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What are people using instead of FCP X - given that it is so buggy?

I've been trying to do some basic video editing (trimming clips, syncing sound and video taking separately and creating some titles between sections) - not rocket science - and FCP X clearly has the functionality to do all of this.

But the software is so buggy I'm spending more time waiting for it to restart or hoping that beach balls will disappear if I want instead of force quitting - that I'm just not making progress. I'd happily use FCP X if it worked and was stable - but right now it isn't and I'm never sure after the countless crashes whether I'm going to lose the last set of edits I've done.


There must be more reliable software out there - what are other people's experiences - is there an obvious product to move to instead of FCP X while Apple get their act together?

Final Cut Pro X, Mac OS X (10.7.1), iMac 27", Compressor 4

Posted on Nov 19, 2011 11:26 AM

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37 replies

Nov 19, 2011 11:58 AM in response to Steve Connor1

Steve: Apple software doesn't in general crash "only a couple of times a day" - that's my point. This product does - and it shouldn't.

I'm having a much worse experience - hangs and crashes frequently - and I'm not alone - if you put Final Cut Pro X hangs into Google, you get a bucket load of posts.

Look - as I said I'm an Apple fan - I'm just asking what people are doing while Apple fixes this product (as soon as they do I will come back to it - it's just very frustrating right now - taking far far longer to get anything done than it should because it hangs or crashes so frequently).

Nov 19, 2011 12:03 PM in response to hedgert

I haven't crashed in weeks, and I've worked with every single day.


Because it doesn't happen in other apps means nothing. This application makes far, far greater demands on your system resources probably than any other application you're using.


Look at the system specs, drive specs, graphics card, and look at the media you're working with and how it's being supported.

Nov 19, 2011 12:19 PM in response to JackSchwartz

Didn't know about the purge command Jack - thankyou - I had been wondering why despite a relatively small amount of ram consumed by running apps, there was so little of my 16GB free - and that fixed it. Already admin - so didn't get an improvement there.


To others posting - I'm trying to wind anyone up - it's not working for me - my system is fine - I know it's a heavy app, but that doesn't excuse it crashing - and as I said I'm not alone - if you put "final cut pro x hangs" into Google you get 1.6 million pages back. And I'm patient - I love Apple stuff - the best thing for me is Apple releasing some fixes that improve the stablity issues - for me right now on my 1 year old 16GB iMac 27, FCPX crashes multiple times an hour when I'm working on my 1080p video - sure that's heavy work and I expect to need to be patient, but I don't expect Apple software to crash. It does - it needs fixing. My question (which only Jack has addressed) is what are people doing in the meantime while Apple addresses the bugs?

Nov 19, 2011 12:49 PM in response to hedgert

I just crashed Safari responding to your message.


Really, truly people who have been using this application every day do not crash it. It doesn't. It's simply not true. If you do a search for why an app is crashing Google will find lists for anything. Sure you can find people crashing it.


Look on the upper left of this message. There are always people complaining about one app or another being buggy. iWeb, Motion, FCP6, FCP4 are all listed as buggy. The first three ceratinly aren't, and 6 was probably the most stabile version of FCP.


Please give your exact system specs, graphics card, drives, and the media your're working with. 1080p says nothing. Crashing may also be a product of what you're doing and how you're using the application.

Nov 19, 2011 1:01 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Hey, Tom. You are not alone. I have had similar troubles. In the mean time I am using my old reliable Final Cut Express 4HD which has never let me down. I really do like the design and thinking behind FInalCut X , but mostly the price which is why I jumped in. Even purchased the excellent Ripple Training Course. My fervent wish is that Apple pays close attention to the crash reports and keeps working on it. I want this new system to succeed. I need it too. One thing I hope is that the "It Just Works" paternailistic dogma gets replaced with something more flexible and inclusive. Automated systems are great up to a point, but manual control is what making movies is all about for me. I need a simple, obvious path to eneable this. Lion has totally screwed up my perfectly functional file management practices with it's automated back-up / duplication system. Leopard wasn't broke, but Apple sure as **** "fixed" it. Echoes of the Windows Vista move.

Nov 19, 2011 1:08 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Last post here - as this clearly isn't going to get me anywhere. I made a reasonable request for the experience of others users given my experience and I've been told (a) the application doesn't crash - sorry guys - it does - as some of you have admitted and (b) in the most recent post I'm told that I'm making it crash - what by using the software? Oh excuse me for that!

In answer to the question about what I'm doing - the answer is almost nothing:

I have a 16GB iMac27 with 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo. All I am doing is using an existing project that puts together a series of 1080p video files in a sequence and I'm trimming the beginning and ends and putting titles between them. The last two crashes I've had this evening - while this dialogue has been running - I haven't actually been able to do anything - I reopen FCPX after the latest crash and get as far as clicking on the timeline to play my sequence of video and titles and then FCPX hung - I waited for 30 minutes and then decided it wasn't coming back - noticing that Activity Monitor reported it throughout that period as not responding, I resorted to force quiting - and am now waiting for the restart.


My experience of Apple forums has alas regularly been similar to this - people are very keen to deny issues (while I agree you can Google many things - finding 1.6m posts relating to FCPX hanging I think does suggest I'm not alone in facing this issue) - and they rarely address the issue that is posted. I usually get help outside the Apple forums because of this behaviour.


If everyone else out there is having zero issues with FCPX - great - good on you - don't tell me I'm not having issues - the product is crashing frequently for me - as I started out saying - this is unusual for Apple products - as the 1.6m Google pages atest - I'm sure Apple will deal with this in due course - in the mean time my original question stands.

Nov 19, 2011 10:47 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

MediaMac Info is a media inspector - is there something else that gives better information?

I've looked at the media properties in QuickTime 7 and it reports h264 1920x1080 FPS 25 AAC 44100 Hz

And in VLC which reports: H264 MPEG-4 AVC, 1920x1080 frame rate 25 for the video and MPEG AAC 44100 Hz for the audio.

Is the Canon video format a problem? I'm not having problems elsewhere with these video files - iMovie, QuickTime, VLC.

What are people using instead of FCP X - given that it is so buggy?

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