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

This is a user to user forum. You can report specifics of what's happening on your system using feedback.

@remoran: Looking at other threads, you've had a boatlaod of troubles running both FCPX and Compressor. If I were you, I would do a clean install of the OS.

As for "Hpw about it"…you've been on these boards long enough to appreciate that we're just users who trying to contribute useful advice. To provide feedback to Apple, use the Feedback links.

Russ

Well, Question, if Mavericks works without issue for ALL OF MY OTHER APPS on system, then why do I need a clean install? Many people have complained about both apps whereby 10.9 and 4.07 of FCPX and Compressor, respectively, worked without issue. Seems Apple has a problem here, don't you think? From MHO, it appears Apple rushed these apps out to highlight the Mac Pro as it has the prerequisite speed to overcome the hastily updated code of these two programs, particularly in the areas of memory leaks and poor I/O. Correct me if I am wrong but I really don't think I am.

PS. Once Apple gets these issues resolved, both programs will rock.

IMHO this is BS. This version of the software has the longest gestation period of any previous version. This whole rush idea has no basis in fact. The OS was released to developers at the WWDC. This version of FCP was probably in development at least that long. Fact: the application works very well and very much more quickly for a great many people, for the vast majority of the thousands of users of the application and the OS. Why a clean install? Usually because it is the only way to eliminate the crap that most users drag from OS to OS until it arrives at some catastrophic conflict.

If this is the case, why are folks talking about the slowness of 10.1 in this discussion? People have done clean installs and the problem remains. I build environments so I know a little bit. The code is not optimized as per 10.9 because if it were, I would not be involved in this discussion.

Done folks are. And there were folks you had horrible slow down and beachballs with 10.0.6 and 10.0.7 and 10.0.8. The discussion forum is like a hospital. It tends to be full of sick people or people with sick systems, which does not mean there is a general pandemic among all FCP users who updated to 10.1.

Won't get into a flame war but this holy then thou bit gets really old. Get over it. If a code set is not right, then fix it. I am betting you are not a professional editor who makes a living doing what we do. We buy expensive machines to do sophisticated work that takes time and diligence to get it done. No one can do it all, also, if there is a problem, then don't cop an attitude that's BS. FCPX 10.1 has the potential to be stellar but I/O is an issue here, particularly when nothing else on this user's system has no issues including the complete CC edition of Adobe. Because of this, I am fairly certain that Apple is correct in strongly recommending we do the Maverick's update via the App Store, which I did with NO PROBLEMS.

Even if I do not have a very long delay playing the time line the problem   is there but only on certain clips. I have XDCAM-HD clips that plays well, transcoded MP4 to pro res, plays well, rendered clips here comes the problem. FCPX do not like to play some of its its own rendered clips. Just to compare i exportered a clip with delay problems reimported it and it  starts playing well  immediately. I have also experienced that clips that are upspeeded or even  close to a up speeded clip dont play well. Turning of sound on the upspeeded clip solved that.   But it seems more or less that clips that are changed in some way and rendered do not play ok. Colorcorrected plays ok, stabilzed do not and so on.

Hey guys thought I'd chime in with my solution I've come up with.  I am working on a massive project, a feature film, and since 10.1.1 it has been bogged down exactly like what everyone is describing.

Here are my specs: 2012 mac mini - 16gb ram i7 processor. 250gb ssd HD

I'm now going to outline in detail the file structure and Drive set up we have:

WE have about 3TB of Prores LT footage that we are working from.  Me and my team are working on three computers simultaneously on the same project.  Which is a post all its own....

We each are working from two drives.  We have our footage on one USB 3.0 drive and our events on seperate GRaid firewire 800 drive due to financial restraints we can't afford any other drives, I'd prefer just having 2 USB 3.0 drives but this is what we had. 

Below is a picture of our file structure:  We have one main library and within it an event for each scene, also note that we have a bunch of multicam clips which FCPX has handled quite well.

A.)

We also have one main Event that I thought would be useful to consolidate all our Compound clips. Which we had started using instead of Projects for the rough cuts of each scene.  Potentially our first mistake:

B.)

The reason we did this and the reason it would have awesome if it had worked was so that we could have one main PROJECT timeline with all these compound clips in them that we could then open up and edit and tweak as we saw fit and also have the whole movie in one clean timeline.  I don't know but I thought this was the coolest part of FCP X and thought this made sense as the way to organize a large project.  I think thats the main thing I've been confused by Is how the f&%$ are you supposed to do it.  There is clearly mulitple ways and I think the root of the problem is that some of these ways cause FCPX to bog down or actaully explode.  That is why I have taken to the time to outline in detail our media management.

