Final Cut Pro X Crashes my macbook pro

Question

Final Cut Pro X Crashes my macbook pro

Hi

I am a mac user since 1984.

I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)

2.8 GHz Intel Core i7

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB

with 1TB Flash storage.

I store my media Librarys on a Lacie 2 big 4TB thunderbolt hard drive.running LRM 1.1.2 (it is not a Thunderbolt 2 version) an AJA test shows it is writing at 266.26 MB/s and reading at 271.2 taking a 16 GB file size.

I recently updated to OS 10.11.3

I am a using FCPX almost every day to edit movies I make. Recently with a long movie (1hr and 20 mins) and now with shorter ones, When I am editing, the red ball appears. Then the movie freezes but the sound continues. I can not force quit FCP or activiate any other functions of the machine. (a bit like the old days!!) and have to do a "hard" shut down to get out of it.

I have done all the usual tasks to correct it including reseting the SMC, zapping the PRAM, dumping the FCPX Preferences, Running disk utilities and running Diskwarrior 5 to rebuild the directory on both disks, setting up a new user to test if it runs OK, which it does not.

It's most odd in that it can happen after 3 minutes use or 3 hours use and there seems no logic to it happening. Is anyone else having this problem?

I would appreciate any ideas as to what is causing it. I would appreciate any ideas.

Thanks

Philip

Posted on Jan 28, 2016 3:29 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 29, 2016 1:27 AM in response to Philip Morley1

You seem to have a more than adequate system. The only question mark that pops up for me is: what is this LRM 1.1.2? Is this some LaCie software? What is it for?

Reply

Answer 2

EcoGreg

Level 3

876 points

Jan 29, 2016 10:25 AM in response to Philip Morley1

Hi Philip

You could have corrupted clips, corrupted or outdated plug-ins.

Check all your 3rd party plug-ins for compatibility. You can try to disable them, but removing them altogether is a better option.

As for clips, the only way I know is to create a new project with ~ half the clips. Can you now edit? No, try chopping again. Yes try the other half. You get the idea. If you find a bad clip you need to remove the file, re-import or replace and then delete preferences.

You should also try creating the project in a different user account, sometimes this fixes the issue. If it does, then it is in your user account not the clips or plug-ins. (oops see you did this)

Are you using external USB audio devices or speakers? Try to disconnect them and see if issue happens? Just a thought.

Feel your pain;(

Hope this helps, Greg

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 29, 2016 4:40 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hi Luis,

Thanks for looking, it stands for Lacie Raid Monitor software, I am running twin discs in a striped Raid Zero format. I have read that some of the Lacie kit does not like the ElCapitan upgrade?. I have been chasing a deadline today so have not had time to call them. It feels like a slowdown in the transfer rate (it posts a 10 Gb/per second rate) with it continuing to pump the audio and freezing everything else it could be grabbing all my CPU and more, hence the freeze up. If you know how I check this it would be great to know.

Philip

Reply

Answer 4

Jan 29, 2016 4:47 PM in response to EcoGreg

Hi Greg,

Thanks for your note. Yes that corrupt clip idea is good one as my project has some old 1080i clips from a few years back. I am going to have a go and see if it frees it. There is something corrupting the preferences as I have to dump them each time it fails and I have to do a hard start in order to get it to work at all.

I have a Bose companion 50 USB desktop speakers attached. I tried disconnecting them and it made no difference..

Thanks again for your help.

Philip

Reply

Answer 5

EcoGreg

Level 3

876 points

Jan 29, 2016 8:41 PM in response to Philip Morley1

Hi Philip

You said… " If you know how I check this it would be great to know."

Have you looked under Activity Monitor?

Might be too general, but you can see what is going on.

Take your top process(especially FCPX), under the CPU tab, double click on it, there you'll get some info and you can find additional info by clicking on the "Sample" button. This may indicate what processes are taking up resources. Multiple samples that show a same process thread may point to a particular problem area.You can resample and save as often as you want.

Focus on FCPX processes.

Play around in the various tabs, CPU, Disk and see if something sticks out while you are having the issues.

AM also gives you good indicators about RAM, page swaps, system calls, # of threads, etc…

Activity Monitor is in your Utilities Folder

If you get actual freezes or crashes, then you can inspect the Logs>Diagnostic Reports in your User Library. These are time and date stamped and will indicate what is causing the hangs/crashes by process task or system call.

(You may need to hold down the "Option" key while clicking on the Go Menu in Finder to see your User Library folder. You can set it to always be visible.)

There are additional Log files in the System Library Logs

In your System Preference>Security & Privacy>Privacy Tab>Diagnostics & Usage if you uncheck Send Data to Apple then when you have a crash, Crash Reporter will pop up and you can examine the log files immediately and then choose to send to Apple or Ignore. It's the same log file as above, but getting in the habit of reading them helps in learning how to decipher them.

Sorry if you already know all of this, but might help someone else.

Hope this helps, Greg

Reply