Here's a tough one.
 

So I was given a quick time file that is a reference movie, it wont play/open in QT player, import into FCP, After Effects, or compressor doesn't see an audio or video track. Just having the file in an open finder window I get a cannot connect to server error, also get this whenever I try to open it.

After Effects gives me a missing file error it is the filename with a "-AV1" added to the end.

So at this point it seems that all is lost, not quite...

The movie will play flawlessly in the preview window whenever I do an "apple i" command to bring up the file info, about 9:10 (out of 14:30) into the video it craps out and starts giving me the server error yet again.

I can get it to open in VLC, but it plays VERY choppy, and I can see to get it to export correctly.

Why will it play in preview (not space bar preview, fyi) but NOTHING else? Any clues?

A reference movie, created from FCP, as its name suggests simply refers to original source clips elsewhere on the disc, plus it may also contain some embedded movie data such as previously unrendered footage, and also the movies mixed down audio data.

If you have been handed such a file then the person who handed it to you screwed up big time and you ned to ask them to submit it to you again as a self contained quicktime movie file

As for why the Finder will play some portions whilst other dedicated video apps may crap out, well the latter apps want to validate the file before accepting /opening it ie they need to resolve the path to all the referenced source objects ... and as it would seem that those object paths cannot be validated then the file is rejected. The Finder preview on the other hand, being a somewhat less sophisticated media player, simply attempts to play directly as it goes along ... and of course it falls over just as soon as it hits the object path that cannot be resolved.

Is there some way to edit those references? Maybe just change the runtime from 14 to 9 minutes, effectively chopping off the portion that's messed up?

Also it doesn't look like we're able to get a new export, as whatever we have is all there is. Otherwise I wouldn't be messing with this.

I can't say with absolut certainty, but if QuickTime Player won't open the file then you are likely screwed. You should try opening the clip with MPEG Stremclip, but my money is on it failing there too (still worth a try since MPEG Sreamclip is a free app and one you should have anyway, it's a very usefull tool).

Sorry to sound so grim, but I think that unless you get a self-contained export you are pretty much S.O.L. on this one.

Reference clips are only good on the machine which made them. As Andy said, they screwed up by not giving you a proper self-contained export.

Reference files are exactly what their name implies - they are in fact a bunch of timeline data, referencing to the original, full, big media files. Ref. file just tells an app "play this bit from XXX.mov and this bit from sound.aiff. So, in order to work with these files, you NEED access to the original media files.

Ref. QTs are a way to avoid wasting space when roundtripping around several apps (no need to render full MOV when all you need is to compress that movie in Squeeze).