C.)

This MAIN PROJECT timeline does work great and scrubbing and working with the compound clips works well, but when you want to edit the compound clips by opening them in the timeline or double clicking in the browser they are really bogged down the same way everyone has been describing.

D.)

BOGSVILLE!!!a

SO The conclusion I came to was that the Compound clips were the problem.  Either simply having such complicated editing within them or having so many large very complicated compound clips in one Event (picture B)  I don't know, but as soon as I created a Project for each scene in its own event (picture E below) and manually copy and pasted the individual scene into it, everything ran smoothly again.  The editing was snappy and resposive like we all want it to be!  It seems weird because there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between a project and a Compound Clip, but in this case it did seem to matter.

The other solution I had come up with was to copy an event into a new library and edit in there if this method didn't work, so if you have a different file structure that might make more sense.  It worked on my comp.  For instance if I copied scene 13 into a new library edited the piece and then copied it back.  I still even left the other massive library open, the editing I did in the other temp library all of a sudden didn't bog down.  Which in my opinion is stupid.  But it worked so perhaps trying that might help some people in this situation.  I didn't get as far as accessing media from the Massive library while working in the temp Library...  I wonder if that would cause it to regress back into bogland.

E.)

Anyway hope this helps.  My system is running smooth again, I'll let you know if it doesn't last....

Same here, system running soooooooo slow. I definitely suspect compound clips too, as mentionned by Alex. However I don't fully understand how to work without them, especially in complex projects with a lot of compositing.

I did this excellent suggestion but no dice. Spinning beach balls to the max. Interestingly enough, if you look at the background processess, nothing shows, which means I/O problems, memory leaks and the inablility of the app to keep these processes in sequence and in order, something 10.9 did not have. This is a very serious problem that is making this app useless to me. I like FCPX a lot but this memory management issue is a non starter. If this is not resolved, Premiere awaits.

I called Apple Care, and they activated my 90 day tech support.  They had me remove a bunch of setup files to make FCP X a new install configuration wise.  At the end of the call we determined that the cause of some of my problems is the fact that I was using two USB 2 drives for storage (and a USB hub).  In past versions, it seemed to work fine, but not anymore... so I am in the process of copying 2 TB of data to a Firewire 800 drive to see if that helps.  While on the call the tech suggested I buy a Thunderbolt Drive... which is probably  good idea.  However, one has to think:  Do they do these software upgrades just to sell hardware and/or Mac Pro's?  It is so annoying that everything was working great, and now NOTHING WORKS, and has cost me weeks of lost productive time, and may cost me thousands to get it up and running again.  I should go to Adobe and just toss the apple equipment.  Great if I want a money pit, and constant dealing from a very arrogant company like Apple. It's like the FCP 7 deal all over again!

One thing I have noticed, when the "wonderful" spinning ball arises, is the fact no background processes are happening, which means it's an I/O problem of the program not correctly accessing the files on disk or in memory depending on how much RAM one has on system. 10.9 does not have this problem, which means it's a core issue of 10.1 and not hardware configs or plug ins etc., etc. This has to be fixed from the programmer end and not by having us rubes jump through hoops on trying to rectify a problem that resides in the code and not on the hardware on which the program runs. Fix this Apple and be done with it.

The reason why I think this is correct is the fact 10.1 does NOT crash because it crawls through the poorly written routine and returns back to the same exact point  as before, thus allowing continued editing of the project in question after a 1-2 min. delay depending on the speed of the user's machine.

The only "BS" is those who, instead of admitting an inherent fault in the application, choose to offer the holier-than-thou atittude that everyone who claims otherwise, is full of "BS".

Here is a link whose professional comments about the software speaks for itself. Perhaps Mr. Wolsky feels this is "BS" too?

LINK - go to end of article about Apples "sloppy, buggy, software efforts" etc. Must be BS lol.

Some of the user comments are interesting too.

http://library.creativecow.net/kobler_helmut/Mac-Pro-review/1

Aside from setting up FCP with the Mac Pro  this is the only reference to FCP

My skimmer stops working in Final Cut Pro X, forcing a relaunch.

Nothing about slow performance. No comments mention FCP.

The skimmer problem can be overcoming by zooming in and out of the timeline. It doesn't require a relaunch.