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Level 1

10 points

Ken Burns Crashes FCP X

I am currently on 10.0.7 of FCP X. I have noticed this bug since the last release, but not prior to that. This occurs on my MacBook Pro (2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 running MacOS 10.6.8) and also on my 11" MacBook Air.

Basically, a third of the time that I add in a Ken Burns effect, the program crashes as soon as I go to adjust the START/END boxes. The effect will still run as long as I don't touch the default positions of the boxes. Once this occurs, I can not edit KB on that image, no matter how many times I restart FCP or the computer.

This is a relatively new issue to me that hasn't gone away. I have seen a prior thread from a year ago on this topic (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3707812) but the suggestions all point to a user file size issue which I don't think is the case here. It is clearly a FCP bug that perhaps the Mac application development folks don't see on the combination of hardware/OS that they are using.

Any thoughts on this? Does anyone else see this bug?

Thanks in advance for any tips,

-Todd

Posted on Jan 8, 2013 10:11 AM

34 replies

toddjb Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 9, 2013 8:19 AM in response to digibudII

I'll try to create a movie this week with only still pictures and the Ken Burns effect and see if it is tied to specific pictures. If so, I'll provide that info.

To reiterate what others have said, it is a problem only when you are moving/re-sizing the KB boxes. As a rare occurance, I received the crash last night when doing a standard picture crop also. It happens much more frequently with KB, so maybe the extra memory required to have two different selection boxes chokes FCPX.

I do agree that this is something that should be handled by FCPX and it ***** that we may have to do workarounds with pretty standard file sizes to shrink something down and potentially degrade image quality. I know it is possible that small changes won't even show up in a 720P video and I hear the reply that if we wait for Apple to fix it, we may never see it! So these workaround suggestions are well worth looking into. Thanks.

Also appreciate the insight into how much FCP needs to keep in memory when editting which could be a factor.

e2photo

Level 2

176 points

Jan 9, 2013 8:33 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

Tom,

I just emailed you two pictures that were consistently crashing this morning. They are the files as they reside in the original media folder. They are different in size by a factor of 2 and both were crashing with equal regularity. Is there a size threshold?

As I side note, and in frustration, I went and took a long shower, but I left FCPX open. Have done a couple more pictures without a crash. HYPOTHESIS: If the picture file is transfered and sits in an open FCPX file for a while, the likelyhood of crashing when using the KB effect decreases. Size might effect how long before it is safe (background processing problem?)

toddjb Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 9, 2013 8:50 AM in response to e2photo

e2p, with regards to background processing, in my case I have not noticed much difference. I suspected the same and after so many frustrating crashes I now make sure that all background processing is complete before resizing a crop box. ...sitting there with my arms folded waiting for the status circle to show me a green 100%.

FCPX still crashes. I'm not sure if it crashes any less often, but I can tell you my frustration level is unchanged. 🙂

digibudII

Level 2

491 points

Jan 9, 2013 8:51 AM in response to toddjb

In the fwiw category I just created a 4000x6000 pixel jpg image and imported it into a simple timeline and applied the KB effect and adjusted the start/stop positions with no problem. 2011iMac, 24GB mem, 2GB vid card, 10.0.6, OS 10.8.2. Original was on my local hd and I imported it into my Events Folder. It was a 2.7MG file.

e2photo

Level 2

176 points

Jan 9, 2013 11:53 AM in response to digibudII

I just generated a new project with 5 different image sizes from the same image

640x427---305KB

1100x734---245KB

2048x1367---754KB

4256x2841---2.9MB

7163-4781----21.5MB

I place three copies into the project and edited them all as quickly as I could with the Ken Burn effect. This was all done on the USB 3.0 drive on the USB2.0 hub.

NO CRASHES.

Placed the 21.5 MB file into the project that was crashing and again no crash.

Size may be important, but there seems to be other factors.

When the crash occurs it always seems to be when I click on either the start/end box or within a few milliseconds after I let the mouse button up.

toddjb Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 9, 2013 1:00 PM in response to e2photo

e2photo wrote:

I place three copies into the project and edited them all as quickly as I could with the Ken Burn effect. This was all done on the USB 3.0 drive on the USB2.0 hub.

NO CRASHES.

