Import Media hangs loading desktop/home directory under Mavericks 10.9.3

With the release of Mavericks 10.9.3 on May 14, 2014 a bug was introduced that can cause Final Cut Pro 10.1.1 to no longer see the desktop or home directory leaving the progress indicators to spin endlessly and no longer "see" your media if they are in certain directories.

I have some video projects on the desktop and could no longer access them. I did lots of unnecessary things like reinstalling FCP 10.1.1 and removing plug-ins etc. I lost a whole day. Then I discovered the problem indirectly from a DaringFireball.net post and that led to the solution.

Here is the description of the problem and fix...

http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/users-folder-being-hidden-with-itune s-11-2-installed-and-find-my-mac-enabled/

We can all understand how to turn off "Find My Mac" in the iCloud preferences, but it says nothing on how run the shell script for non-nerds. Here is the easy way...

Download Platypus which will allow you to paste in that script into a GUI interface and save it as an app that you simply double-click...

http://sveinbjorn.org/platypus

Open Platypus and in the dialog, give the app any name, click the "New" button and replace the script in there with the one you copied from derflounder's page, click "Save" in that script pane, then click the "Run with Administrator privileges" checkbox, and then click "Create." The little app will appear on your desktop and you just double click it. Then when you open FCP it will no longer spin endlessly because it can't find the desktop or home directory via the /Users directory.

Apple will be fixing this soon I'm sure. Thanks to John Gruber and DaringFireball.net