FCPX downgrade - updated libraries won't open - workaround?

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FCPX downgrade - updated libraries won't open - workaround?

Hi - I am about to downgrade from Big Sur to Catalina (Big Sur was crashing my Macbook for months - no solution). So I have assume I will be forced to downgrade my FCPX as well. Naturally I'd like to open my Libraries but they will no longer be openable. So what is the workaround to be able to work on Catalina with a lower version of FCP and "updated" libraries?

Will I lose all my Libraries?

Is a workaround possible? such as I export timelines as XML and then, downgrade FCP and import the XMLs again and try and link with media?

I doubt I'll go to Big Sur again - too much unreliability for no benefit. So I am stuck on Catalina and an older FCP. I can't be the only one to downgrade and be stuck like this?

Posted on May 19, 2021 1:51 PM

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Answer 1

May 19, 2021 2:31 PM in response to WarrenStreet

While that can change at any point in the future, for now the current version of FCP (10.5.2) works in Catalina.

I would suggest that rather than blame Big Sur you tell us more about the issues you are having with it. Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here.

I bet that we’ll find old stuff and maybe other things that could be causing the problems.

Maybe, like a lot of people, you have been upgrading for years and old system extensions break.

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Answer 2

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

May 19, 2021 2:31 PM in response to WarrenStreet

Downgrading is becoming more and more difficult and may well not be possible in the future. The OS can really only be downdraged with a complete wipe and install of the older OS from a separate drive.

If you install 10.15.7, the last version of Catalina, the current FCP version and libraries will still work.

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Answer 3

May 20, 2021 1:15 AM in response to WarrenStreet

Definitely try a clean install.

You have several things installed that should never be there, plus others that modify your system at a low level and that are too old for Big Sur. You can try uninstalling stuff but a clean install is the ultimate solution.

If you are unsure, get yourself a small external SSD and test.

Some of the things I noticed:

Memory Clean - NOTHING of the sort should be used since 10.9 Mavericks! This goes against the OS memory management, degrades performance and may cause crashes.

Monolingual - don’t! The idea that you can save space by gutting applications and removing resources for languages you don’t use is bad. The space is insignificant, applications may cease to work and it is a security concern. Checksums will no longer match.

Soundflower is awesome but the version you have is not compatible. You need 2.0b2 - or better yet use BlackHole Audio Driver.

Oh, I almost forgot. Uninstall CHROME. You simply can’t use professional applications with Chrome.

There is likely more.

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Answer 4

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

May 20, 2021 2:43 AM in response to WarrenStreet

During the installation process, after the reboot, and entering language. the install goes to the Migration Assistant. It will ask if you want to restore from a drive or Time Machine or another machine. Select wherever your backup is. You will then get options for what to restore. Select only the user or users. Deselect everything else. Depending on the backup it might take quite a while, but it brings everything over like documents, mail, photos library, music, everything in the user home folder.

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Answer 5

WarrenStreet Author

Level 1

25 points

May 20, 2021 12:11 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thanks - very useful.

My Macbook has been poor since BigSur 3 months ago- so yes something is incompatible - and many others have reported the same issues with BigSur. Mine is now nearly unusable.

EtreCheck Report

My options are:

Fix the BigSur issue

Clean Install Catalina and hope Final Cit will work

Clean install BigSur and hope a clean install will be the difference.

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Answer 6

WarrenStreet Author

Level 1

25 points

May 20, 2021 5:18 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

thanks. Very helpful. Can you suggest an app to safely uninstall the potential culprits? I din’t recall installing a few if those. I am aware that years ago Clean My Mac was briefly on my mac, and this was not easy to uninstall completely.

in system logs there were apparent repeat issues with Chrome render helper, and launchd and a couple of obscure processes.

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Answer 7

WarrenStreet Author

Level 1

25 points

May 20, 2021 5:16 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

Thanks Tom. I may well back up the whole user and selected applications to an SSD. The question is will a clean install of Big Sur be more reliable than clean Catalina? (M1 users have reported similar new Macs with issues)

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Answer 8

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

May 20, 2021 5:24 AM in response to WarrenStreet

A clean install of Big Sur would probably work as well. I'm running an M1 MBP and have no problems with FCP.

Do not migrate any applications. Use either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to make a clone of your data volume. You can use Time Machine as well, but the migration is slower as the system has to trace documents from many different locations. TM is great having a history of your content, but not so good for migration.

