churchillstudios

Q: Final Cut Pro X Spinning Beachball

Hi folks outside of noticing all the missing features everyone's discussing, my first experience with Final Cut Pro X has also been plagued with slow, unresponsive hang-ups, usually accompanied by the spinning beach ball.  Most of the time the app recovers... takes about 30 seconds or so ... but other times the ball keeps spinning and will freeze the app, crash the app, or in rare circumstances freeze my whole workstation.

 

This is counter to the "no wait while rendering" I keep hearing about and is certainly not like what I saw from the NAB demo. So I have to wonder if it's something to do with my system, a brand-new Mac Pro - not a month old - with dual 2.93GHz 6-Core Xeons, 32MB RAM, and Nvidea Quadro 4000 graphics card.  All drivers are updated and I'm running on OSX 10.6.7.  Meanwhile all my other apps (CS5.5 Production Premium, Boris CC, Colorista II, Lightwave 10) are extremely stable and practically scream with speed.  None of these were open in the background when testing Final Cut, by the way.

 

I've researched the spinning ball even more by manually pausing the background renders.  When I do the app seems to free up and I can move around ... That is until I apply another effect that requires a render... then processing kicks back up, and I get more beach balls.

 

As for crashes, here are two quick observations: The app seems to consistently crash when I try to change the curve style of a clip’s opacity.  The other (more sinister) computer freeze has happened twice as I recall while simply accessing a pull-down menu.

 

Any thoughts?  I suspect it could be conflicting software or my Quadro graphics card?  Any help is appreciated.

 

- BC

Final Cut Pro X, Mac OS X (10.6.7), Mac Pro w/ Dual 2.93GHz 6-Core Xeon

Posted on Jun 22, 2011 11:59 AM

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Q: Final Cut Pro X Spinning Beachball

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  • by danwayfilms,

    danwayfilms danwayfilms Aug 1, 2011 7:34 PM in response to churchillstudios
    Level 1 (76 points)
    Aug 1, 2011 7:34 PM in response to churchillstudios

    It upsets me that we are into August with no updates. What's going on apple?

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Aug 1, 2011 7:39 PM in response to danwayfilms
    Level 10 (118,353 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 1, 2011 7:39 PM in response to danwayfilms

    I think you should go to your necessary Apple store and demand the Apple employees there tell you exactly what's going on.

  • by bluebomber76,

    bluebomber76 bluebomber76 Aug 8, 2011 12:58 PM in response to churchillstudios
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 8, 2011 12:58 PM in response to churchillstudios

    I've only had this problem since upgrading to Lion.

    It works fine if I am only working in FCPX but when I switch to another program and then switch back only one of the cores in my Mac Pro is being used at 100%.

    Could it be a bug which is causing the energy saving to kick in?

  • by number27,

    number27 number27 Aug 16, 2011 11:11 AM in response to churchillstudios
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 16, 2011 11:11 AM in response to churchillstudios

    In case anyone finds this via Google, I finally found a solution to my FCPX spinning beachball issues.

     

    I was able to significantly speed up FCPX by only having a single "Project" in the "Project library" at any one time (i.e. the project I'm currently working on).

     

    I found that by moving projects I'd already completed out of the "Movies/Final Cut Projects" folder, and to another location elsewhere on my hard drive, I could dramatically improve the responsiveness of the Project I am currently editing.

     

    Hope that's helpful to somebody else!

     

    Jonathan

  • by Rob Hambly,

    Rob Hambly Rob Hambly Aug 25, 2011 5:59 AM in response to number27
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 25, 2011 5:59 AM in response to number27

    That's an interesting solution.  I was starting to think the same thing.  It seems to take forever to read all the projects upon starting the application and when moving back into the project library from a project.

     

    I tried creating folders (right click on project, new folder) for my projects that seemed to help moving back from the project to the project library, but I still get a drastic loss of responsiveness over a couple of hours of working...  The lag on typing text on a title is a joke...  It might take 2 minutes for it to catch up on a two word title.

     

    I do find that restarting the system helps, but only temporarily.  I upgraded my RAM on my i3 iMac to 16gb which did help, but

     

    I would imagine the update is going to be a big one.

  • by StikeMernoff,

    StikeMernoff StikeMernoff Aug 28, 2011 7:27 PM in response to dosers
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Aug 28, 2011 7:27 PM in response to dosers

    Same w/ me. 8core seems really sluggish, paid way too much for a system to do this.

