post a log to the beta subforum.
Posting a log is explained in the FAQs.

To others with an M3, but no Sony: please contact me if you need a test clip. I have a Sony A7IV, but no M3.

As I am in the middle of a big documentary that will last for the next 2 months (minimum) I can not update Resolve. But I will do so as soon as this project is finished.

Hello to everyone. If you experience this problem - you are not alone

My situation is totally the same - random "media offline" no matter which hard drive and its file system. Errors during export in random moments.
MacBook with m3 pro chip
Using files from Panasonic S1H - 4k 422 10 bit H.264 25fps Vlog

19 beta didn't solve anything. But I can add that FullHD timelines in the new version of DaVinci Resolve during export have less chance to get the "decode error"

I hope this problem will be fixed soon. Switched from Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve became extremely important for me. This small bug sometimes causes too much discomfort. Can't wait when it's fixed.
It is strange that exactly MacBooks with m3 pro chip have this problem

While you ingest your footage and transcode a new high quality ProRes “original” suitable for finishing. Then swap out the source original for the high quality ProRes in media manager.

Basically that removes all issues related to h.264 or h.265 which are small heavily compressed source media unsuitable for editing. But the cost is drive space. And some prep time. The colour page, and fusion, and delivery will all use your designated high quality source. So unless you do the juggle I suggest it will try to use the h.264, with less than reliable results due to timecode, and decompression issues.

Hello, I am new to video-editing and haven't even started learning DaVinci Resolve yet.

Are you saying that converting H.264 and H.265 files to ProRes will completely fix this problem of "offline media" for M3 Pro and M3 Max users?

I've had this experience recently and almost always with 4K video, at 1080p I don't remember having any problems.
This happens to me in both version 18 and 19 Beta. I'm editing on a Macbook M3 Pro.
This doesn't happen with all the files in the project, it seems to be that they go "offline" randomly. You can actually edit, but some thumbnails appear and others disappear. When exporting, sometimes it's not possible, it says the file is offline when in fact I can read it.

After reading what you've written here before, it really does seem to be due to the incompatibility of Davinci's code with the M3 chip because the solution I've found in this case is to disable Decode H.264/H.265 using hardware acceleration. The problem disappears, but editing becomes much slower. At least it allows exporting without a problem.

I've had this experience recently and almost always with 4K video, at 1080p I don't remember having any problems.
This happens to me in both version 18 and 19 Beta. I'm editing on a Macbook M3 Pro.
This doesn't happen with all the files in the project, it seems to be that they go "offline" randomly. You can actually edit, but some thumbnails appear and others disappear. When exporting, sometimes it's not possible, it says the file is offline when in fact I can read it.

When files goes "offline" does that mean you lose your work?

Or is it just an annoyance?

I thought you could manually bring offline files offline, but maybe when this happens, it destroyes your edits and times since the source files are gone?

Please elaborate!

After reading what you've written here before, it really does seem to be due to the incompatibility of Davinci's code with the M3 chip because the solution I've found in this case is to disable Decode H.264/H.265 using hardware acceleration. The problem disappears, but editing becomes much slower. At least it allows exporting without a problem.

What are the specs of the files you are having issues with?

H.264?

H.265?

H.265 Intra-Frame?

What camera are the files from?

How much RAM do you have?

Are you working off your internal drive, or off of external drives?

Does this happen with ProRes files?

When I say "offline" I mean that the red thumbnails appear in the clip but I can still see the video content.
Sometimes when I export it gives me an error and says that the clip is offline when I can actually read it when I play it. It's very strange. The solution is sometimes just to close and open the program again and it will let me export.

I work mainly with clips recorded from the Sony Alpha 7s3 and IV in h.264. I haven't tried it on Prores but I might.
I work with an NVME on a Thunderbolt 3 but I transferred the file files to the Macbook's internal disk and the same thing happens, I don't think it's the physical support.
My mackbook has 18GB of Ram, I don't think that's the problem either because when I worked on a MacMini with 8Gb it worked fine.