Placed the 21.5 MB file into the project that was crashing and again no crash.

...

Can you try adding the photos to an already existing Project you have? Something a couple minutes long. I do seem to see this more later in a Project than in the opening shots.

e2photo

Level 2

176 points

Jan 9, 2013 1:10 PM in response to toddjb

I placed the 21.5 MB picture file at the end of an existing project in which I was getting lots and lots of crashes. It did not crash FCPX.

From this data, I am forced to conclude that it is not size alone that is causing the crash. I believe it is related to some sort of mouse event because I can leave the KB window open for a long time, but it will not crash until I click on the start/stop boxes.

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,064 points

Jan 9, 2013 1:20 PM in response to e2photo

I cannot make adjusting the motion control frames crash the application.

e2photo

Level 2

176 points

Jan 13, 2013 1:52 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

I don't know whether this is a meaningful observation but

I typically put my stills as a separate storyline from my video. If I place the cross dissolve transition before and after a picture picture and attempt to do a KB effect, I get the crash. If I remove the transitions, I can then edit with the KB effects with problems.

What is strange is I place transitions into my multi-picture test (which was a primary storyline), I did not see this phenomena. but I have now seemed to reproduce the phenomena over a couple of days.

Again, I don't really know whether this is real, but a curious sort of observation. I am now doing all my KB before I place the transitions and so far have not had a crash when I do it this way.

toddjb Author

Level 1

10 points

Feb 5, 2013 10:30 AM in response to e2photo

e2, I'll try that and let you know if it works for me....

I just found that annoyingly, it is happening to me now on my MBPro applying the effect to a video at the beginning of a project. So, it is not tied to still pictures at all and seems to just CRASH on the KB effect regularly.

Hopefully the tip you found is the magic workaround. We'll see.

I am surprised the bug has been in FCPX for this long. I wonder if it is related to a driver that we have installed from another program. I was just researching an unrelated bug I found when creating DVDs and the answer was to remove a driver installed by another program (Flip4Mac I think).

Feb 5, 2013 2:43 PM in response to e2photo

http://www.apple.com/feedback/finalcutpro.html !

Or, if you have a Dev.Account: bugreport.apple.com

Steps to repro is important.

toddjb Author

Level 1

10 points

Feb 5, 2013 7:59 PM in response to e2photo

e2....THAT SOLVED MY PROBLEM!!!

I haven't tried it with stills yet, but I'm editting a pretty large GoPro video filmed in 960, so with all the cropping I'm using KB effect a good bit. If I don't put the transitions on, FCPX will not crash!!! And as you said, I can put them on after without a problem.

Whew. I've been fighting this annoying one for a while.

Jakob, I don't have a developer account, but I'll see if I can still fill that form out.

Thanks,

-todd

Pozotron

Level 1

4 points

Feb 14, 2013 7:02 PM in response to toddjb

I struggled with this issue for a long time. Very frustrating, but removing the transitions (Happened to be using the Fade to Color transition in this movie) in the storyline did fix the problem for me as well. Thank you so much for the workaround!

Mar 31, 2013 8:14 PM in response to Pozotron

I would like to add another observation here. When I first converted my old projects from iMovie to FCPX, all but two of the projects converted. Unfrotunately, they were two that I had spent significant time on. I set it aside for a few months, but spent today making numerous copys of the projects and cutting them into smaller and smaller pieces until the would convert. The common denominator I discovered was that as long as a photo with the Ken Burns effect was in the project, it would not convert and FCPX would crash after the convert. After reading this thread, I went to see if I had any transitions between the KB photos and I do not.

Bottom line is that FCPX cannot convert Ken Burns effects from iMovie to FCPX and tranistions don't matter. If you remove just the KB effects, you can convert your movie, then manually add your photos back in.

I just wanted to get this into a thread in case anyone else can use this information.

May 7, 2013 12:26 PM in response to toddjb

Can confirm. Removing the transitions worked perfectly for me 🙂

Was incredibly frustrated that it would crash several times per project. All I'm doing is a simple wedding slideshow with jpgs and it would crash when doing ken burns cropping. Thanks to whoever recommended removing the transitions first. Made my workflow so much better.

Ken Burns Crashes FCP X