Huge problems with FCPX and OSX 10.7.2

[Brian@202020]

I am having a huge problem with FCPX 10.0.1 once I updated OSX to version 10.7.2. I am in the middle of an ongoing 12 terabyte demo reel project that took me over 4 weeks straight to import and analyze all the footage into FCPX. It's 12 terabytes so it took a few minutes to load every time I edited. Then I upgraded OSX and now FCPX freezes on start up when trying to load that event. If I unplug all the drives so it does't read that event and the links to the other drives and open FCPX, it opens fine. I'm only having the issue with the big event, which I didn't before.

If anyone have any suggestions please please please let me know. I really don't want to loose my edit and reimport for another 4 weeks.

[stoneinapond]

Can you roll back your OS?

This is yet another reminder to everyone NOT to upgrade software in the middle of projects.

[Brian@202020]

Can you roll back your OS?

This is yet another reminder to everyone NOT to upgrade software in the middle of projects.

I can't roll back the OS. I don't normally update during a project, but this is an ongoing project that will never be done, because there will all ways be new versions.

[BenB]

12TB of footage for a demo reel? Wow, that's more footage then I edit for a feature length film project.

My feeling is this would have eventually happened even if you didn't update. I'm not aware of any known issues with 10.7.2 and FCP X.0.1. But I do know several FCP X systems that have problems when too much footage is cataloged in the Event Library at one time.

We usually create a Sparse Disk Image for each project, and mount them only when we need that specific project. The other really nice alternative is Intelligent Assistant's wonderful utility, "Event Manager X", which does basically the same thing taking a different path, and is much easier. Especially with already established Events.
http://assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/EventManagerX/

What Mac are you on, how much RAM, what graphics card, and what specifically is your hard drive configuration?

[Brian@202020]

12TB of footage for a demo reel? Wow, that's more footage then I edit for a feature length film project.

It's a lot more. I have 1 feature doc, many shorts, reality TV, many music video's, corporate video's, political campaign video's, etc in the event. All were either edited by me or someone else in FCP6/7 or I don't have the project files for them. I wanted to make every shot accessible to FCPX so I went thru the process of making it so.


My feeling is this would have eventually happened even if you didn't update. I'm not aware of any known issues with 10.7.2 and FCP X.0.1. But I do know several FCP X systems that have problems when too much footage is cataloged in the Event Library at one time.

Can you send me to links so I can read what others have done.


We usually create a Sparse Disk Image for each project, and mount them only when we need that specific project. The other really nice alternative is Intelligent Assistant's wonderful utility, "Event Manager X", which does basically the same thing taking a different path, and is much easier. Especially with already established Events.
http://assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/EventManagerX/

I just down loaded it and I'll try it out.


What Mac are you on, how much RAM, what graphics card, and what specifically is your hard drive configuration?

I'm running a early 2008 (non unibody) MacBook Pro. It has a 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo and 6GB of RAM.

Update: I let it sit for several hours after deleting FCPX and reinstalling it and it finally came up. I'm going to attempt to split the event up into several smaller events. I'll keep the forum updated.

[BenB]

I'd have tried just trashing the preferences before doing a full reinstall.

Digital Rebellion makes two free apps, "Preference Manager" that can back-up and trash preference files for all the Final Cut apps safely and properly. "Final Cut Remover" should be used to delete everything for a Final Cut app safely and properly before doing a reinstall.

Let us know how it's going. And max out the RAM on that MBP.

Again, what is your hard drive set up? Are you running a dozen FW800 drives, or are you running on a huge RAID?

[Brian@202020]

The RAM is maxed out. With that model, Apple says don't go over 4gigs. OWC tested it to actually support 6gigs so that's what I did.

As for the hard drives, I'm running 2 external raids and 3 external drives. All are either FW400 or FW800.

[BenB]

That MBP will take 8GB RAM, I believe. Won't it?

Also, if you have FW400 drives, ALL of your drives are at FW400 speed, and that could be your problem.

As well as a weak graphics card.

[Brian@202020]

I agree it's not the perfect edit system, but the fact is it worked just fine before the update. As for the RAM, apple supports it at 4gigs. OWC tested it with more and apparently it wont recognize 8gigs, but will recognize 6gigs. I did a bunch of research on this, because I wanted to maximize the abilities of my MacBook Pro while I wait for a Thunderbolt Mac Pro to be released.

I should have time today to mess around with this some more. Is there a way to spilt events? I tried yesterday and couldn't seem to find a way.

[Brian@202020]

Also the FW800 drives are daisy chained and plugged into the FW800 port, and the FW400 drive are daisy chained and plugged into the FW400 port. That model has both ports, so I beleave I'm getting the higher speed out of the higher speed drives.

[BenB]

No, you're only getting FW400 speed. All Macs ever made only have one FW data bus, that both ports work off of. The minute you plug a FW400 device in, the data bus drops to the lowest common denominator, FW400. So no, you are not getting FW800 speeds from your FW800 drives, not at all. FW400 is not nearly fast enough for HD editing, FW800 is just barely fast enough. You're in fact running off of drives that are technically running too slow to keep up with the rest of the system for HD video editing.

[Brian@202020]

Yeah I was wondering if both were off the same bus. Regardless it worked fine before the update. Also I've edited literally hundereds of HD projects on FW400 drives, and everything was fine. Some of them were beyond HD and we're filmed at 4K with my RED MX.

