Q: Final Cut Pro X Spinning Beachball

Same problems here.

The machine is a Mac Pro “Mid 2010” with this configuration:

• Processor:  3.33 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon;
• Memory:  24 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC;
• Graphics:  ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB;
• Software:  Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1 (11B26);
• HDD for media: striped RAID set with 3 HDDs scoring 353.6 MB for write and 377.8 MB for read in Blackmagic's Disk Speed Test app.

I discart an issue regarding your Nvidea Quadro 4000 graphic card.

The spinning ball freezes the app for about 30 s or crashes it after making some simple operation, like changing a clip's volume, listing clips with some keyword (even if it's just listing clips proprieties, not showing the filmstrip view!) or selecting clips.

I'm testing FCPX updated version 10.0.1, the same random slowness and stupid crashes experienced with the last version are still here! And this is after I made a clean reinstallation of Mac OS X Lion and installing only FCPX, Motin and Compressor in the system!

I'm working with a large Event, with 2300 asset and 122 hours. Nothing that Adobe Premiere or FCP 7 couldn't handle. What the point of an advanced database driven, keyword based asset organization model, if it's unusable due slowness and instability when dealing with a complex projects?

I didn't start editing yet! I'm just organizing the material. But I don't think this situation will get better when working with the complex, an hour and half long movie edit I was planing to do!

Problem solved!

The solution proposed by andynick solves the increadible slowness of FCPX when doing even simple tasks, like listing clips from a keyword collection, adjusting volume, sorting things, etc. Studio6Bill also have reported this improvement.

andynick's solution is to create a new administrator user and use FCPX in this new account.

I've tested creating just a Standard, non-admin account, but it didn't work.

For the reccord: I was experiencing 10 to 30 s lags and crashes when working with just one Event and just one Project. It was a relativily large Event, over 2000 clips and 100 hours, but the slowness and unexpected quits occured after simples operations, even doing everything that could do to increase performance, like turning off waveforms and filmstrips. The machine is a Mac Pro “Mid 2010”, 3.33 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon with 24 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory and dedicated internal striped RAID0 set (not boot drive) running Mac OS X Lion 10.0.1. It's a editing workstation and I've made a clean reinstalation of Mac OS X 10.0.1 and FCPX 10.0.1 before experiencing this problems that imparied the hability to work. I think this discart Andynick's diagnosis of conflict with previous software or FCP7: there was none; I've just installed the system, FCPX 10.0.1, Motion 5.0.1 and Compressor 4 version 185673, and updated everything.

Things are nice now, it's a wonderfull application when you can actually use it. If slowness and crashing behauvior return, I will report here.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen.  Apple should be ashamed that they have become just like Windows!  I actually got better performance out of my old PC using Magix Editor which cost $100.00.  I have a brand new i7 8 Core with 8gb of memory and I can't keep my iMac running for 15 minutes when I use FCPX on a project that has over 10 minutes.  I'll try some of the solutions recommended but clearly they are are only minor solutions to a major problem.  I think Apple deserves a class action lawsuit for from all of us who were duped into buying a promise and getting a real lemon!

Well reading this does give me "some" relief...

I recently bought a brand new Macbook Pro 13" i5/4gb and while I know this isn't the greatest spec for video editing, I was expecting it to be at least usable. I just loaded FCPX to preview a project I was working on, it sat unresponsive for 3 minutes before a beachball appears, then it very sluggishly allows me to jump between frame then I use the scrollbar which lags to ****.

I get fed up, and leave it thinking maybe its just doing something. Come back to it and press play, bear in mind this project is literally just the intro with text, images off a camera (no moving video yet) and music. The music starts playing, the video preview does not. I try to pause it... nothing, the entire track plays, I curse very loudly and force quit this absolute abortion of a program. What an absolute waste of money!

Is this seriously how it is normally? This thread dates back to June..... what the ****? HELP!?

