FCPX 10.1 Very slow on iMac and lots of spinning beach balls

I have the same issue as well. I know it's down to library size. I have 120 hours of footage and 114 projects that I need in a single library due to the nature of the training product we produce. It was sluggish with 10.0.9, but absolutely unusable in 10.1.

I realize there are those who will say that I shouldn't have that much media in one library, but our product can really be thought of as one giant product, as many of our clips are shared between 20-30 projects, and I've laboriously gone to the effort of tagging the clips in our 120 hour library of footage, such that if I need a short clip of a bucket truck or pole top transformer, I can quickly pull out all of those clips.

To move to a system where I have a library per project and drag in the clips that apply to it would create tremendous redundancy for me as well as destroy the organizational structure I've set up for myself. It's created a tremendous pain point for us going forward, and I hope that Apple will consider those with larger libraries as well as those who have lots of one-off, well defined projects. After all, while 120 hours of footage is a lot, I'd be hard pressed to believe that amount is uncommon in some of the films that are edited in FCPX.

Same problem here. I have to work with FCPX at work as there is nothing else installed and most of the time it's been frustrating to work with it. It's a large library but that does not explain why it's taking the app 5 seconds just to follow up on a simple click on an item. Typing in subtitles is so slow the letters appear in slow-motion. At the same time neither CPU (i5) or RAM (20GB) is used much. Access to media is via a Thunderbolt RAID which is hardly a bottleneck. FCP was slow before the update to 10.1, and while at first it seemed to be snappier, it's now even slower, if in a different way.

kepardue wrote:

I have the same issue as well. I know it's down to library size. I have 120 hours of footage and 114 projects that I need in a single library due to the nature of the training product we produce. It was sluggish with 10.0.9, but absolutely unusable in 10.1.

I realize there are those who will say that I shouldn't have that much media in one library, but our product can really be thought of as one giant product, as many of our clips are shared between 20-30 projects, and I've laboriously gone to the effort of tagging the clips in our 120 hour library of footage, such that if I need a short clip of a bucket truck or pole top transformer, I can quickly pull out all of those clips.

To move to a system where I have a library per project and drag in the clips that apply to it would create tremendous redundancy for me as well as destroy the organizational structure I've set up for myself. It's created a tremendous pain point for us going forward, and I hope that Apple will consider those with larger libraries as well as those who have lots of one-off, well defined projects. After all, while 120 hours of footage is a lot, I'd be hard pressed to believe that amount is uncommon in some of the films that are edited in FCPX.

You REALLY need to work with external media. If you are already, then disregard the following, but I am guessing that you have a huge library with the media inside it (what is called "managed media"), and that is the cause of your troubles.

1) Make sure to have a backup first, because if this step fails you can lose your stuff.

2) Select a location to contain all your media files and make sure there is enough disk space.

3) In FCP X, select the huge library and File->Consolidate Library Files...

In the popup, next to "Consolidate files to:" choose the volume or folder where to store the media.

Let it do its thing (it may take a while).

You should end up with a much smaller Library, point to (not containing) all media files.

This has the added benefit that you can also, as needed, create other Libraries pointing to the same files (or, more useful, to a subset of these files).

Yeah, it's all managed externally now, but I still have to have my Source Media library (with all the external references) and my projects in separate libraries, which creates duplicate references to the source media, and performance isn't great any way you look at it. I'm hoping they improve performance for large library users in 10.1.x.

Hi All,

I cleaned up my FCPX files with the Digital Rebellion software named "Pro maintenance Tools". Use can fully use the Trial Version for 15 days !

Can be found here : http://www.digitalrebellion.com/promaintenance/

What I did is cleanup up my FCPX preferences, search for corrupt video files, etc...

I got some corrupt video files that I delete from my system. Also there is a Plugin Manager to find which plug-ins are installed and you can removed unwanted or uncompatible ones.

Great tools !!! Maybe they could help you get rid of the problems you might have 😉

Torp

Im still on 10.9 and always get the beach Ball when loading fcpx. Reading a few posts past back, Im wondering if this because I have ton a plugs. Maybe some of them are not compatabile with mavericks.Possible?

late 2012 Imac

i7 3.2

16gb

fussion

media files/lib stored on TB 4GB raid10

10.1.1 >>> So today there is an bug fix release of which one of them is "fixes sluggish response on timeline for large projects"

etc...

