Clips Randomly Disappearing from the timeline

Hi,
I have been using Davinci Resolve for a few months, but I noticed after editing some projects that some clips just randomly disappear from the timeline. At first, I thought I was just imagining it or that I was inadvertently hitting a key, but tonight it happened again. I opened a project I was editing last night and found some clips missing. I then checked my timeline against the output render I created the previous evening and found at least five clips had disappeared in random locations.
To my knowledge, this is the third time I have experienced this now. I feel a little embarrassed even asking this, but has anyone else experienced this, or is there a history or log I can check to make sure I am not going crazy?

Regards
Drake.

Hi,
I have been using Davinci Resolve for a few months, but I noticed after editing some projects that some clips just randomly disappear from the timeline. At first, I thought I was just imagining it or that I was inadvertently hitting a key, but tonight it happened again. I opened a project I was editing last night and found some clips missing. I then checked my timeline against the output render I created the previous evening and found at least five clips had disappeared in random locations.
To my knowledge, this is the third time I have experienced this now. I feel a little embarrassed even asking this, but has anyone else experienced this, or is there a history or log I can check to make sure I am not going crazy?

Regards
Drake.

Hey Drake!

I too had this happen recently. I had rendered out a cut and after I restarted the last 5 video clips on Track 1 were gone but their audio files (that were linked) were still there.

I've seen this happen too.

Currently, I'm doing my projects in Premiere until Resolve becomes more stable. Too many show-stopping bugs.

I didn't want to downgrade Resolve because I want to keep playing with the latest versions and it's difficult to get more than one version of Resolve on a computer.

Thanks for your replies guys. At least now I know I am not imagining it. I love Resolve and have been flirting with the idea of buying the full version but I do feel it is not quite at the standard of reliability one would expect from software that one would be potentially committing hours of work to.
It is feature-rich and very flexible but it does seem a little unpredictable at times and I hate the way it often silently refuses to do something without telling you why.

I had it happen again tonight. I was editing a clip and because I am now paranoid about video clips just disappearing I locked the video track whenever I just want to edit audio. I have video and audio recorded together, and I then added a soundtrack. If I do not lock the video track then as I edit the soundtrack video clips just disappear. It always starts with one particular video clip, but it does this silently so you do not notice they are gone until you finish the edit. I then Ctrl Z to recover the video track but that means losing all my audio edits. I do not have the video track selected when I edit the audio and there should be no association between the video and soundtrack, so I am puzzled why the video disappears.
For now, I just continually lock and unlock the video track; it seems to be the only way to prevent video clips from randomly disappearing.
I am glad I did not shell out a few hundred euros for the full version.

This happened to me just a couple days ago: I loaded a timeline I had been working on a few days previously and discovered that all the video files were missing from a section a couple minutes long - clips I had just recently spent a lot of time painstakingly color grading. Needless to say this was extremely worrisome. I export my project daily as a backup and went through my backups to figure out where the clips had gone missing and discovered that they were still present in the backup export from the night before. But I had not done anything to that timeline on the day I found the clips missing, so it wasn't user error. Resolve just randomly deleted a bunch of video clips from a timeline I didn't even have loaded. I'm lucky I had a backup.

Make sure when you're doing edits on just picture or just sound that you have "Linked Selection" turned off and/or that you have all the tracks on the side you're not working on locked. In my case I wasn't even doing anything to the timeline in question, though.

[Peter Chamberlain]

If u have some way to repo this and ideally can share a drp and phone video showing the workflow we can investigate further.

Has anyone discovered a fix for this or away to get the footage back yet? This happened to the team I work with for the first time yesterday and again today. Seems like it happens when the project is opened from a different computer. All of track 1 video just disappeared once we opened the project. We have 4 people on our team and work off a server so we're consistently in and out of collaborative projects. We've been doing this for over a year now and this just randomly started. We've also been working with Resolve for a few years and haven't encountered this problem. Fortunately we had a back up on our project yesterday but today we don't have one and our current solution is to manually put each clip missing from track 1. Any thoughts?

Just before the holidays we experienced the identical behavior on a feature. After a full Save and Quit, upon reopening a few days later, Track 1 was entirely deleted. All the Data and Grades were gone.

Then again today on a different project with seven 90 sec timelines. After a client review and a Save and Quit, the project was reopened on a different workstation (with the same version of Resolve) and all of the data from one of the timelines on Track 1 had been deleted.

