You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Helpful articles for Final Cut Pro for Mac, Final Cut Pro for iPad and Final Cut Camera:

⏺ If Final Cut Pro doesn't work on your Mac after an update

⏺ If Final Cut Pro isn't working

⏺ If you need more storage for a Final Cut Pro library

⏺ If Live Multicam in Final Cut Pro isn't working

⏺ If Final Cut Camera isn't working

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

jonuk85 Author

Level 1

0 points

Final Cut Pro X freezing on top spec new 27" iMac, help!

I finally received my new 27" iMac today and installed all the latest updates and then the latest versions of FCPX and compressor.

Spec of new iMac:

27" Late 2012

3.4Ghz Intel i7

8GB RAM (I also added 16GB of third party RAM to the machine to take it up to 24GB RAM but remove this later)

GeForce GTX 680MX 2048MB Graphics card

1.12TB Fusion Drive (1.09TB free)

OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion

Immediately I noticed performance issues and then it kept freezing whilst running FCPX - the whole OS would freeze resulting in me having to actually turn off the machine and turn it on again. It happened repeatedly so have done all the obvious things but still have the issue.

So far I've tried (with no luck):

- removing the third party RAM

- restarting the computer, multiple times

- making sure everything is up to date

- removing the FCPX preferences

- doing a PRAM and SMC reset

- fully uninstalling and reinstalling FCPX

- running the short and long Apple Hardware Tests (no problems found)

I am working with a large quantity of video files off an 8TB Thunderbolt drive but I've been using FCPX on my old 27" iMac and had no problems with that at all, the spec of that being far less powerful:

27" mid 2011

3.4Ghz Intel i7

8GB Ram

Radeon HD 6970M 1024MB

1TB hard drive

I'm thinking it could possibly be the graphics card or a software issue?

Any help or advice would be great!!!

Thanks!

Jon

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Jan 14, 2013 1:51 PM

489 replies

Feb 19, 2013 9:39 AM in response to Dan Thomas (DAGWare)

FCPX was converting the material to ProRes442, but... The great thing about it all was that, after I realized that it's stuck and FCPX became unresponsive, I thought "well, at least the machine didn't froze".

I was wrong. I tried force quitting FCPX, only to have the Force Quit window freeze. Then I tried force quitting FCPX from the dock when, finally, my iMac gave up and became unresponsive.

I'd ask "can it get any better?!" but I'm kinda afraid of the answer...

Feb 19, 2013 10:08 AM in response to Hirschkorn

80 min.in one piece....

I take tha you had enough disk space ;-)

Feb 19, 2013 10:13 AM in response to Studio Engineer

Plenty. An external Thunderbolt G-Drive, 7.9 TB out of 8 still empty.

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,021 points

Feb 19, 2013 10:17 AM in response to Hirschkorn

This sounds like an unrelated problem, unrelated to the bulk of the problem on this thread. I'd try an Apple Store or service technician. The graphics card isn't used at all when optimizing or importing.

Feb 19, 2013 10:20 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

I'd love to, but Apple offers online live support only for their consumer apps, (iWork, iLife and iBooks Author), and there's no Apple Store where I live. Plus, I've tried the above external HDD on my MBP and it works just fine.

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,021 points

Feb 19, 2013 10:25 AM in response to Hirschkorn

I don't think the problem's the hard drive. Apple does have phone support for pro apps, but it's quite pricey, and it really does sound like a machine problem.

Feb 19, 2013 10:33 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

FCPX costs $300 (€240 for me) and phone support would cost $800: http://goo.gl/5o51M Erm... what?!

Are there any tests that I can run myself?

Feb 19, 2013 11:38 AM in response to Hirschkorn

Well, you could try what I suggested, which is to convert the video to Apple ProRes 422 using a different app, then importing it into FCPX. You may need this link: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1396. Once you have this installed, you should be able to convert the video using any app that supports Quick Time, like Quick Time 7 Pro, MPEG Streamclip, etc. I've converted video using this method before, and when you import the video into FCPX, all it needs to do is copy (or move) the video file - no conversion required.

Dan

Feb 19, 2013 11:45 AM in response to Dan Thomas (DAGWare)

I ran the Apple Hardware Test: apparently, there's a memory issue. Now I know why I was afraid to ask "can this get any better"... I'll send the machine back to the dealer to fix it.

Dan Thomas & Tom Wolsky - thanks for the advice!

Feb 19, 2013 11:49 AM in response to Hirschkorn

Yeah, never say famous last words. Sorry about the memory issue - that really stinks.

Dan

Gaddster

Level 1

5 points

Feb 21, 2013 12:02 AM in response to jonuk85

I got my new 27" i7, 1TB fusion, 680mx (only 8gb ram until another 16gb arrives on monday)

AND ON MY FIRST DAY FCPX CRASHES/FREEZES 3 times

It never crashed on my previous imac 2010 21.5 (with all the same effect plug ins) but it was painfully slow at times.

Thing new beast is super fast............ at CRASHING

Please Apple Developers, help us out here, this machine has just cost me £2500 and I wanted an easier life 😕

Feb 21, 2013 12:06 AM in response to Gaddster

Welcome to the club!

Gaddster wrote:

I got my new 27" i7, 1TB fusion, 680mx (only 8gb ram until another 16gb arrives on monday)

AND ON MY FIRST DAY FCPX CRASHES/FREEZES 3 times

It never crashed on my previous imac 2010 21.5 (with all the same effect plug ins) but it was painfully slow at times.

Thing new beast is super fast............ at CRASHING

Please Apple Developers, help us out here, this machine has just cost me £2500 and I wanted an easier life 😕

Gaddster

Level 1

5 points

Feb 21, 2013 1:16 AM in response to jonuk85

When I go to my local apple store, I noticed they are still using FCPX version 10.0.6 on their machines, I wonder if they have been told NOT to use 10.0.7 becuase of this problem??

ClioPad

Level 1

0 points

Feb 21, 2013 2:58 PM in response to Surf City 1

Just wrote in another thread on this site, before I found this one.

Anyway, same problem, almost the same set up on my computer.

Here is a copy of my previous post:

------

Just got my new iMac.

Specs:

3,4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost 3,9 GHz

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2 x 8 GB

3 TB Fusion Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX med 2 GB GDDR5

CLEAN install.

Downloaded the 30 day trail of FCPX.

It freezes ALL the time, trying to edit a 6 minute long GoPro file.

Well, if it's not working better than this I will stick to Premiere Elements, better than a constant feeze and a power button reset every 2-5 minutes.

le500

Level 1

0 points

Feb 22, 2013 12:55 AM in response to ClioPad

If this is not a clear business case study that can be used in Marketing classes, well nothing else is. The title of the course would be "How to lose market share and serve competitors your customers on a silver plate"

Question to Apple: How many more FCPX users will this help send away to competition?

Final Cut Pro X freezing on top spec new 27" iMac, help!