THIS is exactly why those such as the many in this thread who actually work with large complex jobs vs others who claim "there is no problem" get so frustrated by the same advice such as "trash preferences" or "make a new user" etc or other things. The problem is/was inherent in the app and that is that. Just because some have no issue doesnt mean there is no problem and that it must be "user error" etc etc. And this - once again - just proves that. I really hope FCPX can one day release a reasonably stable app for ALL users. That is not asking too much. Apply makes both the hardware and software - talk about a reason to not have excuses for these kind of buggy problems. Stability should be a given without having to constantly wait for the next update to fix the stability issues with the last update!

montster wrote:

10.1.1 >>> So today there is an bug fix release of which one of them is "fixes sluggish response on timeline for large projects"

etc...

THIS is exactly why those such as the many in this thread who actually work with large complex jobs vs others who claim "there is no problem" get so frustrated by the same advice such as "trash preferences" or "make a new user" etc or other things. The problem is/was inherent in the app and that is that. Just because some have no issue doesnt mean there is no problem and that it must be "user error" etc etc. And this - once again - just proves that. I really hope FCPX can one day release a reasonably stable app for ALL users. That is not asking too much.

There is no such thing as bug-free software.

I hope 10.1.1 fixes issues for people who have them, but clearly some of them were not bugs of the software, but clearly some that have been discussed in this thread were self-inflicted.

This is a complex application and users need to be educated about things like media management.

I can't understand how people with hundreds of gigabytes, or even terabytes of media keep storing everything in the boot drive, and using managed media. It is nonsense.

You can't expect to store your media in your internal 3TB hard drive with only 100GB free and expect FCP X to run quickly on that. 10.1.1 certainly can't fix such "between the monitor and the chair" errors...

No one including myself has said it should be "bug free" and if you think that the well known fact that FCPX has been plagued by stability issues is perfectly normal and ok - then no comment - defend as you feel the urge to defend.

And your comments about the storage example has nothing to do with the fact of the "baked in stability" problems that apple has confirmed through this latest update and a slew of them beforehand.

Plagued by stability issues is BS. Sorry. There are thousands of professional users many working in long form who do not have stability issues. I have three projects over one hour. They have been slow loading and moving around the timeline. They have not been slow while editing only in display data. They have never been unstable. There are many users working on large systems with SANs without problems, sharing media and libraries.

Oh really Tom? Then how do you explain the update(s) addressing just that? Nope has nothing to do with the app itself... lol

Just a reminder that this is a user-to-user board.

The people who propose solutions are other users – trying as best they can to help other people sort out problems. They aren't Apple employees or even Apple apologists.

If the proposed fixes are something like trashing preferences, creating a new user, or whatever, they're usually offered up because those actions have often cured the problem with others who've had similar symptoms. (And often the user who's trying to help has been through something similar.) it doesn't mean that they are trying to discredit the complaint.

One way to look at it is that if everything that went wrong was a bug, there'd really be no reason to have this forum. We could just fill out the FCPX feedback forms.

Just my 2¢.

Russ

It's certainly improved loading and building waveforms and thumbnails as I scrolling quickly through the timeline.

Well, I just installed 10.1.1., but is is not quicker than 10.1. and does not nearly have the performance of 10.0.9 😟

Timeline scrolling, applying of effects take 3-4 seconds in a small 3 minutes HD project.

My iMac 3,4GHz i7 with SSD and 16GB RAM seems to be outdated in Apples world already. I do not see spinning beachballs, but working in FCPX not no fun at all after 10.1. and also the latest update. All other programs are working still great.

I really hope that it works better when I start a new project later on.

I agree, I also have an iMac 3.4 maxed out ram, lastest mavericks etc and see no change at all with 10.1.1 I'm still encountering the same problems. Once the App memory usage hits the max physical memory, the kernel task memory usage zooms up and FCP grinds to a halt with the spinning beachball for 30 seconds or more with every small thing I d so annoying and it's making FCP unusable until I quit then restart.

Once I've done that it's only a matter of time before the whole process starts again when FCP eats all my physical memory and memory swap/virtual memory shoot up and kernel task takes over.