Especially worrisome now because even after a full Save and Quit there is no way to know if the project is intact or not.

Reported it up the ladder. In the meantime, no, I wouldn't know of a solution for this one.

Clay

Yes, I have had this bug many times. if you do duplicate timeline, this problem happens every second time. I think the problem is with postgresql. we are working with the project over the network

Was this issue ever resolved? Having the same problem on the latest version of Resolve 17

Hi,

We have now experienced several projects where this problem has occured, the logs does not give us a definite answer but show spontaneous timeouts to the database.

I know we are not the only production house this has happened to.
Do you have any possible solutions we can try?

Hi this post is a little bit old but I found in my case a solution.
I remember that I gave the clip I am missing the wrong Timecode. I wanted to change the timecode of the timeline and instead I changed it on the clip. So the clip seems to be missing. After giving the right time code for current frame all was correct again.

So I worked two days on the project. Savin. Open. Clip not there. Clip is in media pool and on the correct location. Because of the clip atribute I placed the missing clip again on a new track in the timeline with the missing clip. Open again clip atribute and changing the current frame to a wrong timecode. Pressed o.k. and the clip was missing the same as the same clip on the track below. Open again the clip atributes and change it back to the original atributes. And TADAAAAAA. All links and clips are now correct.

Hope this helps
cu R

Hi,

We have now experienced several projects where this problem has occured, the logs does not give us a definite answer but show spontaneous timeouts to the database.

I know we are not the only production house this has happened to.
Do you have any possible solutions we can try?

I wonder if BMD has tried to repro this by simulating timeouts from the db?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I imported a XML timeline from Premiere and for some reason the composite mode for the last 2 clips was set to multiply resulting in a black screen. Just changed it back to normal, and voila, they reappeared.

Oy vay...it is two years later from this initial post and the problem is still occurring.

I was/am literally in the middle of an edit, I walked away from my computer for less than 30 seconds and suddenly totally placed and corrected media disappeared from the timeline, and the media pool...this is the first time it has disappeared from both the timeline (MEDIA OFFLINE) and ALSO the media pool...are there any navigable immediate fixes?

This is so frustrating to get so far in an edit to have your work vanish. This has happened now four times in the past 24 hours.

I thank you for any guidance.

What kind of Library, Cecily? Local, Network, Cloud? Where is it stored? Where is the media stored?

Jim - I think I see where you're going here. If I'm wrong then I apologize in advance for my mistaken assumption. But what I'm expecting - because I've seen it here many times - is "if something strange happens and anything is on removable media then you've found your culprit and can stop investigating." Just tell the user "stop doing that."

There's no reason Resolve should behave as the user is describing regardless of where their media or database is stored. The behavior isn't a crash or total destruction of the session. It's a very specific, systematic change. Even if the disk connection were flaky - which I think is unlikely - this behavior would not be the result. It's inconceivable that a flaky disk connection would cause the same specific behavior multiple times.

Even if there were a flaky connection, there would be disk errors in the system log. So if you really want to go down that route then try to lead them through looking for recent disk errors in the log rather than just pointing at a hardware configuration of which you disapprove and calling it a day. That feedback is quite unhelpful because it either upsets them but they do nothing to change their hardware or they go through lots of work and possibly money changing it but almost certainly don't fix their problem.

I get that you don't like external storage. That's your prerogative. But trying to get people in distress to adopt your preference when there's no evidence that it will fix their problem isn't very kind. Doing some debugging with them that helps discover what's actually going on - that would be kind indeed.

I'm not sure I agree, Joe. What the user is describing sounds like some sort of storage issue. Knowing how the user has setup their database location and media location might give us a clue. For example, I've read posts where users put the db location in a drop-box sync folder so that it will get backed-up but of course this can lead to bizarre behavior and lost data.

If we can identify the storage anomaly, then we might be able to rectify figure failures by applying best practices in an effort to help avoid pitfalls of the current design / implementation.

Maybe I'm missing your point?

No problem asking as long as the result isn't "don't do that" if the answer is "on an external drive" or "on cloud storage."

I've not heard any good reasons why Resolve can't handle having either the media or database on an external drive or cloud storage. I get that BMD prefers we not do this. But I've never heard compelling explanations for why Resolve is uniquely unable to support such a configuration. I know I and many others have used external drives for both media and databases with no apparent ill effects.

