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

Who's the Apple bigshot in charge of the pro apps? Is there any other way to get in contact with the FCPX Team? I left some feedback, but...

This is scandalous and unnacceptable. It's like buying an iPhone that can't use the phone app or an off-roader that can't go off-road and the seller wouldn't give a flying toss about the issue.

If they'd at least say something official - but nooo. Enough is enough.

Has anyone gotten an official response on this problem yet? I'm surprised it hasn't hit the press harder yet!

I've tried all the "easy" things now, like having my video files on external drives (USB 3.0), tried with removing all my USB devices and just run all on the internal drive.

No different for me, it keeps crashing.

Is there a way of restarting FCPX or the iMac without pushing the on/off switch on the back - it does not feel good to do that all the time.

I can't do anything else than that because everything freezes up and nothing happens when I trying to move the mouse or pushing buttons at the keyboard.

My first iMac, not having any fun with it yet and it cost me more than 4300 USD here in Sweden.

Surf city 1: This is the only article on the issue I know of:

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/1042-why-the-top-of-the-range-27-inch-imac- might-be-having-problems-with-fcpx

Rob Morgan from BareFeats says "(...) one source states that Apple is aware of the problem and is working on it. Long term, it will be fixed."

They probably have just one programmer working on this in his spare time, that's why it takes so long...

Out of curiosity Hirschkorn, have my last two posts reached your inbox, or they were deleted by Apple prior to being posted, although I did see them posted and screen grabed them?

They have reached my inbox, yes (and I agree with you). I wouldn't get too fussed about this, though: it's highly unlikely that someone from Apple is actively deleting posts - it's probably a filter that automatically deletes pre-defined stuff.

Yeah ok, that makes sens. I guess naming the unamable big boss is a nono in these North Korean type forums...;-) It still hits a soft spot in my rebel mind!

I feel so much for those out there who have no other alternative way to get their work done.

If it's the graphics card the problem is as likely to be in the OS as in FCP, which probably demands more from it than anything else on the system.

We could need a GPU driver update. Or a GPU firmware update. Or some FCPX or OS X update. Still, fixing this embarassing issue shouldn't take almost three months... it's Apple's software, running on Apple's hardware.

The "official response" I've had is that the FCPX team know about it and are working on it and thanks for my help diagnosing it. But no eta etc which I have asked for in response. I've had a fairly detailed exchange with the iMac support team person who has conveyed things to/from the FCPX team (as I don't have the support contract for FCPX but as its an issue affecting the iMac team's product they are keen to see it progress and have been working to expedite it). Given how the symptoms are similar to what other report happening with FCPX at times, I think something with the 680 GPU in the iMac has just exposed a more fundamental issue, so I fear the fix may not be trivial and I worry how long it will take - but I live in hope and keep checking for updates every day!

I've started to get used to which sort of things cause the problem now and I have the luxury in what I'm doing to then avoid those things, so I managed to have the first project in over a month with the new iMac actually work from start to finish without a single crash yesterday. Besides that, I've gotten used to doing the basics on the iMac then having to switch the project back to the Mac mini to finish and render - a shambles really.

I haven't found any way yet - this is my take on why: although the Mac hasn't completely crashed (a USB keyboard still responds to the caps lock key and there's no evidence of a kernel panic in the logs), the OS is getting so tied up somewhere that its not servicing any of the other processes/threads, hence the mouse stopping. That seems to include stopping responding to remote connections. I haven't yet tried a remote shell though, which might still be possible...I'll give that a go when I get a chance. It would only help anyone with more than one machine though. Besides, I'm finding that so far, as log as I leave it a bit before powering off, when it restarts, I'm not losing any progress on the project, so its "just" the 30-40 seconds to reboot and start up FCPX again (except not able to render affected projects on the device at all and having to move them to a Mac mini instead).

I believe the problem has something to do with some buggy code overwriting portions of video memory. The reason I think this is that on my machine, which admitedly is a 21" model but still exhibits most of the same symptoms as the 27", is that sometimes before everything freezes, a bunch of garbage is displayed on the screen. Sometimes.

I suppose it could actually be a problem with NVIDIA's video driver, but I dont think so. My system can freeze when all I'm doing is using Compressor to render, and I can't imagine how that could be affected by a video driver bug, since there's no active UI involved.

But it's all just speculation.

Dan

I'm on a trial of fCPX. It expires in 12 days. After that I'm going Avid. I'm a student so it's a great deal. Problem is I bought the one to one for help learning the FCPX software for $100. My school offers a free Lynda.com membership so at least I can learn editing software with out spending anymore money. The $100 is a kick to the gut though. I'll probably stick with AVID 'til I quit filmmaking.

I can't imagine how that could be affected by a video driver bug, since there's no active UI involved.

The GPU is used in rendering however.