FCP7 Constant Crashing
Ok, there’s a lot to cover here, so bear with me.
The Set-Up:
-Three Mac Pro work stations- all operating OSX10.6.8 Snow Leopard, FCP 7.0.3, timelines are 1920x1080 XDCAMEX 1080p24
-Station 1- Late 2008, Mac 3,1, 10GB Ram, NVDIA GeForce 8800 GT, 2 x 2.8Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon
-Station 2- Late 2008, Mac 3,1, 6GB Ram, NVDIA GeForce 8800 GT, 2 x 2.8Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon
-Station 3- Early 2008, Mac 1,1, 6GB Ram, ATI Radeon X1900 XT, 2 x 3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
-EonStor Raid System connected with fiber optic cables through QLogic 1400 switch
The Problem: FCP7 is consistently crashing when the real memory the application is using gets close to the 2.56 gb max. When this happens, we get blue and green flashes, and other glitches before we go down. We have ordered more RAM, reduced project size, got rid of thumbnails, and reduced the number of sequences we have open and this has helped but not completely kept us from crashing.
In the past week, FCP is crashing on stations 1 & 2 randomly, without warning, and without the real memory usage even getting above 2gb (we watch it using activity monitor). We created all new projects and sequences for what we were working on for fear of corrupt files or media. Still no luck.
Additional Notes on Problem:
- We understand that our set-up is dated, but we cannot upgrade to Lion or Mountain Lion because our Raid and QLogic do not work with it (we have tried!)
. We would have to upgrade firmware on the raid, which is potentially dangerous for our drives. The QLogic does not even have a firmware upgrade which means we would have to buy a new one and we don’t have the budget for that.
- The graphics card in station 3, the station that does not crash randomly, is different than the other two (and I think more powerful). Could a graphics card issue be to blame? Any way to test that?
- We have used XDCAM files for storage purposes. We have over 700 hours of footage and cannot turn it all in to prores.
- On that note, we occasionally get Media Not Optimized for Final Cut Pro warnings on random XDCAM files, which we have researched and find that people say should just be ignored.
- Lastly, in the past week when opening certain projects something strange is occurring in regards to reconnecting media. When the reconnect box appears, it shows two drives (that are online) but no actual media to reconnect. Hard to explain. We have stopped opening those projects for fear of them being corrupt.
Solutions We Have Tried:
- Clearing preferences
- Complete reinstall of FCP
- Complete reinstall of OSX
- Cleaning out the towers with canned air
- Deleting excess autosaves, renders, duplicate projects
- Emptied thumbnail cache
- Reducing project file size to below 100mb
- Reducing number of projects open at one time
- Reducing number of sequences open
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Final Cut Pro 7, Mac OS X (10.6.8)