If there are intractable issues with Resolve having either media or databases anywhere other than internal drives then I - and many others I suspect - would like to know them. But "just don't do that" or "that's why things aren't working for you" are not acceptable answers - especially when they're not true for many other NLEs.

I've never heard from BMD that media on an external drive is a no-no. That would be absurd. However, the official stance from BMD regarding file-based libraries (databases) is that they should (must?) be located on permanently attached storage (presumably internal). Probably because the file-based library is not fault tolerant for some unfortunate reason.

I've also heard from BMD that using the ExFAT file system is a no-no. This may also apply to media drives (I don't recall).

Let's start by identifying configurations that do not work well with Resolve as it stands and then, as we identify weaknesses, we can lobby for improvements to allow for a broader range of supported configurations.

Someone from BMD can chime in here any time now to clarify this internal/external storage issue.... please?

Jim - I think I see where you're going here.

My inquiry at this stage is to find under what circumstances the reported phenomena occurs. If that can be narrowed down, it could help BMD track the cause.

Great. Sorry if I got my cart ahead of this horse.

Hi,
I have been using Davinci Resolve for a few months, but I noticed after editing some projects that some clips just randomly disappear from the timeline. At first, I thought I was just imagining it or that I was inadvertently hitting a key, but tonight it happened again. I opened a project I was editing last night and found some clips missing. I then checked my timeline against the output render I created the previous evening and found at least five clips had disappeared in random locations.
To my knowledge, this is the third time I have experienced this now. I feel a little embarrassed even asking this, but has anyone else experienced this, or is there a history or log I can check to make sure I am not going crazy?

Regards
Drake.

Here is me! I'm getting this problem in 2023 What was or is the solution for this can anyone tell?

[Peter Chamberlain]

Resolve lists in the media pool the path to the clips.

If when you start Resolve the drive isn't connected, when the media pool process tries to find the clip and can't, it will show offline. Plugging the drive in later doesn't trigger Resolve to look again.

If the drive connection is bad, the OS drops the drive, it changes drive letters, it takes too long to respond to requests .. it will show offline.

If your GPU driver is not correct, so the GPU cant decode the clips correctly, it will show offline.

We will look into making the offline feedback a bit more defined to help you fault find.

Finally, if you put your project library on an ExFat drive, expect it to be an issue. Please don't do that.
If you put your project drive on another type of external drive, you should be really sure it's always connected before starting Resolve. We don't recommend external drives for PL.

Our recommendation is to have the project library on an internal drive.

Thanks for that info Peter.
Yes, any form of FAT is a bad idea at this point as even ExFAT is susceptible to corruption from a power loss or cable being unplugged.

As far as making sure the drive is connected, I’ve always found that if I start Resolve with a drive not present all I have to do is quit, connect the drive, and restart. This has been true and database (project library) drives.

Is there some case - assuming the drive mount point or drive letter is correct - where this wouldn’t fix things?

[Shrinivas Ramani]

Hi Chris

Can you show us an example of your issue? When you say clips have disappeared, is it:
a. Offline or unlinked media (in red)
b. Missing media pool entries or missing edits in the timeline?
c. Missing files on disk?

A screenshot and any logs captured when opening the project/timeline would help. Please also add some context on how the project was created (e.g "the project was imported from Resolve 16" or "the timeline was created in Third Party and imported as an XML file" or "I copied these edits from a 29.97 FPS to a 24 FPS timeline" etc) - as this would allow us to see if there are checks specific to that situation.

Thanks
Shrinivas

It just started happening to me....in18.6.

Clips that appear on the Timeline suddenly stop appearing in the Viewer.

I found, by accident, that turning off the Color/Fusion toggle, which is at the top and on the right of the Viewer, solves the problem!!

If that toggle is on....I don't see the clip. If the toggle is off....voila!!

Color-Fusion Toggle.png (42.95 KiB) Viewed 10964 times

I haven't had this happen to me. This is insane, how the fffff is this something that happens in an NLE that has been around for 10 years this is nuts.

[Shrinivas Ramani]

Hi Alan

Is the clip that toggles on/off along with the Preview Colour & Fusion effects a simple media clip? Does it have Fusion effects? Is it in itself a Fusion effect?

