Massive FCP Image Sequence export problem!

[Lyle]

Hi guys,

I've ran into what might be a major problem when exporting a video clip as an 'image sequence' to my desktop in FCP4. I've been left with THOUSANDS of .png files loading on my desktop! There are over 9,000 now and counting...Any attempt to stop the process, by way of restart, cntrl-".", or force quit, doesn't work (rather restarting merely starts the loading process all over again.) All the files are STILL loading since my last reboot two days ago (!!).

I've no idea how to troubleshoot this. Is there any way I can somehow launch a Mac equivalent of DOS to delete these files without launching OSX? I'm a complete novice when it comes to these things, am proficient on a PC but use my G4 solely for editing. Any help anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated. I'm on a Powermac G4 Dual 1.42Ghz, OSX Panther, 2Gb Ram, 3x140Gb HD.

And yes, I AM aware that had I exported the image sequence to a HD folder I wouldn't have this problem as they wouldn't need to all load when I start the machine. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and this is a lesson learned indeed.

Thanks in advance guys,
Lyle.

[thoughton]

When you say "loading" do you mean the process of redrawing 9000+ icons on screen? (yes, I realise that will be incredibly slow). If this is the problem then perhaps you can use your Terminal to delete the desktop folder. Note this is just a suggestion off the top of my head, as far as I'm aware there are no bad ramifications of doing this (other than losing what's on your desktop), but no guarantees ...

[SERBIAN]

The easiest way to delete those files from Your Desktop is to boot up in OS 9 with the boot CD...Then navigate to systemXhdd/Users/You/Desktop/ where "systemXhdd" is hard disk where Your System X is installed and "You" is a folder inside Users folder with Your login name...

[WiseWeasel]

Or fire up the terminal and type "rm -rf ~/desktop/*.png" (without quotes). Note that it will delete ALL .png files on your desktop. If they share common filenames, you can substitute "filenamecommonality*" for "*.png". If you can't even get to the terminal, there are several options.
1) If you have any other accounts set up on your Mac, log into one of those instead of your current one, and delete the files in the terminal from there (except from another account, the command will be like this: "sudo rm -rf /users/problemusername/desktop/*.png" or "sudo rm -rf /users/problemusername/desktop/filenamecommonality*", and then enter the admin password when prompted).
2) If you're able to log out and get to the log in screen, try logging in as "<console", which will drop you into the terminal. Then run the "sudo rm -rf /users/problemusername/desktop/*.png" or "sudo rm -rf /users/problemusername/desktop/filenamecommonality*" commands, and then enter the admin password when prompted.
3) If you can launch the System Preferences application, go to the Accounts system pref, select the "Login Options" at the bottom of the accounts list, and uncheck "Automatically log in as...". Then, reboot, and follow option 2) above.

[SERBIAN]

Or fire up the terminal and type...

Just a small note...Nothing can be launched cause Mac is freezed during counting of files on Desktop unfortenatly...One of my clients had a similar problem and I know that..

[WiseWeasel]

Then the solution would be to boot from a CD or another OS installation, and use the terminal from there.