Check that the graphics card is compatible.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4728

I checked the min requirements here http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/specs/

And the card in my MC700LL/A macbook pro is an Intel HD Graphics 3000 384MB (shared), I never expected this to be mega responsive just at least slightly useable. This is worse than trying to edit video on my old IBM thinkpad (8 years old!!) haha.

Sadly its not on the list you posted, had I know I would have not invested

Intel HD 3000 graphics is supported. It's listed specifically in tech specs. There may be another issue. It could be the media itself.

When you say images off a camera, what do you mean? Still images? These can be enormous, and you have pretty limited RAM.

That is true yes, they are still images off a Canon EOS 400D edited in Apeture and exported as Jpegs no more than 5-8mb in size. I was under the impression this would be less intensive than editing 2 hours of 1080p footage in iMovie, I have done a similar thing in iMovie with similar images before I decided to step up to FCPX without issue...

I can see the use of the extra features in FCPX just wish it would perform, I'm willing to swap out the memory to 2 4gb's at some point but something tells me this won't help too much when I see 280% cpu usage in activity monitor for the FCPX process (how is that even possible??) lol

Ps. Thanks for the replies chap

Video playback puts a premium on hard drive performance, but not on RAM. Depending on the format it may also require a lot of computer processor power. Native H.264 pushes the CPU for playback. Optimizied meia will be much larger, but requires little from your computer for editing, but high performance from your media drive.

This will not help, but I wonder why on earth my antique machine, Mac Pro 1,1 (2006) can handle FCPX with any problems, not screaming fast but smooth and reliable. And brand new models have problems. I can not understand this. Thre must be serious flaw in the FCP X construction.

I've read a lot of good advice on these forums.  Unfortunately nothing has helped.  I purchased Final Cut Pro X and kept getting crashes while skimming/scrubbing through video.  I've tried many settings including turning off back ground render.  I installed 8GB of ram in my Macbook Pro.  This weekend I will install Tiger (at another's advice) to see if that will stop the beach ball.   I must say that iMovie is far more stable than Final Cut Pro X right now.  As a matter of fact.  I've never had a crash in iMovie.  I guess I should up grade that...  lol.  

Hearing the good things about earlier versions of Final Cut Pro makes me wish I had of shelled out the cash then.      I'm hoping that Apple is working on a solution to the software issue.  Right now it just sits on my machine taking up space.   

Tiger does not support FCP. You need a late version of Snow Leopard as the minimum requirement.

I've had trouble, but I've been getting by, but consider most of my projects are 1 hour plus of footage cut down to 7 to 12 minute projects. BUT I AM DONE.

I hate apple, their stupid file management and how poor this new system is.

I'm pc and I guess I always will be.

I'm aiming for a nice pc laptop and Sony Vegas...Everything I read about Vegas reads YES. I think its a player in the shadows.

Monty

There was an Apple update or patch in October 2011 that fixed the spinning beach ball and the crashes on Final Cut Pro X.  The patch was for 2010 Mac Pros that were assembled in mid 2010.  Before the patch came out I upgraded my memory from 2GB to 4GB.  The upgrade in memory didn't help the crashing.  Apple's latest patch solved the issue.  Here are the step that I took before Apple's patch came out:

Uninstalled, reinstalled Final Cut Pro X (several times)

Upgraded from Tiger to Lion  (still same issue of crashing)

Increased/upgraded ram from 2GB to 4GB  (still crashed and system froze with a black screen)

Downloaded  Gfxcardswitching program from CNET.com  This helped slow the amount of crashes on Final Cut, but only enough to make me madder. 

Apple addressed the crashing with a 50mb update and Final Cut Pro X runs like a charm.    wiping tears from my eyes.... 

We've been evaluating Avid and Adobe for three to four weeks. After losing 1.5 hours to the spinning beachball today that was the straw that broke the camel's back and so we spent money we didn't want to and pulled the trigger on Adobe's Production Premium suite. Is it possible to get a refund from Apple after six months?