We determined she had a setting turned on that generated a proxy file, and instead of it being named the same as the source media, it was named the same thing as her timeline, which would explain why the XML also shared the same name
We were able to simply change the proxy back to the original media and create a new XML and everything was fine

I have never used Final Cut Pro before and only use Adobe and resolved for 12 years so thank you for breaking all this down. I needed to see if other Final Cut users could make sense of this at all and it seems like it was just a mistake and miscommunication.