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 Raphael Brand,

    Raphael Brand Raphael Brand Mar 29, 2012 10:42 AM in response to ndumais
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 29, 2012 10:42 AM in response to ndumais

    ndumais!

     

    if you can trace my earlier message you can find some answers.

    i had the same issue and ran a software programm from Digital Rebellion. i tried to follow most of his advice and though i didnt know how to get rid or detect corrupt fonts. i did realise i have actually 2 font programms running on my mac that is apparently not a smart idea.

    also i must admit that the plugin manager from them hang up on me a few times and didnt get it to work. but despite that. a ran the other programms that are a part of the software package they sell esp. for these kind of issues and my f.beachball is gone for now and i can continue working!

    sofar the purchase of the programm though its maybe not perfect has helped me out countless times already(and i am not working for them!

    Raphael

     

     

    Beachballs seem to have increased with the 10.0.3 update. I would recommend running QuickFix and if that doesn't solve the issue, use FCS Remover to remove FCPX and then reinstall again from the App Store.

     

    You could also try:

    * Trashing caches in System Toolkit

    * Using Plugin Manager to disable third-party effects

    * Use the Font Book app that comes with OS X to check for corrupt or duplicate fonts

    * Moving other projects and events out of the Movies folder (you can also use the third-party app Event Manager X to accomplish this)

     

    Regards,

    Jon Chappell.

    CEO, Digital Rebellion LLC.

    http://www.digitalrebellion.com

  • by Luis Sequeira1,

    Luis Sequeira1 Luis Sequeira1 Mar 29, 2012 10:59 AM in response to ndumais
    Level 6 (12,617 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 29, 2012 10:59 AM in response to ndumais

    Sorry to hear about your predicament. It does seem that something has become corrupt - either your project, or your preferences, maybe.

    You could try to trash the preferences; delete render files (these are most often the things that get corrupted, and they are easily regenerated, so at least you don't get hurt by trying)

    Also, FCP X backs up your project; you may try to go back to a backed up version: move the

    "CurrentVersion.fcpproject" file out of the project folder (put in the Desktop, for example) and start FCP X.

    This should have FCP X use the backed up version.

    (A similar operation may be done for a problematic Event)

  • by gerahdo,

    gerahdo gerahdo Mar 29, 2012 12:00 PM in response to ndumais
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 29, 2012 12:00 PM in response to ndumais

    If you are in a hurry try this ,

    create a new partition maybe just 30GB install fresh Lion or Snow Leopard and FCPX , it will recognize your project .

    I am pretty sure this will solve your problem .

     

    How much RAM do you have ?

     

    G

  • by ndumais,

    ndumais ndumais Mar 29, 2012 12:09 PM in response to Raphael Brand
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 29, 2012 12:09 PM in response to Raphael Brand

    Thank you Raphael,

     

    I followed your advise and downloaded the Digital Rebellion package. It worked. FCP X now lets me work without spinning the awful beachball,

     

    I'm very grateful.

     

    What I've learned is that people like me, isolated and free-lancing, need some clues coming from a bunch of helpful great guys like I found on this forum, since Apple won't do it.

     

    Add to this the fact that version 10.0.3 of FCP X seems fairly bugged, thus nesting many occasions of assorted miseries. It's why a FCP X utility package like Rebellions's is essential to people like me. Today, I lost five hour of last minute work, Next time, I'll only loose a quarter of an hour.

     

    Thank you again, I wish you all the best.

  • by ndumais,

    ndumais ndumais Mar 29, 2012 12:12 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 29, 2012 12:12 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

    Thank you LuisSequeira1 and Gerahdo,

     

    I solved my issue with Digital Rebellion's software,

  • by Darryl Yee1,

    Darryl Yee1 Darryl Yee1 Mar 31, 2012 6:23 AM in response to Baron Sekiya
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mar 31, 2012 6:23 AM in response to Baron Sekiya

    Baron Sekiya wrote:

     

    ...I should have just bit the bullet and gone to Premier

    I went from FCP 7 to Premiere. Premiere has it's own maddneing render-before-playback issues. I now switched to FCP X. Editing is MUCH easier in FCP X - when there is no beachball. In terms of editing, Premiere offers very little that FCP 7 couldn't do. Ideally, the best editing app would be FCP X with the stability of FCP 7.

     

    With the impending release of Photoshop 6, I would expect Premiere 6 to be released soon as well - it will be interesting to see what they've come up with.

  • by nolanpaulstanley,

    nolanpaulstanley nolanpaulstanley Apr 10, 2012 5:01 PM in response to grandtheadmiral
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 10, 2012 5:01 PM in response to grandtheadmiral

    I just set up another user account for editing as well. (1 hour long tech support call told me this)

    But barring this rather annoying work around, does anyone know how well 10.0.4 is working??? Just released today.

