This was really helpful last week while trying to finish up a short commercial project. It was generated in Final Cut Pro 7, yes I’m still using Final Cut Pro 7 in 2013. It is familiar, easy, and usually just works. This is how many people describe their car. I am certified to teach AVID and have used Premiere. I played around with Final Cut Pro X and then put that away. So what is the point of this post? Nothing really, it is a simmered rant on the state of things. Final Cut 7 and Mac OS in general continue to disappoint. What causes a General Error? It could be this or it could be that. After trying many things and painful restarts and using other systems I finally found the culprit. A sound file that was “corrupt”. I returned to the source disc image and replaced the media, opened the project and everything worked. How did this sound file become corrupt? We’ll never know. Could it have happened with another NLE? who knows. Always make a disc image / back-up of your files and hope you never see a General Error.