""Rendering Required Audio Files" when trying to export - solution/workaround

[Michael Grenadier]

So I'm providing support for a large complicated documentary project with at least 40 4k multicamera interviews and performances and extensive archival material. This is on an imac pro (I think) with 64 gigs of RAM and all the media on a 64 tb hardware raid...  connected via thunderbolt 3.  I've generated medium resolution prores proxy files...

My client finished a preliminary 30 hr rough cut that he has been trying to export without any luck with the export process hanging on "Rendering Required Audio Files."  Took about 3 hrs to troubleshoot and figure out a solution/workaround today.  Here's a brief summary

Tried creating a new project and importing the previous project both importing the full project and the 3 hr rough cut sequence.  Both failed saying the project I was trying to import was corrupt...  But the project opened without issues.  Duplicated the sequence and deleted everything but the first 10 minutes.  I noticed a fair number of audio clips without audio waveforms in the timeline...  Most of the archival footage mp4 with 44.1 audio sampling...  The Sequence audio was set to 48k...    So I selected all the audio and right clicked and choose render and replace.  The render and replace started and the render bar moved at a decent clip until it got a little way past the halfway point and then seemed to stop progressing.    I then limited my selection to the first half of the audio clips in the timeline and it completed successfully.  This section included both audio from multicamera clips at 48k and archival clips with 44.1 audio.  I was able to isolate the first problem audio clip by slowly trying the next few clips.  Since the clip was a multicamera source, I selected it and right clicked and choose Multicamera and it was supposedly not enabled.  I enabled it and then disabled it and then enabled it again, and the waveforms appeared and...  I could then render and replace the clip.    So went thru the entire 3 hrs selecting audio clips without waveforms.  Some didn't need to seem to be enabled, etc to render and replace, but some did.  Took about 45 minutes to do the entire sequence and then exported it...  Took about 5 or 10 minutes with the"Rendering Required Audio Files" message but then started to export...  Hung out with the client for about 10 minutes and then left him and the computer chuggling along happily.  I assume I'd have heard from him if the export crapped out.  I've probably forgotten a few steps along the way, and was sweating bullets... but perserverance prevailed...

[Michael Grenadier]

just saw I mistyped the duration of the "rough cut."  It should be 3 hrs long not 30 hrs long.  And the export did complete successfully...  Not sure what caused this issue, but it's a complicated job, with interviews shot by a few different crews and different equipment.   Different angles were shot with slightly different aspect ratios and the audio configuration varied in many ways.  Sony sources usually had 8 channels of audio with only a few of those channels actually containing audio.  Sometimes the primary audio was recorded with a digital audio recorder and sometimes the primary audio was fed to one or more cameras...    Thankfully, everything was at least shot at the same frame rate...  And the archive material is all over the place with different frame rates and sampling rates...  

And then we needed to output complete interviews including multiple clips and generate a transcript with timecode that reflected these interview prebuilds that would work as a multicamera source...  So the multicamera clips sometimes needed to contain multiple takes (and sometimes there would be single audio clips that needed to be synched to multiple video clips).  

And there were a number of interviews that were synched up before I was brought on board by an "assistant" and which added to the unpredictable situation.   

I'll be testing the workflow to be able to match back to all the audio sources when we have a locked picture so the sound designer has access to all the possible source audio material...  

As I said, a very complicated job and it continues to be complicated