What I've noticed is that when I have less than about 20 files in a folder I don't have any problems, but when I have more everything randomly has problems showing the thumbnails.

I hope I've been clear.

I would like to add to the confusion:
Recently I had a short project with just still images (jpg). I save and save as frequently manually so I had a project that was not corrupted with 'offline media' and went back to that and saved as another version ( from 5 to 7 ). Six was corrupted. I couldn't fix it ... all media that was offline dropped into timeline ( even above the V1 which is where everything was) showed up as offline. Very weird and annoying.
During the time I was working on version 6 ( the corrupted media offline media) I was on zoom with a photo class, and for first time used files from davinci source folder to copy to google drive and the zoom file folder set up by the class instructer. I'm 73 and studied photo stuff and worked in film biz, so this was a fun way to socialize and share critique's of each others works...

But after that version 6 had media offline and I couldn't get it back. I went back to version 5 and saved as version 7 and deleted version 6 ( the corrupt file).

I think that davinci source material pays attention to the source folder as its primary path and when confused with OS related programs ( kernels of other programs) that path can get messed up.

I’ve had a similar problem, some time ago, I think. It’s related to a subset of a sequence of ProRES 422LT files.

The original timeline was part of an FCPX to Resolve Studio “roundtrip” experiment, that did-not work out as expected. Original material was recorded during the Chingay Parade, February 2023, 2024 in Singapore.

Full timeline - two parts - first ProRES 422HQ, second: ProRES 422LT

Full Timeline ProRES 422HQ and ProRES 422LT sections.png (499.97 KiB) Viewed 533 times

Two sets of recordings were including. A first sequence, containing only Apple Camera ProRES 4222HQ takes, and a second set containing only Blackmagic Camera (1.2xxx) ProRES 422BLT takes.

An initial project was created in FCPX (after running into a practical problem in Resolve Studio, that I didn’t have the patience to solve). The test started by exporting the complete timeline into XML.

When importing into a “clean” project in FCPX, no problems arose as expected. This is not significant per se, but at least illustrates, that a valid “roundtrip” was possible.

When importing the XML timeline into Resolve Studio, the first (video) part (ProRES 422HQ takes), were as expected, but the second part (ProRES 422BLT) exposed three problems (video).

Reproducible timeline problem (ProRES 422LT)

ProRES 422LT Timeline problem.png (402.85 KiB) Viewed 533 times

All the 422BLT files were legal, placed in the same folder, but three of the files consistently, repeatedly and reproducible over time and reboot imported incorrectly (media offline). Filenames etc. were correct. Inspection of the XML files showed no deviations, naming problems or anything indicating any reason, why this effect turned up. It was constant and a hundred percent reproducible.

Initially I assumed, that the problems originated in Blackmagic Camera App, but I couldn’t trace down an obvious reason, when inspecting the binary “footprint” of the files or the MediaInfo results. Since the files posed no problem (placed in the same folder), when used in FCPX (exported and reimported into another FPXC project) I decided not to pursue the problem further, and complete the project in FCPX

Reporting was not done - and deliberately not - for reasons not needing to be vented here.

Reading your plight with h264 in Resolve Studio, my earlier experience came to mind. Behavior was very similar in real life, although only a small sample of three files showed consistent and reproducible handling problems. Different environments, hardware and use case settings and whatnot may explain the different outcomes.

In some ways, behavior “feels” identical to your descriptions.

The project has since undergone many small and larger editing operations, and the finalized product will not be tested in a repeat XML import. The file structure has been dramatically altered since, optimized for FCPX use, so may prove a waste of time. At my age, to quote a comment in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”: I don’t even buy green bananas!

Just a heads-up, that things may not be restricted h264, commonality only being hardware supported decoding in Apple Silicon, neither a specific chip version or Resolve Studio as such. It may be caused as a side effect in file handling in Sonoma, that is the only major commonality (besides Resolve Studio) between the two scenarios. There were other significant “oddities” resulting from the XML imports, that did not make sense either, but let’s concentrate on this for now.

