FCP X Crashes - Is Brute Force the Answer?

I am using an early 2008 iMac with 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 4GB RAM, running OS X 10.6.8

I have not had any crash problems (I'm not saying it has never crashed) but I haven't done any really intensive work yet.

I also use a copy of FCP X on a 2TB bootable USB 2.0 HD running OS X 10.7.2

This is something most people would shudder at, to say the least, but again it has worked apparently just as well with no obvious problems.

I'm with Ian ... :

2.26 C2D MacMini, 'pimped' to 8GB Ram (best 50€ investment), 10.6.8 => no crashes.

plus tons of TBs on some usb and fw connceted drives (e.g. my iTunes and iPhoto Libs are external, due to internal 160Gigs only avail)

my projects are using about 3h of sources (in different codecs & framerates) final project is about 12-15min.

when using Pixelmator, Motion5, Safari, PreView, QTpro7 and Mpeg Streamclip simultaneously (=doing lots of individual 'graphics' for my soccer videos), brave Mini starts to get 'slow' and stuttery …=> now I prep team-logos and other stills without FCPX running in the background 🙂

I too notice, after about an hour of editing, a quick re-startof FCPX helps to 'refresh' the app.

but no crashes, of app or OS, so far.-

hmmm.... 😕

I feel that Apple's recommendation of 4 GB Ram (and a minimum of 2 GB) is utterly ludicrous

I don't think you are making this criticism based on any actual knowledge like what the code is doing, or what it needs to do but rather just a guess based on a comparison with other products. And given the date it was written & the feature set, I think that's a very unfair & bad idea.

It is a professional app and 4GB is what any computer user (let alone professional) should have in their machine for the last 3 or 4 years - I really don't see any problem here. I actually think your "thinking it's ludicrous" is ludicrous ;-) But I mean that nicely.

Anyhow, I wouldn't be buying RAM to solve crashes - unless you suspect faulty RAM.

Consider this: How is it even possible that a crash be blamed on "not enough RAM" instead of a bug in either the software or the OS?

No doubt there are some odd answers to be given to that question, but even if you can find an answer, you'd still have to be guessing that this is what you're experiencing instead of just plain-old dumb bugs... like there's any reason to doubt that there are hundreds of bugs in FCPX?

So all the crashes you're getting, every single one, could just be a plain-old bug in the software - for which more RAM has no effect.

This is a distinct possibilty, and I think it should be entertained before recommending anyone buy more RAM.

I'm running FCPX on my 2010 MacBook Pro 13" with just 4GB inside. Whenever I start FCp there is less the 100mb left. I may run slow at times, but it just runs fine most of the time. So I would also suggest that not the Ram is the issue.

andynick wrote:

The more I read of problems with FCP X, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that generally (certainly not always) the majority of crashes reported are from those with less powerful machines.

Not in my case at least, Ihave Mac Pro 1,1 (2006) I never get any crashes. And this machine seems to handle FCP X very well.

used to think photoshop strained my old MacPro 1. However this FCP X goes way beyond anything i've seen in Activity monitor. Nearly all system resources are used up on opening app alone, 3.6GB of RAM goes immediately. During work, there are periods of frantic drive activity (powering the beachball clearly) where everything freezes. Wow, page ins and page outs like a run on investments.

So... I hope your solution of more RAM works for you. I will follow suite.

I do not imagine many users have clean machines like the Apple testers, and maybe the min specs need to be factored upwards according to how grubby is the machine in use.

furrytoes wrote:

So all the crashes you're getting, every single one, could just be a plain-old bug in the software - for which more RAM has no effect.

This is a distinct possibilty, and I think it should be entertained before recommending anyone buy more RAM.

Agreed... (almost) here's the thing, a well written application should NOT crash because it becomes low on RAM, in this day and age crashing the computer when a memory limitation is reached should be considered very poor programming... especially from Apple.

Apple users are just now beginning to see the problems that Win/PC users have faced, OS and application support for a growing number of hardware configurations. Part of the instability is OSX, part is FCPX. This is happening along the most of the Pro Apps line. The OS and applications have to support several diffrent kinds of motherboards, memory configs, graphic chipsets, displays...etc...etc. Apple will probably do what it usually does limit what the app will run on, forcing upgrades (whether you really need one or not) Hey, they're a hardware company.

Apple probably has to support less than 100 configurations throughout their whole product line, consider that Windows has to support thousands of combinations and you see the problems faced.

Anyway.. some people have massive problems.. some have hardly any, RAM may be part of the problem but I would look at application and OSX support of the available hardware configs.

pancenter-

Andy I will give you a huge credit for all you help you have offered to this forum, I am simply waiting for a book from you about FCPX.

Best regards

Innocentius

Likewise, my experience.

Theory, as quoted by some previous posters, apparently accounts for little.

Like yourself, I had serious problems with Mac Pro 1,1 on 4GB. Now with 8GB it is an UTTERLY different experience. Caution to the wind and all, but just moving around in timeline is totally better/different response.

Big well done to you Andynick

Anytime a computer doesn't have enough memory (for whatever reason, including bad programming), there can be many different symptoms. It's just going to fail, either gracefully or not. It's great to hear that 8 GB RAM improves the stability of FCX. Seems like they got a pretty good beta version running, but ddn't have time to optimize memory usage and fix memory leaks.

Good thread, thanks andynick and stuckfootage.

So any suggestions how we put pressure on Apple to fix the memory leaks/2nd beta v10.0.1, and make it a proper v.10.1?

The contrast, of adding more RAM, is stark. I will now put yet more in, assuming that Apple will not come up with a quicker solution (i've seen these leaks logged in console). Maybe the old DDR2 667MHz memory requires greater quantity than more modern types of RAM. Whatever, the result of increased RAM when working FCP X is astoundingly good for me on my old mac pro 1,1.

I hope others benefit by knowing.

Pancenter wrote:

Agreed... (almost) here's the thing, a well written application should NOT crash because it becomes low on RAM, in this day and age crashing the computer when a memory limitation is reached should be considered very poor programming... especially from Apple.

That is the main point. Apps are generally more stable with more RAM, but low RAM should not make a modern program crash. A well-written program should handle low RAM gracefully.

If adding more RAM doesn't solve the crashes, investigation should continue as to the true root cause. Try swapping out the old RAM for the new, just in case there was a hardware problem with the old RAM sticks.