Often when opening an old library, FCP doesn't read or recognize RED raw files properly, and displays black clips instead. Audio plays fine, but there is no image. The RED plugin is properly installed, and the clips are online.
A way to force FCP to read these files properly is to hold Option+Command at launch which will reset FCP preferences. Then as it rebuilds previews and all, magically the RED clips images re-appear.
I wish there was another way to force FCP to read RED files without having to erase the prefs. If it exists I have not find it.
EDIT: Another way :)
Today I had yet another case of black Red footage in FCP. Going to the clip Settings, even though clicking on Modify RED Raw Settings and changing the values does nothing to help, I noticed a message from FCP saying something like "Cannot modify .RMD file, make sure it is not used by another application", or something like that.
So I thought about permissions. I went and set the entire media drive to Ignore Ownership on this Volume / Apply to enclose items.
Lo and behold, after restarting FCP normally (without resetting preferences), it fixed the problem, R3D files are back to normal.
EDIT: This darned "bug" is still creeping out :/
Again today the R3D files are black, what a pain. This happens on spanned clips by the way. In any case, today the simple solution was to restart FCP. That's it.
