FCPX project thumbnails *still* missing (2025)

I haven't seen this widely reported, but there is still a problem causing this in 11.1.1 on Sequoia 15.5. However, it seems very ephemeral. When I reproduce it, the black project icon fills in if I double-click on that or the event name in the left sidebar. It also fills in if I just toggle between list view and filmstrip view (OPT+CMD+2). Can anyone experiencing this see if that happens on your machines?

The underlying issue appears to be a complex timing interaction between the main FCP thread, which makes an async request to rebuild the project thumbnail, and the background thread, which implements part of that and returns results to the main thread. There may be cases where the background thread, under certain conditions, does not return fast enough, and the main thread just posts a black frame. I'm examining it.

Try this *weird* ritual... but it seems to work.

Click on the Project thumbnail.

Go to Inspector column and click on the circle-i icon (info inspector), then the "trident" icon (share inspector). WAIT for the inspector information to change if necessary (if there's not a lot of information changing, just wait a second or two before proceeding). [If the Info Inspector is already selected, just click on the Share Inspector.]

Then in the Event Browser, click on the Project thumbnail again. (You may have to wait a few seconds here too, or just click on the next project...)

IF you still get a black thumbnail, check the project (open in a timeline or storyline) and check the halfway mark. If there is a Gap or a "solo" Title, you may not get anything (and you wouldn't anyway.)

If you do OPT+CMD+2 twice in a row, does that make any project thumbnails fill in?

Post a report from https://etrecheck.com and perhaps we can see something that might be a potential cause. I too don't recall running into this in the last 10 years or so of using FCP.

This is not a problem that I've come across before.

Are you seeing this all the time?

I don't have access to 10.7 anymore, but even then I don't recall seeing this.

Anyway, if it is a bug, it certainly won't be fixed in a version that is some years old, and superseded by many subsequent updates. I am not telling you to update, but you can't expect a fix for 10.7. All you can do is check stuff in your setup to see if you can determine a solution.

I'd try making a new admin user account, creating a library and a few test projects. Do the thumbnails not show in that test situation?

I can confirm that the thumbnail issue is still a problem in Final Cut Pro as of Version 11.1.1. This is a problem that frequently occurs in effects-intensive projects, especially those that use the Green Screen Keyer a lot from my experience. In a lot of projects where there's a lot of keyed green screen footage in many layers of Compound Clips, the Project thumbnail pretty much always turns into a black image with a very small red dot somewhere in it, even though there's not a single frame in the project that looks like that (there's no completely red frames in the project at all in fact). I don't know why that is, but I actually pretty much only read the Project titles when navigating in the Browser so honestly this hasn't bothered me much even though I've clearly noticed it. I'm running Final Cut Pro Version 11.1.1 on a 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro so I'm using very different hardware and software versions from Matthew Slaughter, yet I'm experiencing a similar problem.

[Edited by Moderator]

@Matthew Slaughter, I see your forum replies in emails. Sometimes we gotta remember the first rule of Fight Club around here. Joema does participate here so maybe he'll chime in. I too miss fco dot co and the relatively unfiltered FCP discussions there. I still suggest posting an https://etrecheck.com report here to see if there isn't something specific about your setup.

You are assuming that this is still a problem with the current version, which is many iterations apart - 11.1.1.

I have not experienced, and I have not heard others reporting it; but then again I have not experienced it with any version, so maybe I've been lucky.

Or maybe it is fixed? If someone else has seen this in 11.1.1, perhaps they can chime in.

Matthew Slaughter wrote:

I remain skeptical given my previous reporting but you make a fair point... has the thumbnail bug ever been acknowledged in release notes for any later versions of FCPX, I wonder?

Here are the release notes. I don't think there was a mention of this - but then again, I don't recall seeing this problem, or hearing about it in this forum.

Final Cut Pro release notes - Apple Support

Matthew Slaughter wrote:

Thanks for checking that out, yes I'm not surprised...

> I don't recall seeing this problem, or hearing about it in this forum.

Yet it's a problem that exists, I assure you...

I'm assuming you did take a look at the previous thread I posted a link to (and quoted from)....

discussions.apple.com/thread/254900229

Yes, I read that thread. I understand that this is a vexing problem. You implied in a previous post that this was felt by many users, but in this thread and that one, there is a total of two or at most three users affected.

If it were a general bug, I would have expected a lot of people to complain, here and on other platforms like reddit; I cannot find anything else on this matter.