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

Wow that last comment and piece of info is scary Surf City 1. I'll be sure not to even try to render or make any changes again. Wouldn't want to risk blowing a HD or worse, losing data.

This is getting worse by the hour.....

For some reason today I thought "hey no crashes today, then I tested out the 'pixie dust' text and voila....CRASH

Talk about sahoot myself in the foot!!

I sent an email to the apple online contact asking him why he recommended a machine that doesnt work with FCPX ...... awaiting a response

Coincidently I just pressed send on a similar email I sent to my contact at Apple that was very helpful in selecting this machine versus the MacPro that I came close to buy and that has been discontinued in Europe. I'm sure he was not aware of this situation with FCPX when he recommended this machine, but NOW he knows.

The MacPro that I tried to make crash in the Apple Store was pretty incredible! It would have cost about a thousand$$ more, but what a dream! It rendered like nobody's business!

I'm hoping that when this issue gets sorted, I'll be close to as happy with my new iMac.

Don't read into this anything else then what it says, but trust me this machine is fantastic. I hve been able to stay productive but using Premiere Pro and it's a dream. And I am happy I didn't buy the Mac Pro that doesn't even have Thunderbolt or USB 3. Nor does it have the fastest graphics card that exists. So be patient, you will love it when these guys are done.

I have the latest iMac and the latest FCPX. and I have your problem as well.  The solution is to turn of background rendering. Well it is not really a solution... it is a short term fix until Apple decides to issue a patch. 

I am very pleased with FCPX and with the latest and greatest decked out iMac 27 -- it would be so cool if they could work together.

You need to manually render in FCPX.  Once rendered, you can share without freezing. 

Apple... please rush this.  I have an office full of editors I want to give the iMacs to, however.. I also want them to be able to work.

Kevin

I've waited for over a year to upgrade my computer, hoping Apple would finally release a new tower with Thunderbolt. When the new iMac was announced I decided to bite the bullet and purchase it over a tower. Like you I'm generally very pleased with the iMac speed performance especially with all the other apps we use in our design studio. But the main purpose for me was to utilize the iMacs power with FCPX. It's upsetting for me that FCPX is the sore spot with this new iMac. I love Apple and I've been a huge supporter for years. It's sad and disapoointing that I have to go through this after waiting so long.

Absolutely this is the temporary solution, Kevin. Thanks for clarifying. Yesterday I spent the whole day editing and had no issues at all with the new 21.5" iMac—until I started importing a lot of new clips and working on titles at the same time. The background tasks were causing loads of slow-down issues, and then a freeze. Once I stopped trying to do that, it worked great. Rendering was done after I was finished, then I shared to Vimeo for draft reviews.

We produce videos for a non-profit and our workload is nothing like almost everyone here . . . I really feel for the full studios who can't get decent work done!

As a side note, I downloaded and played with Premiere Pro (we're an Adobe Cloud member) . . . with the idea that we could switch to that. Still taking a look—the learning curve will be steep, but if it doesn't freeze (or need background rendering for clips), it might be worth it. Unfortunately FCPX  XML is not compatible with Premiere for import (unless you buy yet another conversion app, and it's still not joyously compatible . . . )

Hirschkorn: I'm experience the same problem. How can I contact FCPX support team? I would also like to send in a complaint about this.

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

So does everyone with this spec graphic card in the new iMac have this probl with fcpx

     I totally "get" that the new iMacs should absolutely work with FCPx and this issue is Apple's fault. You should NOT have to worry about an iMac crashing when working on FCPx. However...I will also add that toward the end of 2011 I had the opportunity to get the 2012 or the 2011 iMac and I choose the 2011 refurb exactly because every new model has the potential to have issues with -something important- like FCPx, MS Office, some Firewire chipset in an external drive or some other nonsense. I was most concerned about video editing with the new Fusion drive. Had there been a 256 or maybe even a 512 SSD that was not tied to a Fusion drive I may have ordered a new machine, but I wanted to minimize the chance of a conflict so I got the 2011 iMac.

   Just for future thought, buying -any- new piece of hardware less than a month or two out can really be a crap shoot. Hope Apple gets it's act together on this issue.

   I have an unrelated spontaneous restart issue ...'pulling Crucial ram soon....'

Your machine is different from the ones with the problem here. Likely your probvlem is different as well.

This isn't really a solution. The system will crash even with background rendering off. It just may not happen as quickly.

My new imac 27 with the dreaded gtx680mx card is set to finally arrive tomorrow. It was ordered to run fcp x as a replacement for my pc running sony vegas. I have been reading the manuals to fcp x and was very excited to learn and use all the tools and updated features. You all can imagine the horror I felt when I came across this thread. I read on another forum where someone was using the driver for a gtx680m card and it was performing well. I'm not sure why they felt the need to use this as they weren't experiencing problems. I was hoping someone with more knowledge could tell me why this could or couldn't work. I thought it might change something to make it work. I sure hope apple comes up with something soon. I will have deadlines. Maybe I should try premiere pro? Thanks for all the info.