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User profile for user: Warwick Teale
Warwick Teale Author
User level: Level 3
584 points

FCPX 10.0.7 hangs when loading multiple projects - a non-destructive work around

FCPX 10.0.7 hangs when loading multiple projects - a non-destructive work around....


Hi Guys, I upgraded from FCPX 10.0.6 to 10.0.78 and discovered to my immense frustration that many of my 100+ FCPX projects would not load.


Symptom:

  • FCPX 10.0.7 appears to hang ("spinning beachball") with either high CPU% on a single core or with 1-2% CPU busy (activity monitor.app) when a FINAL CUT PROJECT is selected. No logs error information in /var/logs ..hmm
  • notices that the "status circle" spins around endlessly.
  • Actvity Monitor.app shows "Final Cut Pro (Not Responding)
  • and also I notice in some cases that an OEM filter ("NEAT VIDEO NOISE REDUCTION") is in progress to be loaded. FCPX V10.0.7 must be FORCED QUITtted to remove it from system.


History: Upgraded FCPX from V10.0.6 to V10.0.07.

  • "FINAL CUT EVENTS" and "FINAL CUT PROJECTS" on a single file system on SAS 16TB disk array (768MB/sec read via AJA system test) and 60% utilised capacity… FCP EVENTS has 400 events in it .. some 5.2TB of Prores essence etc .. all works fine! (i.e. the storage system is first class and is NOT the issue)
  • 32GB of RAM on MAC PRO 2009 Nehalem 16 x Vcore with ATI 5780 card and ATTO HBA's (i.e. plenty of resources!)

As usual with any "upgrade" to FCPX 10.0.? all the EVENT objects need to be upgraded. In my case this takes an hour or two.. so I do that when asleep. 🙂


After experiencing above, I restored the FCPX EVENTS LIbrary of that file system from LTO4 tape archive (BRU-PE 🙂 ) and still had the same issues as above.


WORKAROUND:

  1. FORCEd QUIT FCPX V10.0.7
  2. RENAMEd "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects" to "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects_original"
  3. created (make) a new "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects" (use finder)
  4. For each project !!! in "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects_original", (do one project at a time!!!)
  5. MOVE "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects_original/one_fcpx_projext_nnnn_folder" to "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects"
  6. Make sure you move ONLY one project at a time. If you have a subfolder of projects, please do each project one at a time (serially!)
  7. Launch FCPX V10.0.7 and BE PATIENT!!! .. DONT click or fiddle with the UI.. it seems when you intervene it locks up as well…
  8. Let FCPX V10.0.7 settle….
  9. select the project you just added above and RELINK any objects it needs. Thumbnails and proxies will be rendered again.. just be patient
  10. wait until ALL the rendering as stopped.
  11. QUIT FCPX V10.0.7
  12. (now if FCPX locks up, just force it out and start again as above).
  13. repeat for all projects in "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects_original" (go to step 4 ad do until all projects moved)


When all is COMPLETED MAKE SURE YOU ARCHIVE an instance (or make a backup ) of "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects"


If this procedure has worked the folder "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects_original" will have zero (nill, none) projects in it.


I have managed to restore ALL my "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects" this xmas between drinking etc. I'm satisfied that its all ok.


Other issues:

use DISK WARRIOR or TT PRO 6 to make sure that the file system volume where your "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects" are is physically ok. I noticed some entries in file system's volume table that represented objects in "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects" were at fault when I used these utilities… FWIW.


SUMMARY: yes this took ages to d, however luckily I had everything in at least 3 instances in an archive which has saved me many time in the old FCP& and prior days… it was just a matter of time to put it back together.


I put this outage down to may be my own impatience when I first fired up FCPX 10.0.7 after the upgrade. 🙂


I'm interested if this workaround is helpful to others and in addtiion if others have a more satisfactory remedy.


HTH


warwick

Hong Kong

Final Cut Pro X, Mac OS X (10.7), Motion5 , Compressor 4

Posted on Dec 26, 2012 1:30 AM

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8 replies
User profile for user: Eberhardfromnh
Eberhardfromnh
User level: Level 1
8 points

Dec 26, 2012 12:21 PM in response to Warwick Teale

Hi:


Thanks for the detailed suggestion. Unfortunately, I don't think it will work, at least in all cases. I am pretty sure that a memory leak issue is involved, as you can see from the Memo that I posted yesterday. That you had luck with working just on one single Project at a time sounds similar to what I had done. As suggested by an Apple Support agent, I moved all Projects into "Final Cut Pro Projects Hidden". Likewise, with the events. Then I worked only with one or two (related) Project(s) at a time. There are Projects that don't lead to the memory leak, but others that do. My suspicion is that you worked with Projects that don't trigger the issue.


It looks to me as if going back to 10.0.6 would temporarily fix the issue. The question is how to do that properly. Perhaps, Time Machine could provide the vehicle for that.

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User profile for user: Warwick Teale
Warwick Teale Author
User level: Level 3
584 points

Dec 27, 2012 2:32 AM in response to Eberhardfromnh

Hi Eb, yeah I could not see any "memory leak" or unusual consumption of REAL memory whose less availability would cause excessive PAGEing and SWAPping as seen in the Activty Monitor.app


I watch this carefully especially the use of REAL MEMORY by 3rd Paryy apps. BTW there are a few that cause ALLOCATED but NOT USED memory (blue in the A.M.app UI). Simply a unix PURGE command can release that memory and help clean up the PAGE and VM swap files (its alleged!).


Yes, you may be might with the element of "Luck" involved. I would add though, that having MULTIPLE project displaying in the STORYLINE window and loading always caused my FCP 10.0.7 jam up at startup with h symtoms and observations I described.


