Stuck on FCPX Splash Screen

I finally figured out how to fix the Grey Screen of Death

look for this:

System Drive:Users:YourUser:Library:Application Support:Final Cut Pro:Layouts

Delete anything in the Layouts folder. Then relaunch FCPX, it should launch correctly.

No problem, I'm just glad I stumbled on it myself, it was unusable till I did.

Hi,

I'm no expert, but this is what I did and it worked. (I'm using a MBP 8gb with Lion) I MOVED the two directories Final Cut Projects and Final Cut Events across to Documents in Finder. I then created two new folders of the same name in movies folder (Final Cut Projects & Final Cut Events) and the opened FCP-X! No problem! I then closed FCP-X and moved my folders back to the movies directory (Which overwrote the empty folders I had just created) and opened FCP-X again, and all is well. I did not lose any of my work which I had created prior to the crash!

We are experiencing a similar problem where FCPX loads but just comes up as one large grey window. Our operating system is Lion and I wondered if anyone has had a solution that works in Lion? I couldn't find the same file associations that were described in this thread so I was guessing they were maybe from systems running Snow Leopard? (Primarily, we couldn't find a "Final Cut Pro" layouts folder) Any help is greatly appreciated!

The problem began when one our FCPX projects crashed and then wouldn't reopen. We removed the project and event from the Final Cut folders which allowed FCPX to reopen except that it went to this grey screen rather than showing the windows. Everything else (tool bar, dialog boxes, etc.) is functional. We have re-installed both FCPX and Lion with no improvement. Thanks again.

If you are in Lion, you have to use the Go menu in the finder, but hold Option down when selecting it, that will make the user Library item appear in the list of available locations you can "go" to. Then you should be able to dig into the library folder to find that layours folder. Now if you did that and the folder in question is missing...I have no idea.

If you get the menu bar up in Final Cut X, but nothing else - you can do the same thing as previosuly mentioned by going to 'Window' then 'Revert to origional layout'. That fixed it for me after numerous reboots and project moves.

The gray screen of death also happened to me. Deleting the layouts in the FCP X application support fixed the problem. Have to delete all the layouts in this folder. When you restart FCP, the layout is restored. Have no idea why this happened and seeing that gray screen for the first time will make your heart jump out of your chest. Thank God for this support community.

Actually I do know how this happened. I was starting up FCPX but it got stuck trying to load an event from my last project and would never finish the load-up. The spinning pinwheel of death continued to sping so I did a force quit. Went to the movies folder and deleted the event. This fixed the stalled load-up problem before. I have had students with the same problem and did this trick with them with the same success. However, this time the gray screen O'Death was my new response. Lucky me.

Ah yes - this way is actually faster than finding the layouts folder. 🙂

Hopefully others will see your post as it wasn't chosen as the 'correct' answer. But, basically instead of finding the folder through Finder, I just go to the menu option "Window" at the top when I launch FCP and choose Revert to Original Layout.

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That works if you can get the application open, but if you're stuck on the splash screen and the app won't launch you need to do it in the Finder.

I had a similar problem with FCPX sticking at the splash screen, this procedure worked for me.

Go to ~/Library/Caches and delete the "com.apple.audiounits.cache" file.

Then launch Logic Pro/Audio Units Manager and rescan all the audio plug-ins.

FCPX should then startup normally.

If you don't have Logic Pro/Audio Units Manager try removing third-party audio plugins at ~/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components

I tried that and I didnt even have a layout folder. Is there anything else that could work?

Use Preference Manager to trash preferences. What's on the splash screen when it fails? What are the specs of your system? What software version?