  • by Party Drone,

    Party Drone Party Drone Aug 31, 2011 10:01 AM in response to churchillstudios
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Aug 31, 2011 10:01 AM in response to churchillstudios

    From my System Information app:

     

    • Model Name:          Mac Pro
    • Model Identifier:          MacPro5,1
    • Processor Name:          Quad-Core Intel Xeon
    • Processor Speed:          2.4 GHz
    • Number of Processors:          2
    • Total Number of Cores:          8
    • L2 Cache (per Core):          256 KB
    • L3 Cache (per Processor):          12 MB
    • Memory:          8 GB

     

    And my graphics:

     

    • Chipset Model:          ATI Radeon HD 5770
    • Type:          GPU
    • Bus:          PCIe
    • VRAM (Total):          1024 MB

     

    I have the same beach ball woes as everyone else. I got a beach ball for about three seconds just by clicking on the loop playback button.

  • by BROOKLYNTREEZ,

    BROOKLYNTREEZ BROOKLYNTREEZ Aug 31, 2011 5:16 PM in response to Party Drone
    Level 1 (120 points)
    Aug 31, 2011 5:16 PM in response to Party Drone

    Thx number27, I tried your solutions... its better...I mean I can edit for about 3 minutes before it plays beach ball, compared to 30sec before your tactic. Glad FCPX has a good memory system, all my edits are all there on relaunch. When I moved the completed Projects, all my Events went missing on relaunch. Had to find the 1 project that held it all together??? So my projects Lib has a couple of projects in it, current ones and the must have. Would prob be better with just 1.

     

    Not sure why the Project Lib has to be such a big deal. Not sure whats going on under the hood but im guessing it takes up a bunch of resources...

     

    crash crash crash... going to the beach with my $%$# ball.

  • by alexilgatto,

    alexilgatto alexilgatto Sep 1, 2011 2:00 AM in response to churchillstudios
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 1, 2011 2:00 AM in response to churchillstudios

    Hi all!

     

    As many of you have told I am experimenting the fantastic spinning beachball all the time, especially when I open a complex project or too many projects.

     

    I can add some other bugs experience all very frustrating:

     

    1) Compound clips. When I create a compound clip in the event browser to replicate the workflow of old nested timelines, often it does not save my work inside the compound clip. So I have to start again and again.

     

    Between I really don't understand why if I modify the compound clip this does not brings the modification in the project where I had put it. It's not really the same of the nested sequences behavior. So I have ti delete and put again the modified compound clip… Boring!

     

    2) Try this: from event browser drag a clip with only audio selected. Now make a new project. Try to copy the audio clip from one project to the new one. No way. It's impossible.

     

    3) Audio ghosting. You can hear the audio that you have deleted.

     

    4) Audio shifting. You can hear the audio not in sync from a previous clip.

     

    5) Undo command sometimes disappears so you cannot undo your wrong edits!

     

    6) If you want an immediate crash select clips from the edit list and try to copy...

     

    In general the system becomes less responsive as many clips/effects etc. you put in a project. It crashes so often that sometimes is unusable. And worse it saves when he wants instead of when you want. Please take away the Autosave feature!

     

    I waste my time on this software because it has many good features and it seems to bring new life to editing, but, even if it is a version 1.0, It's not serious from Apple to release a so bad code.

     

    Hope they solve these and other problems soon else I'll have to switch to other programs.

     

    My system is a MBP 2011 with 8gb ram and SL 10.6.8.

  • by TheMandrewIsMe,

    TheMandrewIsMe TheMandrewIsMe Sep 7, 2011 7:11 PM in response to churchillstudios
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 7, 2011 7:11 PM in response to churchillstudios

    BRAND new iMac, 3.4 GHz i7, 8 GB RAM, Lion 10.7.1.

     

    I'm not a forum poster, but I don't know what else to do.

     

    I upgraded to this iMac from my 2+ year old MBP (which I loved) because Apple sold me on all this "SSD/Quad-Core/SuperFastSpeed/WowLookAtItFly!!!" stuff. I was happy to pay the money (which was substantial) on the premise (and promise) that I would have an FCP X editing GodMachine at my disposal.  I feel robbed. I've been spending my beach ball time watching FCP X tutorials and seeing all these people cruise along at break neck speed has me banging my head against the desk. WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY BRAND NEW EVERYTHING!?

