jonuk85

Q: 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

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

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  • by Surf City 1,

    Surf City 1 Surf City 1 Jan 24, 2013 10:44 AM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 24, 2013 10:44 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

    Maybe I'm using the wrong term...

     

    Add title to the timeline, change color, font, etc. Make it larger or smaller/ change position (transform), and FREEZE.

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Jan 24, 2013 10:48 AM in response to Surf City 1
    Level 10 (118,408 points)
    Apple TV
    Jan 24, 2013 10:48 AM in response to Surf City 1

    But no crash? Just spinning beach ball or complete lock up with frozen mouse?

     

    Did you use feedback?

  • by Surf City 1,

    Surf City 1 Surf City 1 Jan 24, 2013 10:57 AM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 24, 2013 10:57 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

    Complete lock up! Screen freezes. Cursor doesn't move. Nothing works. Hard reboot is the only way to start over. All changes made to te title are kept intact, even if it was in the middle of rendering.

     

    I have called Apple Care twice, and have done everything that they've said. Can you give me a link to feedback?

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Jan 24, 2013 11:18 AM in response to Surf City 1
    Level 10 (118,408 points)
    Apple TV
    Jan 24, 2013 11:18 AM in response to Surf City 1

    The link is on the FCP menu.

  • by FrustratedFCPXguy,

    FrustratedFCPXguy FrustratedFCPXguy Jan 24, 2013 12:04 PM in response to jonuk85
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 24, 2013 12:04 PM in response to jonuk85

    So the question remains, is it the specific graphics card with the iMac's or are people with different video  cards  having the freezes as I suspect and it is the software  itself.  I would love for people to respond who don't have the  680 mx.

  • by Surf City 1,

    Surf City 1 Surf City 1 Jan 24, 2013 12:34 PM in response to FrustratedFCPXguy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 24, 2013 12:34 PM in response to FrustratedFCPXguy

    My card is the GTX 680MX 2048 MB...

  • by elohel,

    elohel elohel Jan 24, 2013 1:31 PM in response to jonuk85
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 24, 2013 1:31 PM in response to jonuk85

    I too had the problem not sure why it hasn't occurred since maybe I haven't messed with titles enough(ill try that later) but it did crash identical to what people are describing twice I ended up trashing my preferences as stopped working off of the external drive

     

    I have an i7, 8gb ram, 680mx, fusion drive

     

    post your specs and crash criteria

  • by Surf City 1,

    Surf City 1 Surf City 1 Jan 24, 2013 2:15 PM in response to elohel
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 24, 2013 2:15 PM in response to elohel

    3.7 I7

    32 G 1600 MHz

    680 MX 2048

    OS X 10.8.2

    3T Hard Drive (2.5 T free)

     

    Shouldn't freeze. Freezes when editing titles (mostly) in FCPX.

  • by sputuk,

    sputuk sputuk Jan 24, 2013 3:24 PM in response to jonuk85
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 24, 2013 3:24 PM in response to jonuk85

    I contacted Apple Care about the same problem with a brand new iMac i7 16GB 1TB fusion GTX680 - I got refered to the iMac product specialist at first, who initially assured me that my suspicion that it might be an incompatability with the GFX card was unfounded and that the web site for FCPX hw needs not including that card was just an oversight, but then he went and did some more checking and instead said he'd need to refer it to the FCPX engineers in the states - took a full diagnostic dump to be analysed etc and I'm currently waiting to hear back.

     

    NB this is a new machine which I can make crash the OS fairly reliably simply by creating a new project in Motion and trying to render it, or by performing some fairly simple steps in FCPX.  The machine has passed all the Apple HW tests, the HDD passed it's tests and other than problems when FCPX/Motion try to do rendering, everything behaves itself. (it's only certain things in Motion/FCPX which seem to cause problems.  If I avoid then, it runs like a dream!)

     

    It /could/ be the fusion drive, but until I hear otherwise, the fact that the GTX680 isn't listed as being compatable with FCPX is making me think that Apple have "sold me a pig in a poke"

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Jan 24, 2013 3:45 PM in response to sputuk
    Level 10 (118,408 points)
    Apple TV
    Jan 24, 2013 3:45 PM in response to sputuk

    The graphics card is most likely not listed because it's not been tested.

