Proxies Viewer Is Slow When Editing

Question

Level 1

4 points

Proxies Viewer Is Slow When Editing

When using proxies, every time I cut or delete a clip in the timeline, I have to wait three seconds for the colored wheel to spin and it is SO frustrating. It's as if it thinks I'm using optimized media. Is there some simple thing I need to do to fix this?

Extra details: After a *** (three second colored wheel), I'm guaranteed about five seconds of future cuts/edits without any luls until I'm subjected to waiting again. I can't find any other consistency to this issue. Most often, this is the case when editing, but on rare occasion, upon booting the computer and FCP, the proxy timeline works like normal and there are no luls, but this occurs less than 10% of the time.

Mac Studio

Posted on Apr 13, 2023 7:28 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

terryb

Level 4

3,430 points

Apr 15, 2023 10:33 AM in response to Walterrific

Not permanently, just trying to help you reduce the complexity to narrow down the cause.

You have a drive that is full. Drives needs a minimum of 10% free space, preferably 15%. This has 5%:

disk6 - Seagate BUP Slim BK 1.00 TB

External USB 5 Gbit/s USB

disk6s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk6s2 [APFS Container] 1000.00 GB

disk9 [APFS Virtual drive] 1000.00 GB (Shared by 1 volumes)

disk9s2 - T**********e (APFS) (948.11 GB used)

You also have CleanMyMac installed which is considered malware for the ProApps. It appears to be very aggressive about what it removes and may have damaged your system. The solution is to do as was recommended earlier -- backup, reformat, install fresh macOS and only restore your User data. Then reinstall apps from the AppStore or 3rd party developer **except** for CMM and Chrome.

You could see if simply uninstalling CMM helps, but I've seen mixed results of that.

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Answer 2

Apr 14, 2023 12:59 AM in response to Walterrific

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here. Use the "additional text" button and paste the report into the text box.

Where is the media? How full are the system drive and the drive containing your media and library?

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Answer 3

terryb

Level 4

3,430 points

Apr 14, 2023 2:41 PM in response to Walterrific

You have Silverlight and Shockwave installed which indicates that you've been upgrading in-place for many, many years and migrated this onto your Mac Studio. In my opinion, the best thing you can do for your Mac Studio is first make 2 complete backups, then erase the drive and install a clean system. Then restore from your backup *only* the User data, *no* applications or System files. Install fresh copies of your applications from the AppStore or 3rd party developers. I know, it's going to take a few hours.

If you want to stay with Monterey, you can create a thumb drive boot installer. https://osxdaily.com/2022/02/23/make-macos-monterey-boot-install-drive/

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Answer 4

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,815 points

Apr 14, 2023 2:46 PM in response to Walterrific

A quick addition to Terry’s excellent advice: do not install Chrome and absolutely do not install or run CleanMyMac.

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Answer 5

terryb

Level 4

3,430 points

Apr 15, 2023 9:45 AM in response to Walterrific

Please post a new Etrecheck report.

Have you tried disconnecting all external drives?

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Answer 6

Walterrific Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 15, 2023 9:18 AM in response to terryb

Well, I got a lot of junk cleaned up, that's the good news. I also did what Tom Wolsky suggested and didn't install those two applications.

Unfortunately, I still have the same issue in Final Cut Pro, albeit not as bad. The beachball only lasts about one to two seconds now.

For more detail: when I make a cut or delete a clip in the timeline, I can audibly hear the external disk spin or run when making the edit and waiting for the beachball. It's as if, even when in the proxy viewer and using proxies on my internal SSD, that it thinks it needs to use those files on the external drive, even though it doesn't. This has happened for as long as I can remember, though as I edit more and expect more from my nicer machine, it becomes more annoying.

I just don't understand why that's happening; I must be doing something wrong. It's a small thing, really, but when you edit for hours a day, it turns into a big thing.

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Answer 7

Walterrific Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 14, 2023 1:59 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thanks for the reply,

All the media, including the libraries, are on an external hard disk, which is at about 75% capacity, and the onboard SSD where the proxies are kept is at about 50% capacity.

Could the solution be to duplicate the library onto the SSD?

EtreCheck Report

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Answer 8

Walterrific Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 15, 2023 10:06 AM in response to terryb

No, I haven't tried disconnecting the external drives. Are you suggesting that I create the proxies for a project and then disconnect my drive each time? I'm sure that'd solve the problem, but that's not desirable because I use that drive to store all other media too, and I would invariably need to continually disconnect and reconnect it to move media (video,pictures,audio) in between drives.

EtreCheck Report

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Answer 9

Walterrific Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 15, 2023 10:43 AM in response to terryb

That full drive is my Time Machine, it's full of backups, and I made an additional backup on another drive as you suggested.

Hmm, I did as you said. I made two backups, erased the computer, reinstalled the iOS and then restored it with the user data from a Time Machine backup, but not the applications. I thought I did away with CleanMyMac, so I'm not sure how to remove it.

An additional thing - it says my internal SSD is using 300GB, but I can only account for 100GB, so... I don't know where that 200GB of data is. I can only imagine that what it's telling me isn't up to date because I can't account for it.

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