Catalyst Browse crashes every time I open it

drboffa

drboffa

Well-known member
Anyone else having problems with Catalyst Browse?

I'm on an M1 MacBook Pro. Catalyst Browse was always a bit buggy but I could usually go through a few use sessions without a crash.

As of late, it crashes *literally* every time I first open it up. Sometimes I can get it to work long enough to copy my files after reopening. Sometimes it takes two or three attempts at reopening. And sometimes, like today, I just give up.

I'm not even sure what version I'm since I can't get it to stay open long enough to check...
 
After I upgraded my edit bay to a M2 MAX earlier this summer I've had CB crash a few times on me but nothing really to give me fits. 99% of the time it is stable. Have you tried trashing the app and re-installing from scratch? I'm not at my edit bay right now, so I can't tell you what version I'm running, but on the Intel MacBook Pro I'm using to type this post I'm running 2023.1.0.975. I assume the other Mac is the same version since I updated them both at the same time.
Catalyst Prepare also runs smoothly on both machines.
I hope that helps.
 
Thanks for the suggestion Doug: I trashed it and re-installed it but had the same problem.

HOWEVER, I was able to get it to work long enough to copy some files after reopening. The only thing I did different was wait until *after* it opened before inserting my SD card. No clue if that made a difference or it was just a coincidence.
 
FWIW, try copying the card (all of its exact structure) into a folder on the desktop and using that/seeing if that helps. (Any software meant to read cards will recognize the folder and treat it as a card.)

I've had issues with inserting cards/starting up random software with cards that would make the program(s) randomly crash, but not using cards solved it.
 
Thanks for the tip, NorBro. It means nearly doubling my copying time (since I'll be copying twice—although going from my MBP SSD to an external is likely much faster than SD card speeds) but it's good to know there's a potential solution in a pinch.

That said, I'm starting to wonder if the trouble of Catalyst is worth it. I generally use it to guarantee I'm copying all the associated files, but I've also *never* found a case where those files actually did anything (i.e., it doesn't seem like any NLE—and I use three of the four big ones—uses this metadata).
 
Sounds like you don't need Catalys at all. When I want to ingest all the footage on a card I just drag and drop the entire root folder from the card to the SSD. It is 100% safe and reiable, never had any problem with that method. If I'm handing footage off to the client that is the way I always to do it.

However, when I use CB for ingest on my own projects (espcially when shooting stock), I use it to pick and choose only the clips I want to keep, and all the rest of the clips get left on the cutting room floor right then and there so I never have to see them again or waste storage space on them. Why ingest junk? Even on the clips that are "keepers", I typically use the trimming feature in CB to only ingest the key part(s) of the clips. Kind of like doing a rough cut during ingest. On something like a 120 fps 4K rocket launch, where I have to start some cameras a couple of minutes before liftoff and sometimes can't stop them for a few minutes after, it really cuts down on my file sizes by trimming off 10-20 minutes of junk from each locked-down camera. Same thing with interviews. I only ingest sooundbites that I think have potential, Everyting else doesn't even make it off the card and onto my drives. Typically I can reduce my raw footage by at least 50% by using CB.

I think I've drifted off topic.
 
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All good points, Doug, and I appreciate the response.

The one nice thing about Catalyst is I have some folders of footage that I copy to several times—Catalyst does a nice job keeping them straight (e.g., a specific folder might have multiple shoot days uploaded to it if it makes sense for the media to live in one folder).

And while I don't use CB's trimming feature nearly as much as it sounds like you do, it has been nice on a few occasions. Every so often I've had to just let the camera roll while waiting for something, and getting rid of several GBs (or dozens of GBs) of empty footage without stepping into an NLE is very satisfying.
 
Catalyst Browse crashed 100% upon startup after an OS update until I reset app settings. Launching from a finder window (not the dock), try holding down CTRL and SHIFT and launch the app. What I got was a dialogue asking me to reset the app's settings. After agreeing, the app launched and so far works properly again.
 
cgalgon said:
Catalyst Browse crashed 100% upon startup after an OS update until I reset app settings. Launching from a finder window (not the dock), try holding down CTRL and SHIFT and launch the app. What I got was a dialogue asking me to reset the app's settings. After agreeing, the app launched and so far works properly again.
Click to expand...

I tried this very quickly and... it worked! At least in a quick test I was able to open the program and see media on an SD card. That's the longest the program has gone without crashing in weeks!

Thanks very much for this. Fingers crossed it keeps working...
 
drboffa said:
All good points, Doug, and I appreciate the response.

The one nice thing about Catalyst is I have some folders of footage that I copy to several times—Catalyst does a nice job keeping them straight (e.g., a specific folder might have multiple shoot days uploaded to it if it makes sense for the media to live in one folder).
Click to expand...

If the main thing you want to do is copy, copy to multiple locations and check sum verify those copies, it might be worth looking at Quine CopySafe. I've just started using it. For a FREE piece of software, it's it looks to be pretty good. And if you use Resolve Studio, you can transcode your ingest footage as you go, all automated. It runs Resolve as a background process for the transcoding functions.

Chris Young

Newsshooter's write-ups.

https://www.newsshooter.com/search/quine/

YT video on Quine CopySafe

 
cyvideo said:
If the main thing you want to do is copy, copy to multiple locations and check sum verify those copies, it might be worth looking at Quine CopySafe. I've just started using it. For a FREE piece of software, it's it looks to be pretty good. And if you use Resolve Studio, you can transcode your ingest footage as you go, all automated. It runs Resolve as a background process for the transcoding functions.

Chris Young

Newsshooter's write-ups.

https://www.newsshooter.com/search/quine/

YT video on Quine CopySafe

Click to expand...

Thanks for this info! Basically that's all I was using Catalyst for. I'll check this out.
 
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