[Brian@202020]

I just looked and one of the FW400 drive can be also be hooked up esata and the other barely has any footage on it. I'm going to go get a expess card to esata adapter for the one drive and cram the limited footage from the other one onto the other drives and reconnect the media (which I haven't done yet in FCPX). Doing this should maintain the FW800 speed and speed up the one drive to esata speeds. I'll let you know if anything changes.

[BenB]

Also, just FYI, here's my old maintenance paper revamped for FCP X.
http://www.fcproxuniversity.com/documents/FCSystemMaintenance0811.pdf

[Brian@202020]

Thanks Ben. I already have all those programs on your list accept Macaroni. I have MacKeeper installed and I believe it'll do most of the same things right?

[tflak]

No, you're only getting FW400 speed. All Macs ever made only have one FW data bus, that both ports work off of. The minute you plug a FW400 device in, the data bus drops to the lowest common denominator, FW400. So no, you are not getting FW800 speeds from your FW800 drives, not at all. FW400 is not nearly fast enough for HD editing, FW800 is just barely fast enough. You're in fact running off of drives that are technically running too slow to keep up with the rest of the system for HD video editing.

I'm running 2 daisy chained CalDigit VRMinis (RAID 0) off a single FW800 port on an iMac. The second drive in the chain is hooked into the first drive via FW400. This is how CalDigit tech support explained the drive speeds under that set up when I asked if both drives would only be running at FW400 speed:

"No, daisy chain share the bandwidth. If only one of the VRMini is being accessed at a time, that VRMini will get the maximum bandwidth (the 2nd one will be a little bit slower). If both VRMini is being accessed at the same time, the VRMini will share the bandwidth (in 60/40 or 55/45 ratio). For example: if the maximum FW800 speed is around 70MB/s, the first VRMini will run around 40Mb/s, while the other VRMini will only run around 30MB/s."

I've found my FW800 drive is plenty fast enough to edit using standard ProRes - even with the FW400 drive hooked up. Have never had even a hiccup. Guess it depends on what drives you're using.

[Brian@202020]

Also Ben here is the link to where OWC talks about the max RAM my MacBook Pro can handle. I called and talked to them to confirm. If you know different, I'd love to see a link or here about tests you or someone has done. I'd love to use 8gigs if I could.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/MacBook/Pro/Core2/

[BenB]

If I had a dollar for every Mac I had to help restore because MacKeeper trashed it, I'd be a millionaire. I can't tell you how much I hate MackKeeper, what a piece of trash it is, and how many of us who do tech support wish that company would get sued and close down.

So, you have an older MacBook Pro that only takes 4GB RAM, so what graphics card is it running? When did you upgrade to X.0.1?

[Brian@202020]

Graphics card is: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 512 MB

I purchased FCPX, Compressor 4, and Motion 5 on 6/21 (installed on Snow Leopard)

I purchased OS 10.7.0 Lion on 7/29

Updated to OS 10.7.1 on 8/16

I started the large event in question during this time.

Updated FCPX to 10.0.1 on 9/20 (the app store said I had FCPX installed, but i didn't get it from the app store. Noah Kadner from CallBox recommended to me here on DVXUSER to trash FCPX and reinstall. It worked). Link to conversation with Noah: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?262240-FCP-X-10.1-Released-Trial-Version-Available-As-Well/page4. At this point FCPX loaded and edited fine even with the huge event and on FW400 speed drives.

Updated OS 10.7.2 on 10/12



The morning of 10/12 I started FCPX with no problem and did a little editing. I shut down, ran some errands, and returned to see OSX had an update. I then downloaded and installed the OSX update. Several hours after installing the update I tied to open FCPX to do a little more editing. This is when the problems started. It crashed several times before I shut down that evening. I then worked on set the next two days, and revisited the problems on 10/14 after work. Then I posted this topic.

As you know I deleted and reinstalled FCPX on 10/15 and now it loads, but it takes at least an hour to load and everything is slow (not like it was before the OSX update).

Update: I condensed the 2 raids and 3 drive down to 2 raids and 2 drive. The 2 raids and 1 drive are daisy chained via FW800 and 1 drive is connected via esata to express card. It is still slow like it was before I did this. Any more ideas? I will run the apps you have listed in your paper next.

[Brian@202020]

I ran all the apps except Disk Warrior, I can't seem to find it. It sped up a little, but not much. Here is my conclusion to what is happening. I believe OSX 10.0.2 uses the processor just a bit more than OSX 10.0.1 did which is enough to cause a problem running FCPX with such a big event. Running the Activity Monitor tells me that the processor is the bottleneck while loading, where as it wasn't before. I believe that what ever they did in the last OSX update is inadvertently causing the problem. Does that make sense to you Ben?

[Brian@202020]

Now, although slow, i'm back to editing, and I'm realizing a few other problems within FCPX that weren't present before. For instance FCPX no longer analyzes clips retimed using optical flow. Since it doesn't analyze it, I can't render it either. I'm going to trash the preferences again to see if that fixes it.

[BenB]

Yep, Optical Flow not rendering seems to be a bug in 10.0.1. I'm seeing several people with that problem.

Disk Warrior:
http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/

[Kellar42]

Any word on an optical flow fix?

[Chippy]

Same problem here. I don't remember where I read this but someone suggested it could be an add-on that causes the problem which I doubt. The only fix for me is to trash the preferences when this happens and it gets it back where I can work again.