When invalid frames exist on the Desktop or in a clip library, they appear as black or red frames. These frames are not recoverable. If you get a message stating that invalid frames exist, you should delete them because their presence slows system performance. You have the option of deleting the entire clip to which they belong or deleting just the invalid frames in the clip.
The vic utility identifies invalid frames and lists their IDs in the system console and SYSLOG. They can then be used as arguments to the fcof utility (find-clip-of-frame) to find which clip or clips use them.
You can also use the vic utility in repair mode (with the -r flag) to do this automatically. This option enables vic to search the media library and replace missing frame ids with a LOST frame label. In the library, the names of impacted clips appear red. When these clips are loaded into the record timeline, the names of the affected segments also appear red. Lost frames are displayed with the LOST label over them. The flag set on clips is not permanent, so resaving the clip will remove the red from the names.
The following procedure explains how to locate and delete invalid frames in clips located on the Desktop and in clip libraries.
To find and delete invalid frames:
<framestore volume> <frameId> [-v]
| Option | Function |
|---|---|
| framestore volume | Specifies the volume to check (stonefs, stonefs1, stonefs2). |
| frameID | Specifies the frame's ID (0x1234abcd5678cdef). |
| -v | Enables additional verbosity. |
fcof scans all the libraries on the specified volume searching for clips referencing the given frame. The output tells you which clips use the frame and where they are located. When a large list of invalid frames is detected, it is usually more efficient to find the clip for a given frame, delete it, and perform another integrity check before searching for the next invalid frames. Very often all invalid frames are in the same few clips so finding affected clips for each invalid frame is unnecessary.