     

    APPLE DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!

  • by aussiearn,

    aussiearn aussiearn Sep 10, 2011 4:45 PM in response to TheMandrewIsMe
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 10, 2011 4:45 PM in response to TheMandrewIsMe

    With FCPX, as with FCP7, it is best to turn off the audio wave. I have been using FCP since 3.0 and have found the audio wave form brings most, but very high end, systems to their knees.

     

    Go to the clip appearance button on the bottom right of your project timeline and select the 2nd from right track option. Doing this has greatly increased the speed of the program and I hardly ever see the spinning beach ball of despair.

     

    When needed the wave form can easily be turned on then off agai

  • by RCCone,

    RCCone RCCone Sep 16, 2011 2:12 PM in response to churchillstudios
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 16, 2011 2:12 PM in response to churchillstudios

    My current process for keep FCP X running ok, acertained mainly from these forums, is:

    • Your working project should be the only project in the "Final Cut Projects" folder.  I had 3-4 in there and performance was very slow.  I back those up.
    • Effects, information panels closed as much as possible.
    • Turn off audio wave forms.  This has worked wonders.
    • A computer restart an hour.  It takes 5-10 minutes for FCPX to shut down (Command - Q), so I try to do it every hour.  I also don't run any unneccesary programs in the background.
    • I'm using transcoded proxy media playback.

     

    I still get freezes and beachballs, but its tolerable.  Does anyone else have anything to add to this list?

     

     

    i5 2.53, 4GB Ram MBP

  • by Casciari,

    Casciari Casciari Sep 16, 2011 3:35 PM in response to churchillstudios
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 16, 2011 3:35 PM in response to churchillstudios

    Ok, my user experience is frustrating. A program that in theory is perfect for my workflow and my needs keeps beachballing and needs forced quitting.

     

    I noticed that problems arise using H264 HD clips: a 1 hour project containing 3000 was slowing down my macbook to zero. Using proxy helped a lot, but it took a day to convert. Besides, this is not what I was expecting by a 4000 $ hardware + software prime cut combo.

     

    No problems editing panasonic P2 HD files and a mix of other sd formats. So it seems, but I still have to start a real complex project.

     

    I'll try to turn off wave forms, and moving projects, but this is ridicolous: i'm working... i need them in view! No way closing info panels, restarting each hour, closing background programs. This is not what my worflow was supposed to be like, Apple!

  • by runel,

    runel runel Sep 22, 2011 6:08 AM in response to churchillstudios
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 22, 2011 6:08 AM in response to churchillstudios

    Hi!

    MacBook Pro 15" 4GB RAM, MAC OS X 10.7.1 and just upgraded to FCPX 10.0.1. Got Beachball after upgrading. Experienced choppy playback on both video and audio. Audio out of sync. Etc. On one occation FCPX crashed after doing Syncronize Clips (took about forever!). The has MBP gotten VERY sluggish after that FCPX upgrade.

     

    I had three (small to medium) projects in FCPX project folder. As many of you have mentioned I moved the projects out from the disk folder and left only the one in edit. It seems to have restored much of the responsiveness on the MBP. The beachball has almost dissappeared.

     

    But. There still seems to be something that the programmer-dudes left in the FCPX code that is slowing my MBP. Why, why, why? Wish for them to do something about it really SOON!

     

    Rune :-)

  • by irekord,

    irekord irekord Sep 22, 2011 11:13 AM in response to runel
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 22, 2011 11:13 AM in response to runel

    Similar issues here. 27" iMac i5 2.7Ghz 8GB RAM. 10.6.8

     

    Held off on the initial release. Thought 10.0.1 might be a safer bet so I pulled the trigger yesterday.

     

    Lot's of beachballs. Also having crashes releated to the Inspector. Certain transitions and FX crash FCPX if they are selected while Inspector is open, or opening Inspector after selecting.

     

    VERY disappointed. Unlike the issues many of the pro editors have due to limitations of the program, the feature set is perfect for what I need, but this app is nowhere near ready for release, even as a version 1.

     

    After wasting a day and a half with training and trying to get thru some basic simple projects, I'm DONE.

     

    I may take another look next year if the reviews improve and threads like this don't continue to dominate this board....

     

    Good luck,

     

    JP

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