  • by aaronweinzierl,

    aaronweinzierl aaronweinzierl Apr 17, 2012 5:13 AM in response to churchillstudios
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 17, 2012 5:13 AM in response to churchillstudios

    downloaded 10.0.4 the other day and am just now starting to use it. so far it opened fairly quickly. I can go in and out of projects with zero lag, delete media from the event library, delete projects and play thru things without every seeing the spinning rainbow wheel of distruction.

     

    I have about 3 hours of work to do today so fingers crossed..... but so far I'm impressed!!!

  • by ndumais,

    ndumais ndumais Apr 17, 2012 5:37 AM in response to aaronweinzierl
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 17, 2012 5:37 AM in response to aaronweinzierl

    Prior to my 10.0.4 upgrade, which BTW seems fine, I changed my graphic accelerator which was the original nVidia 512 Mb card (I use an 8-core 3,2 MGh Mac Pro from 2008) for a Radeon with 1 Gb of RAM. In my case, the change was significant, FCP needs a good video card.

     

    But I still get to see the beach ball after a while. Typically, after four or five hours of work, the CPU gets muddy and the "rainbow wheel of distruction" starts spinning for unrelevant reasons. All I have to do, then, is to shut down FCP and rebbot the Mac, as I used to do a while back in iMovie.

     

    Memory or cache management issue ? Should I upgrade my machine to 16 Gb of RAM since I only have 8 ? I don't know, what I read in forums such as this one is conradictory.

  • by Baron Sekiya,

    Baron Sekiya Baron Sekiya Apr 17, 2012 1:02 PM in response to nolanpaulstanley
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Apr 17, 2012 1:02 PM in response to nolanpaulstanley

    Installed the 10.0.4 update and FCPX seems to be running much more smoothly for the last three short clips I had to edit. Thumbs-up.

  • by Sofus Comer,

    Sofus Comer Sofus Comer Apr 28, 2012 8:28 AM in response to Baron Sekiya
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apr 28, 2012 8:28 AM in response to Baron Sekiya

    I too have only good to say after 10.0.4. Its running somewhat faster and much more reliable (No porblems for over a week now). Now I would say well done apple. But I am still hestitant to do so. Cause this is 9 months after FCPX was set for sale, that we finally can say its working. I feel soooooo much like a betatester... I hope you never do that again!!!!

  • by Baron Sekiya,

    Baron Sekiya Baron Sekiya Apr 29, 2012 1:58 AM in response to Baron Sekiya
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Apr 29, 2012 1:58 AM in response to Baron Sekiya

    I spoke too soon. FCPX is back to its spinning beachball and crashing ways. So much promise for 10.0.4 but it just keeps crashing on me. I've repaired permissions, restarted, disabled and even uninstalled some concurrently running small utilities that should have no impact, it still freezes and beachballs. I'm not exactlly pushing it hard as to what I'm doing. This is a real disappointment :^(

     

    Sent in reports after each crash.

  • by Raphael Brand,

    Raphael Brand Raphael Brand Apr 29, 2012 2:03 AM in response to Baron Sekiya
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 29, 2012 2:03 AM in response to Baron Sekiya

    try digital rebellion.

  • by rgomez,

    rgomez rgomez Apr 30, 2012 5:33 AM in response to churchillstudios
    Level 1 (9 points)
    iPhone
    Apr 30, 2012 5:33 AM in response to churchillstudios

    I haven't had any luck with 10.0.4. The only version I was able to use was 10.0.2. Both 10.0.3 and 10.0.4 are just a beach ball after beach ball. I can't play the project, I can't even see the clips on the viewer. There is just the checkboard. If I press spacebar to play the proejct I get the beachball.

     

    I haven't tried using another user, as I have read somewhere along the forums, but really, I can't believe this is happening and that it hasn't been fixed yet.

     

    I get to crash reports, just the beachball.

     

    I can't try it on my MP because it's a first get mac and my nVidia 8800 died some weeks ago and the stock graphic card is not supported. And spend other 300 € or something like that in a new graphics card for this 6 years old machine doesn't make much sense really.

     

    Edit: I forgot to add that my MBP is from mid2010, and was one of the affected with the graphic card issue. I had the logic board replaced (and the screen, for some reason I don't understand), but I wonder if this thing with FCP could be related?

  • by grandtheadmiral,

    grandtheadmiral grandtheadmiral Apr 30, 2012 9:11 AM in response to rgomez
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apr 30, 2012 9:11 AM in response to rgomez

    I've had beach all issues with projects carried forward from 10.0.2 and 10.0.3, and some weird new crashes. But with a brand new project, started clean in 10.0.4 FCP has been awesome. Faster, snappier, never crashes, works great.

     

    Like apple recommended, don't upgrade FCPX if you're in the middle of a project. Try to finish them up first.

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