I have erroneously posted a set of questions in another thread in this link:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=201035&p=1048328#p1048233

Maybe answering the questions may lead to something. No guarantee. At all.

Regards

[Shrinivas Ramani]

Kurt

Based on the shade of red in your second screenshot, it looks like the XML import resulted in a timeline clip with an absent media pool reference.

This thread is about the media pool clip being present with a recognised path (and metadata etc), but a bad decode for some of them some of the time. A whole other issue.

Back to your issue. I'm not sure what it is due to - the linkage can depend on the paths in the XML, media pool contents and disk contents ... the last of which is unique to your machine, so I'm hesitant to request files or suggest solutions. But do consider:
• using the edit index filter for offline clips - this "offline" refers to the media pool entry absence.
• manually importing missing media into the media pool and using reconform workflows to rectify the reference.

Regards
Shrinivas

Kurt

Based on the shade of red in your second screenshot, it looks like the XML import resulted in a timeline clip with an absent media pool reference.

This thread is about the media pool clip being present with a recognised path (and metadata etc), but a bad decode for some of them some of the time. A whole other issue.

Back to your issue. I'm not sure what it is due to - the linkage can depend on the paths in the XML, media pool contents and disk contents ... the last of which is unique to your machine, so I'm hesitant to request files or suggest solutions. But do consider:
• using the edit index filter for offline clips - this "offline" refers to the media pool entry absence.
• manually importing missing media into the media pool and using reconform workflows to rectify the reference.

Regards
Shrinivas

Thank you for the quick response.

I can only say, that all the 422LT files were legal, usable in FCPX without problems, all placed in the same folder (ample gigabytes available for cache etc) and even placed “sequentially” on the timeline, as in the original FCPX project. It was even recorded on the same iPhone within some 60 minutes, on the same BlackMagic Camera App to the same target drive.

The XML file content seemed legal in all respects (and the content was digested completely and correctly in another FCPX “clean” project).

Imported as a standard timeline XML into Resolve Studio.

Names were correct. Also shown as correct names in the Files Inspector section. When “re-imported” manually, the files worked completely as intended (and as shown in FCPX) with same cuts etc.

There were NO obvious, visible or inspected reason to the behavior. Not in the XML file either. It just was… weird!

Initially I suspected a BlackMagic Camera App problem triggering an unintended side effect in Resolve Studio and not in FCPX. Some aspects (project sound track organisation) could be blamed on Resolve Studio (left out here), but did not seem directly connected to the affected video tracks.

I do NOT think (based on other observations too, and discovering this h264 case), that Resolve Studio is responsible (or has sole responsibility) for the (at that time) reproducible errors in the video media handling.

There may be more to the problem, than immediately meets the eye.

Hope this helps fact and actual cause finding.

By the way: The (now FCPX) project (offline right now) is (and was) some 250 GByte in size (excluding cache etc) as far as I remember. I’m not sure, that reducing project size, would lead to identical problems (then). Now it would probably be a waste of time, due to the many modifications incurred since; some maybe not “importable”, since that was never on the table, when finishing the project.

Regards

...This thread is about the media pool clip being present with a recognised path (and metadata etc), but a bad decode for some of them some of the time. A whole other issue....

On this topic, we think it is M3-specific. I would test it myself but I only have an M1 Ultra, M1 Max and M2 Pro. It doesn't happen on those. Obvious questions include whether it's specific to certain 10-bit 4:2:2 H.264 variants, or does it happen on some H.265 formats.

I worked with a user having an M3 to obtain the following while decoding 10-bit 4:2:2 H.264 V-Log from a Lumix camera. These are selected messages from the terminal command "log show". The comments in parentheses are mine.