It would help if the screenshot showed the type of clip. In general it is also a good idea to include a description of your system, the exact Resolve 18.6 version and type (free, studio) and a quick summary of what you were doing when you observed the issue. The FAQ would help here: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=90190

Thanks
Shrinivas

Hi, did anyone ever figure out why this is happening? And how to stop it?

I've been using the free version (18.1.4, so I don't think the problem/bug is unique to version 19 as others have suggested) on MacOS, working off of an external drive, and had made a TON of progress on a project when it suddenly started happening.

The only variable in MY case is that my computer crashed/wouldn't wake after opening the laptop (just endless beach-balling) and I had to restart, then reopen the project, and it couldn't find any of the media (but the problem there was that in Preferences/System/Media Storage Locations/ I had a different/older external hard drive listed under Mount, which I had to remove to add this new one).

But since then, I've had the simplest additions disappear from my timeline. I literally dropped one clip on the end of the timeline, saved, walked away to have dinner, and the clip was gone when I returned like an hour later (and no, it's not showing red Media Offline clips, it's like I never dropped them in my timeline in the first place). Adjusting the Color/Fusion toggle like Smiffs suggested doesn't work either, because all the clips I dropped in before are already gone/were no longer there after I tried that. Just HOURS of work GONE.

Are people with the paid/Studio version experiencing this as well?? Because I was debating upgrading, but definitely would not in this case.

Thank god this is a personal project with no real deadline, because if I was working on something professionally for a client, I would be asking for my money back/have moved on to a different NLE...

A similar thing has just happened to me: a single clip has disappeared while working on a timeline.

Parts of that clip are used in a few places, using different in/out points, and all have gone missing. The strange thing is that, when I try to relink the file, the entire directory where the clip is stored is greyed out and no file can be selected.
(all other files are working fine in the timeline)

any ideas? I'm using DR Studio 19.1.1

EDIT: I rendered the file and - even though Resolve warned me about the missing media, everything was rendered fine. (it's still showing as missing on the timeline

By missing do you mean the clip isn’t shown in any way on the timeline or it’s there but its frames are offline/red?

By missing do you mean the clip isn’t shown in any way on the timeline or it’s there but its frames are offline/red?

Again, there are no red clips, nothing showing as offline, it's just as if they were never dropped into the timeline in the first place. But I've basically stopped working on the project while I try to figure it out, but am not getting any answers.

The only variable I can think of is that I'm using version 18, but I hesitate to update to version 19 for fear of losing everything that I've done (not really sure if you can export/import a timeline file to a newer version of the program, I'm that new). I'm really not sure where to find the timeline files on the desktop, I see that there are New Timeline and Close Current Timeline options in File, but seemingly not an Open Timeline open.

The only explanation I can think of is perhaps the project is defaulting to an older timeline where I haven't yet added these clips.

I'm experiencing the exact same thing and there doesn't appear to be an obvious solution.
I initially thought it was because I started adding music bed to the timeline, but its not that. Reinserted the missing clips continued and then a couple of hours later noticed clips missing again, some of them the ones I reinserted.

I'm experiencing the exact same thing and there doesn't appear to be an obvious solution.
I initially thought it was because I started adding music bed to the timeline, but its not that. Reinserted the missing clips continued and then a couple of hours later noticed clips missing again, some of them the ones I reinserted.

Sorry for the delay noticing this, are you still experiencing this problem? And if so, what version are you working from?? The free version, or Studio? Version 18 or 19?

Because I just returned to a project that I hadn't worked on for a week or two-- BECAUSE of this problem-- only to see that several other clips have again disappeared from the timeline... and again, NONE of them are because Media is Offline, it's just as if the clips were never dropped onto the timeline in the first place, causing me to lose I don't know how many hours/days even of work. Unlike you I haven't added or subtracted anything to the audio tracks.

Again, the only variable is that I'm working from the older version 18; I'd have to upgrade my entire OS to switch to 19, but that seems like overkill when/if people who are working on the latest version are experiencing the same issue.

What's so disappointing about this is I had really hoped that with Resolve, someone had come along with a good NLE that could compete with Avid/Premiere's overpriced, learning-unfriendly subscription model, and yet here we are. I don't think I would ever recommend the program to anyone at this rate.