  • by Surf City 1,

    Surf City 1 Surf City 1 Jan 24, 2013 3:51 PM in response to sputuk
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 24, 2013 3:51 PM in response to sputuk

    I'm glad that this topic is receiving attention. I hope that Apple comes up with a solution soon.

  • by NewMacForMe,

    NewMacForMe NewMacForMe Jan 24, 2013 9:05 PM in response to jonuk85
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 24, 2013 9:05 PM in response to jonuk85

    Alright, I guess I'll jump in on this as well...

     

    I also picked up a new 27" iMac, 16GB, 680mx, 1tb fusion.  FCPX freezes on me everytime I pull in the 'Pixie Dust' title.  As soon as it starts to render, it freezes.  Hard re-boot required.  I have tried many other titles and I have not seen the issue.  It seems to only be happening with 'Pixie Dust' so far.  I have not tried changing font colours or transforming yet - I'll try that next, but for now it looks like we are all having the same/similar issues.  I really have no clue what it is.  I suspected a bug in the program at first, but now I am more inclined to believe a hardware issue like the graphics card is the culprit.  I have scoured (and posted on) many other forums and have found many others with the same issues - nobody has found a resolution or even an acknowledgement from Apple that there is a problem.

     

    Hopefully someone figures this out soon.  I'm quite dissappointed as I also picked up this machine for video editing and did not expect to see these kind of issues considering the money spent.

     

    At least I now know I'm not alone.

     

    Ok, just went back and tried of few of these things (changed font colour, size, transformed) - none of these actions caused a problem for me.  Once again, for me it's just a render issue with 'Pixie Dust'.  I can live with that.  Hopefully there are not other issue lurking that are yet to be discovered.

  • by DjangoDE,

    DjangoDE DjangoDE Jan 25, 2013 5:59 AM in response to NewMacForMe
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 25, 2013 5:59 AM in response to NewMacForMe

    So I just talked to the Apple Care Support and was forwarded to someone who knew our "problem"

     

    He told me that this is a particular problem of all graphic cards with 2GB ram and that it would be "under investigation" at the moment.

    It actually sounded like I was not the first person talking to him about this particular problem.

     

    However, he was pretty confident that the only solution is an update of FCPX.

    Of course he didn't know how long this can take.

     

    Pretty depressing...

  • by sputuk,

    sputuk sputuk Jan 25, 2013 1:46 PM in response to jonuk85
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 25, 2013 1:46 PM in response to jonuk85

    Thanks NewMacForMe - the Pixie Dust title does seem to be a reliable way to reproduce the issue, which I've been able to confirm back to the support person dealing with my case.

     

    By the way - in a lot of testing, I've found that SOMETIMES, if I'm lucky, if I find FCPX starts to "stutter", if I can get the focus away from it by switching to finder or bringing up CMD+ALT+Esc quickly, then keep doing anything to prevent FCPX carry on for a few seconds, when I switch back, it can finish what it was having problems with and avoid a complete lock up.  This only seems to work if I catch it quickly, and if the bit it's having trouble with is quite short, but it might just save someone losing some work if it works for you.

     

    The Apple Care person dealing with my enquiry has said:

     

    "Last night they [FCPX engineers] confirmed the the article [the one listing HW compatible with FCPX] would be updated soon and the GTC 680MX [sic]  would be added to the list.

    They did not say if an update would be released before then.

     

    For now it seems it should be compatible but case has not been closed."

     

    and he asked me to provide details of how to reliably reproduce the crash, hence the thanks at the start as using Pixie Dust means it is reliably crashable using entirely Apple supplied content in a trivial project, which I suspect will be a big help to the FCPX engineer getting to the bottom of this. *fingers crossed*

  • by NewMacForMe,

    NewMacForMe NewMacForMe Jan 25, 2013 3:33 PM in response to jonuk85
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 25, 2013 3:33 PM in response to jonuk85

    Wow, finally an acknowledgement from Apple!  Great, let's hope for an update soon!  Glad in some small way I could help.

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