TIP: I might also add that for a super speedy launch of FCPX one may also emply setting each PROJECT's UI to show only AUDIO thus negating the need to contstruct or reneder out a PREVIEW ui in each clip in the storyline.


Your/Apples suggestion of the movememt (rename) of "Final Cut Pro Projects" to "Final Cut Pro Projects Hidden" is similar to what I proposed above to stop FCPX 10.0.7 accessing and building it up at startup. This workaround has been useful inthe past as well.😎


ALso one might also get the stick out and remove (delete/rm) the ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.FinalCut.savedState in one's home ~/Library so that FCPX wont do such a neat job reinstating FCPX last time you crashed it... This has been helpful also in diagnosing my issues.


Lastly I have noticed that:

  • impatience clicking on the FCPX UI when in the unstable state causes it to lock up with NO visible CPU% busy.... as if its waiting on something which is usually me MEMTERMing it 🙂 via FORCE QUIT and
  • the projects where I have employed the NEAT VIDEO Noise Reduction OEM filter for FCPX seem to exasserbate the PROJECT loading issues when several PROJECTS are available at FCPX startup time.


As of yesterday I have some 400+ EVENTS Final Cut Pro Events and 130+ projects of varying compexites in a single file system on Final Cut Pro Projects all working fine and as good as gold again! 😍


Oh and one more thing, I had to RE-RENDER many projects of them again... strange as the FCP PROJECT library was renstated from a recent LTO archive as of V10.0.6 FCPX.. strange that...I would have expected if the projects and events were 10.0.6/7 compatable as proposed by Tom, that this would not be necessary... hmm straneg that


I'll monitor this thread.


Thanks for your comments lads!

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User profile for user: Eberhardfromnh
Eberhardfromnh
User level: Level 1
8 points

Dec 27, 2012 4:57 PM in response to Warwick Teale

Hi Warwick Teale:


Thanks a lot for your detailed suggestions.


Honestly, I had been wondering after the Training in the summer what one would do if the number of Events and Projects grows and grows. I have now moved to just keeping the 1 o 2 that I actually work on in the Final Cut Pro folders and have the other ones in the Hidden folders or just on an external disk.


The Memory leak seems to be pretty consistent, at least when I work with the one Project which gave me grief first. I plan to move to a few more, having seen that at least two others didn't produce the problem. Definitely, FCP X, when the problem occurs, quickly (within less than 1 minute) shuffles almost all of the remaining Free Memory (green) into Inactive Memory (blue). Then the slowdown has started, and the rest of teh System is affected. I haven't tried out deleting the Saved State yet, but I will next, as I got FCP X to slow again.

I wouldn't call it "crashed" because I consistently could move ahead even after the Memory had leaked, but at an excruciatingly slow pace.


Yes, I did notice, too, that clicking into various places clogged up the system even more. What I noticed was that apparently the system stores all these requests in a queue and then, one-by-one, works on them. So, in essence, you are waiting longer for the requested things to happen. Of course, the already slow eaction makes it difficult not to click, because you don't know what the system or the program queued for processing and what not.


Well, I worked through a few issues on my computer that may be been related or unrelated, and this made the System much quicker as a whole, and several of my Projects indeed work in 10.0.7, but at least one of them consistently slows down FCP X and the entire system.


Your statement: "

the projects where I have employed the NEAT VIDEO Noise Reduction OEM filter for FCPX seem to exasserbate the PROJECT loading issues when several PROJECTS are available at FCPX startup time."

seems to ring a bell. The Project that gives me grief in 10.0.7 contains many clips, which I had clean up heavily, fixing color, contrast, and illumination issues. I don't know "NEAT VIDEO" and thus did not use that one, but, perhaps, the use of heavy filtering throughout the Project may contribute to the problem.

However, again, none of this happened in 10.0.6 nor 10.0.5, the two versions that I have used.


Eberhard

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User profile for user: Warwick Teale
Warwick Teale Author
User level: Level 3
584 points

Dec 28, 2012 11:58 PM in response to Eberhardfromnh

Hey Eb!, just one more thing that you might want to try. could be of some help... I have since had ONE subsequent gliche and was able to fix it completely..


Symptom:Glitche: one of more projects would lock up when being displyed by the FCPX UI in 10.0.7 quite similar to above.


Workround/FIX: this time I was able to completely remedy the situation as follows:


  1. used activity monitor.app to INSPECT the open files and objects in FCPX. Collected the vast log and searched through it with a large cup of coffee in hand...
  2. noticed many instances of COREMELT plugins including our old standby Lock n Load and also the the aforementioned Neat Video "Noise Reduction" and several others. These were loaded mutliply I assume for the 100'sof projects.
  3. examined these in the FINDER to see how current they might be.
  4. so, reinstalled the COREMELT and NEAT VIDEO, etc plugins
  5. kicked over FCP 10.0.7


Summary: not a glitch in sight!. Could be related to dodgy OEM filters. You might wanna have a look at see if there's a lot of filters loaded or soemthing else that may also be exasscerbating yoiur RAM consumtion issue. Worth a look anyway.



This might be of help mate!


ALl the best for the new year.. keep smiling!


FCPX 10.0.7 good as gold now!!


Warwick in Hong Kong

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User profile for user: Eberhardfromnh
Eberhardfromnh
User level: Level 1
8 points

Dec 29, 2012 2:49 PM in response to Warwick Teale

Hi Warwick Teale:


Thanks a lot! Your suggestions helped me trace down to my main suspect: the new Vignette Mask.

I don't have Coremelt nor Neat Video, at least I couldn't find a trace when searching for them.


I posted my response under the thread:

"Anybody else having problems of computer freezing with Final Cut Pro?"


I had been getting into several threads with my question.

Hopefully, you find my response there.


Regards

Eberhard

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FCPX 10.0.7 hangs when loading multiple projects - a non-destructive work around

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