VTDecoderXPCService: (AppleVideoDecoder) AppleAVD: <private>() codecType: AVC, encryptionScheme 6, 3840 x 2160, tryAllFrames = 0, iChatUsage: 0, session: 0x124937c20 built <private> <private>

(Codec is AVC (H.264), don't know what the other items mean)

VTDecoderXPCService: (AppleVideoDecoder) AppleAVD: <private>: Compressed buffers enabled! CompressionType:3. luma depth 10 chroma format 2

(Luma depth means 10-bit luma, chroma format 2 might mean 4:2:2. The other terms are private and implementation specific)

kernel: (AppleAVD) AppleAVD: VADecodeFrame() : received reset Before Decoding - Flush DPB, framenumber 1

("Kernel:" means that AppleAVD is in kernel address space and may have received an error requiring flushing DPB = Decoded Picture Buffer.)

kernel: (AppleAVD) AppleAVD: INFO: logPerfStats(): avdIdx 0, Percentage of time spent at Vmin: 99%, Vnom: 0%, Vmax: 0%, histogram █▁▁
kernel: (AppleAVD) AppleAVD: INFO: logUserClientStats(): avdIdx 0, UserClientCount 2, 0, 0, 0, 1, histogram ▁▁▁▁▁
kernel: (AppleAVD) AppleAVD: isSystemWiredLimitExceeded(): ERROR! vmPageWireCount (0x971d5) > m_physPageCountLimit (0x90000)!
kernel: (AppleAVD) AppleAVD: newUserClient(): failed with error -536870210

(Wired pages are pinned RAM-resident, so there is a limit on these to 0x90000, but during the AppleAVD call it was above that at 0x971d5)

(-536870210 = signed 2's complement 0xE00002BE, likely corresponding to below 0x2be kIOReturnNoResources error)

VTDecoderXPCService: (AppleVideoDecoder) AppleAVD: <private>(): IOServiceOpen failed e00002be

(0x2be = kIOReturnNoResources from IOReturn.h)

VTDecoderXPCService: (AppleVideoDecoder) AppleAVD: AppleAVD_H264VideoDecoder ERROR: createAppleAVDHW_H264DecoderInstance returned error
VTDecoderXPCService: (AppleVideoDecoder) AppleAVD: <private>(): failed with error -12913

(-12913 is defined in VTError.h as kVTVideoDecoderNotAvailableNowErr)

Resolve: (libxpc.dylib) [com.apple.xpc:connection] [0x600024f5ce10] invalidated after the last release of the connection object
Resolve: (libxpc.dylib) [com.apple.xpc:connection] [0x402451100] invalidated after the last release of the connection object
VTDecoderXPCService: (libxpc.dylib) [com.apple.xpc:connection] [0x144621960] invalidated after getting a no-senders notification - client is gone

(VTDecoderXPCService is the out-of-process decoder added starting with Catalina. Message indicates the XPC process tried to communicate with the Resolve client process, but got an "unavailable" status. This is probably resulting from the prior error conditions.)

Joe, thank you very much for such a detailed overview of the log files

For all the users of MacBook M3 Pro with Davinci Resolve Studio installed - version 19 Beta 3 which was released on May 23, 2024 (Version 19.0B Build 33) has not solved the problem yet

Some of additional observations
I wanted to eliminate possible causes that may be not connected with the Davinci Resolve Studio itself:

Assumption that the problem is caused by external hard drives:
I bought 4Tb SSD hard drive yesterday (Samsung T7) which should be fast enough and able to store several of the projects for testing.
I formatted it into native file system (APFS) so I got a totally clean SSD which should perfectly work on my Macbook
Loaded projects for the test on this drive and the issue persists in Davinci Resolve Studio even when working on this drive.

Assumption that the problem is caused by macOS or M3 pro chip:
I decided to test exactly the same projects with identical files in Final Cut Pro X. If I experience the same problems in another video editor then I could say that the issue is way deeper that the stability of DR Studio
When I create a new event in FCPX and import all the files they work great and fast without any issues.
This observation can prove that macOS and M3 pro chip can handle my files without struggle. Moreover, the footage loads very fast in the Finder and I don't experience any difficulties with watching clips in different Players (QuickTime included)

I don't want to switch from DR Studio to FCPX by any means. I like a lot how Davinci Resolve is designed and all the possibilities it presents for creators. I hope that the BlackMagic software engineers can find the reason why DR Studio cannot handle hardware acceleration decoding on M3 Pro chips.