FURIOUS! Warning: Undo Bug and Auto-Save Bug

for what it's worth I've had several instances where FCPX didn't save work as well. Usually happened with a crash but once it just didn't seem to save when i did a regular quit. Rather scary.

AHXtreme42 wrote:

(I know you can duplicate a project, but Im not interested in that...)

Sorry about your lost work. I understand the pain and frustration. I work a lot with alpha and beta software, where the app crashes and documents get corrupted (sound familiar?) and I have learned that it's safest to get in the habit of duplicating documents often.

So here's a tip. My technique for doing the duplication quickly and easily. In Finder, leave the folder open which holds the document you're working on. Then go back to the application and work. From time to time, command-tab over to Finder, duplicate the document (command-D), and the command-tab back to the application. Don't even worry about naming the duplicate. It'll be something like "MyDocument copy 7". And you'll end up with a bunch of them. But when the crash or malfunction happens, go back to Finder and show the folder by date, so you can see which copy was the most recent, and you can restart from there.

Like any good backup strategy, this is quick and easy. That's the main thing. Make it part of your workflow. Command-tab, command-D, command-tab.

Another thing I've learned from working with beta software: if you've lost a bunch of work because of a crash or whatever, redo the work immediately. You'll catch up a lot faster. You can remember what you did, etc.

So keep sending carefully written bug reports to Apple, make a lot of backups, and keep working. It is possible to get work done with buggy software.

This is what happens when software is not beta tested.

Regardless of bugs or beta, this sort of file handling should not be a forced behavior. I hope Apple adds a pref which allows pro users to have access to their file management in a quick and intuitive way. If for no other reason than peace-of-mind.

I'm really disappointed that this bug still hasn't been fixed after six weeks or so. Fixing bugs that cause people to lose work should be Apple's number one priority.

I could not agree more Jon. Perhaps it's just something they cannot get a handle on to fix. It is so eratic. I've had it happen to me a couple of times, but I have no idea or no way of seeing what causing it, and whether it's something in the app, or something in some other app, or something in the OS. It's a little early to say, but I haven't had it happen to me in Lion, but then maybe I've just been lucky, or maybe something in the OS has changed that prevents this.

The workaround I posted is a technique I use when working as a beta-tester.

Of course, when I do beta-testing, I report the bug and it's usually fixed in a day or two. Unfortunately, FCX users are not even beta-testers! Another word comes to mind. The OP has every right to be furious.

That may be one cause of the problem, but I have never done that and encountered the problem.

AHXtreme42 wrote:

Just wanted to check on this thread again.

Tom, I read your comment. Like I said I might have discovered the cause of the bug, read my 2nd post towards the bottom, it happened to me regarding the fader handles and dragging them too far. Hope this helps prevent you from a future disaster

If it's that kind of error, more than likely it exists in several different places within the program. Basically you've performed an operation the program doesn't know how to deal with, it may be something that's caused a loop or it may just be an operation there's no undo for because it was unexpected.

Apple has a lot on their plate with the next update, I imagine they're taking their time and trying to release something a bit more robust. No professional program should crash if you perform an operation that's unexpected. It's still difficult to believe they would release a program that was unfinished. A slap in the face to a user base that has supported them royally. What was the rush?

I've been having this problem and quitting and restarting FCP X & the Machine did not help. I fixed this problem by deleting the preferences in the Library folder:

Quit FCPX

Select Finder

Select Go Menu -> Go To Folder

Type: ~/Library

Press Go button

Open the preferences folder

In the search field type "final"

Make sure that you are searching in the preferences folder and not in the This Mac folder

Delete all FinalCut preferences

Restart FCPX

It's very important that you are only deleting the preference files found in the preferences folder.

preference files end with a .plist extension.

Preference files are re-created when you start FCP back up.

Spoke to soon. Still getting the greyed out Undo, and loosing changes when quitting FCPX.

This began happening to me after the 10.7.1 update.

Seems to happen if I resize a still and don't click on the done button.

However, deleting the preferences seems to help other odd problems happening in the interface. Deleting the preferences does reset your preferences to default settings.

You should investigate Digital Rebellion's preferences manager - it handles backing up and/or removing/resetting preferences and it supports FCX.

RedTruck has some very interesting info on the 'Undo Stack' which is apparently limited to the number of files OS X will allow.

Get the true picture (and some useful suggestions for workaround) here

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3135736?start=30&tstart=0

(Sorry, I don't know how to take you to the exact post but it's on this page on my browser).

Andy