I’ve heard of this happening but haven’t experienced it myself. In any case though it’s very rare.

I think there are some things with Resolve’s UI that make it a bit too easy to accidentally delete a clip you’ve just finished working on and not know it.

Are there lots of clips missing that were there before or is it just one or two? Many of us have been working professionally for years in Resolve and never had this happen so I don’t think it’s randomly distributed throughout all the users.

Resolve as a color grading program has been Hollywood’s go to for decades so it’s not like it’s generally unreliable.

The most frequent cause of this issue when I have observed it were mp4 clips without proper TC, being moved.

Uli - that’s really odd. Any idea why the whole clip would either disappear or move in this case? That behavior definitely sounds like a bug to me.

Why a bug? How can the poor machine know where something belongs?
Just check if your clips start at all zeroes, then it is the issue. If not, it’s a bug.

What I’m saying is if there’s a clip in the timeline and then the clip itself disappears on its own that’s a bug.

Phasmatrope very clearly stated that the clip was NOT offline - ie red. It was instead completely gone from the timeline.

It's worth checking the Media Pool if the clips in question are still there but with usage shown as 0. Sometimes you can accidentally make a clip disappear from the timeline, like in this video.

If is not 0 at usage, then also the clip can be accidentally, or by a bug, moved one hour plus down the timeline.

cheers,
Dorin

It's worth checking the Media Pool if the clips in question are still there but with usage shown as 0. Sometimes you can accidentally make a clip disappear from the timeline, like in this video.

If is not 0 at usage, then also the clip can be accidentally, or by a bug, moved one hour plus down the timeline.

cheers,
Dorin

Sorry for the belated reply here, though thank you for everyone who chimed in; I appreciate you sharing that video, but don't seem to be getting any audio for it, so it's really not that informative unfortunately.

In any event, I sat down to work on this project in Resolve today for the first time in a few months. Funny thing is, I'd BEEN able to work several weeks before that on another project where I had NO problems with clips disappearing. I worked for a few hours on the same timeline, saving often, never once exited the project, had the external hard drive plugged in the entire time, so never any issue with/question about missing/offline media. Based on what others had said before about MP4 clips disappearing, I even made a point to convert SEVERAL of my clips into MOVs, dropping those into the timeline hoping that they wouldn't disappear.

In any event, I returned to the project only an hour or two later, never put the computer to sleep, jostled the hard drive, shut down Resolve OR closed the project, and what did I find? At least 4 clips had suddenly disappeared yet again, leaving gaps in the timeline. At least one of them WAS an MOV file too, so that doesn't seem to be a variable. No explanation. I'm so frustrated that if Resolve was a person, I'd want to punch it in the face.

So until this makes sense, I'm done with Resolve for anything complicated, I'm afraid I'm stuck either investing in FinalCutPro, or using CapCut of all things (which I can already see from the interface is TERRIBLE in comparison, and yet when you keep experiencing such a consistent setback in Resolve causing you to lose hours of work, I don't really know what choice there is...).

Would you export your project and post the drp here so we can play and see if we can reproduce the issue?

Would you export your project and post the drp here so we can play and see if we can reproduce the issue?

Thanks for responding! Happy to do an export and upload as much, however bear with me as I'm still a little new to the program, I did a FindAnyFile search on all disks (basically just my laptop's internal drive and the external drive I have the media on/am working off of) for "DRP," and nothing showed up; what's the typical path to find such files??

Additionally there are a couple variables in my case that could be complicating things/may make it difficult for anyone to reproduce the issue: for one, I'm working on an older version of Resolve, Version 18.1.4 Build 9, the free version. I WOULD pay for the studio version, or upgrade to 19, however I can't do the latter because I'm also working off of an older OS-- Catalina-- on an older laptop, MBP 16" 2019.

Unfortunately I'm not really in a position to invest in a new computer right now just in hopes of getting this personal project working, and even if I could-- or upgraded/paid for Resolve-- I realize that I could be paying hundreds if not thousands and still experience the same problem (since based on the start of this thread, it seems like people have been experiencing this clips disappearing issue since at least May 2021, if not earlier).

I mean Resolve has worked fine for editing/exporting simple single-track of video, single-track of audio projects, but clearly has issues with anything more complex/when I try editing between 2 or more video tracks.

I mean has anyone experienced this disappearing clips issue on version 19??