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Answer 9

terryb

Level 4

3,394 points

May 20, 2021 10:23 AM in response to WarrenStreet

If Clean My Mac was ever installed on your machine, I would second the recommendation for a clean install of the OS. Do a search here for some of the horror stories it has caused if you're interested.

Chrome is not a good citizen on a Mac that uses professional video apps. See https://chromeisbad.com for the explanation and instructions on how to completely remove it.

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Answer 10

WarrenStreet Author

Level 1

25 points

May 22, 2021 7:13 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thanks Luis and I have cleaned off the likely suspects, chrome (and Keystone), monolingual, MemoryClean, Soundflower. Not too many left now.

The Mac seemed a bit more stable and whilst the fans still kick in there have been no crashes until a moment ago - Safari being used and this was the last 10 minutes before the Mac crashed and rebooted. This turns up in all logs near a crash event com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared ..... Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[96]

10 minute log before Crash

before I spend time and risk clean installing, I would like to pin point the catalyst for these issues.

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Answer 11

WarrenStreet Author

Level 1

25 points

May 22, 2021 11:16 AM in response to WarrenStreet

Update. I made a boot SSD of BigSur 11.3.1. I am using it now with no Apps other than the install apps. As I first time configured the OS for wifi, Apple ID etc. the fans started to whirl at full pelt, as they had during the OS install to the SSD.

Console, for what it is worth, is showing me this below - and 95% of the Console System log since boot is those lines repeated.

The fans have died down a bit now.

in Console whilst running OS from an external SSD

Additional log as fans increased

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Answer 12

terryb

Level 4

3,394 points

May 22, 2021 12:38 PM in response to WarrenStreet

I'm certainly no expert, but I believe mds is Spotlight. I don't know if the mds process is failing when indexing your new external SSD or the internal MBP drive. Maybe the internal drive's index is corrupt? You could try to force it to start from scratch on by going into Spotlight's System Prefs and dragging the internal drive into the list of disks to be ignored by Spotlight. Close System Prefs and then go back into the Spotlight prefs and remove the drive from the ignored list. This should remove Spotlight's index and then force it to reindex from scratch. Your CPU and drive will work hard to rebuild it, so you will probably see and hear that.

Another thought is, have you added 3rd party RAM? If so, maybe it's failing?

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Answer 13

WarrenStreet Author

Level 1

25 points

May 22, 2021 3:43 PM in response to terryb

Thanks Terry,

These issues started immediately on upgrade to BigSur - so it is most coincidental if RAM or drive failed at that time. Secondly the logs are from the new external drive, and the similar logs were previously from the internal drive. The indexing was my thoughts - as many suggest disabling spotlight. I have reduced the scope of Spotlight and then removed both drives from the scope - no difference. All those logs are after that.

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Answer 14

WarrenStreet Author

Level 1

25 points

Jun 4, 2021 12:31 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

OK - I have done the boot in Big Sur from an external SSD and that did not avoid the freezes. Reverted to using internal drive - I had cleaned off the possible offending apps from the original install on the internal drive. I have continued for 3 weeks and still get the issues of CPU runaway, fans then crash.

poss. issues:

So now I am about to clean install Catalina on my MacBook then Migrate Assist the users across and hope to re-install my apps. FCP: I have a few extras, templates and plug-ins in FCP - what is the best method to ensure these are also moved across without using Migration Assistant?

( I want Catalina as that is consistent with my other Mac and I know Catalina worked on all Macs. Big Sur offers no benefits over Catalina).

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Answer 15

WarrenStreet Author

Level 1

25 points

Jun 4, 2021 2:23 AM in response to WarrenStreet

The downgrade has met an obstacle. I used CCC to create a clone of my Macbook internal SSD onto a new external SSD. Files are all visible. As a test I proposed to use my old iMac (Catalina clean install) to test the Migration of my MacbookPro User folder from the CCC External SSD clone - but Migration Assistant can't see the external drive and hangs on "Looking for Sources". (The external drive does not appear on the desktop but Disk Utility can see the drive and I can access the folders on the drive).

I then tried to Migration Assist directly from the Macbookpro (BigSur) to the iMac (Catalina) over wifi. This is not permitted if the donor is on an OS newer than the recipient iMac's OS.

I presume this will be the same issue when I try to Migrate my MacBook user from the Ext CCC clone back to the Macbookpro after I have clean installed Catalina.

Are there workarounds for Migration Assistant?

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FCPX downgrade - updated libraries won't open - workaround?

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