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Level 2

432 points

Preferences won't save in 10.3?

Hello all...

10.3 has actually become a joy to work with for me. There was a week or so of a learning curve... still getting used to some of the placement of the controls to things... but overall I'm happy with it. If there was one thing I'd like back, it would be the slider at the bottom of the timeline window to zoom in or out on the timeline quickly. Or color correction built into the inspector properties of any clip (it's a pain to have to always add that to a clip if you need to work on the color/exposure... not sure why they ever took that away to begin with).

I'd also love the ability to export chapter markers to a text file. I've been asking Apple to do this for years... not sure why that can't be added. I'd pay someone good money to come up with that functionality! Compressor unfortunately won't recognize chapter markers in m4v files, so I have to manually type them into a text file for importing into Compressor.

Anyway... my main reason writing is... preferences won't save on any of my machines. I'm running three iMac's and one Macbook Pro. What I mean by preferences is... in the Browser/Index (Name, Duration, Content Created, Camera Name, Start, End, etc), I'll re-arrange them to suit my needs. But within an hour or so of working they'll reset to the default order. It's completely random, but happens daily.

In the Browser and/or the timeline, I'll set/change the appearance of the timeline to suit my needs (show the audio waves, video forms, the height of the clips, etc.) and the same thing will happen. They'll all reset to the default randomly. Especially if I go from one library to another.

Is there anyway to "lock in" my preferences library wide?!

iMac (27-inch Mid 2010), OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Nov 22, 2016 6:29 AM

24 replies

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,064 points

Nov 28, 2016 9:37 AM in response to Matt13

Have you used feedback with details of exactly what's happening?

Matt13 Author

Level 2

432 points

Nov 28, 2016 9:51 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

You mean send Apple feedback? I've done that, multiple times, in the past. And none of my queries were ever addressed. Like adding the ability to export Chapter Markers to a text file (can it be that hard to do?!) or give Compressor the ability to recognize chapter markers in .m4v files. I've asked about that (or provided feedback if you want to look at it that way) using their online forms on several occasions... usually coinciding with major program updates for either... and like I said, it's as if they don't even get the forms. They're batting .000 for me when I provide any feedback. So I tend to heavily rely on communities like this to find solutions to my problems... if any solutions even exist.

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,064 points

Nov 28, 2016 11:45 AM in response to Matt13

There's a difference between a feature request (exporting chapter markers as text file) and a bug report.

If there's a software bug no community, this or any other, will be able to help you correct it.

All bug reports are read and collated by Apple QA. How long it will take to fix, what the priority for fixing it, I can't say. If the report can be reproduced, you will almost certainly not get any response; but if you don't report it, the chances of it getting fixed are approaching zero.

I believe this is the only thread I've seen that reports this problem, here or on other forums, but if it's reproducible it really needs to be fixed. If it can't be reproduced it probably won't be fixed. From what you've said enough people have seen it that it's an important issue to be corrected.

Matt13 Author

Level 2

432 points

Nov 28, 2016 6:16 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

I'd be happy to try a bug report. What's the best way to do that?

I find it hard to believe nobody else is experiencing this... just me and my colleagues!

You've never had the clips in the timeline collapse into the basic view (real skinny, no preview window or audioforms), the file types reverting to the native setting (none) or the order of index tabs change after a custom ordering (start, end, duration, etc.) after going from one library to the other? Or even project to project... or event to event?

We can't be the only ones.

I was chalking the lack of responses up to maybe most people work with everything set up in it's native format. If one does that, they'd never notice this problem of view preferences not sticking.

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,064 points

Nov 28, 2016 6:27 PM in response to Matt13

Feedback in the FCP menu. I've not see the timeline change to thin lines only. The clip appearances don't seem sticky, but they may be effected by changes in the roles index. Haven't seen the index order change either. Roles always seem to hold their position. I've been using filmstrip lately so haven't noticed column changes in list view. Never worked with camera type as a choice. Usually with notes next to names. I haven't seen that move.

Nov 29, 2016 2:59 AM in response to Matt13

Matt13 wrote:

I'd be happy to try a bug report. What's the best way to do that?

I find it hard to believe nobody else is experiencing this... just me and my colleagues!

You've never had the clips in the timeline collapse into the basic view (real skinny, no preview window or audioforms), the file types reverting to the native setting (none) or the order of index tabs change after a custom ordering (start, end, duration, etc.) after going from one library to the other? Or even project to project... or event to event?

We can't be the only ones.

I know this may not be what you'd like to hear, but if all the machines in a local setup show some misbehavior that is not easily found elsewhere, then the natural course of action should be to try and figure out what these machines have in common. Most likely something that you all use may be causing a problem for all of you.

Nov 29, 2016 3:09 AM in response to Matt13

Matt13 wrote:

You mean send Apple feedback? I've done that, multiple times, in the past. And none of my queries were ever addressed. Like adding the ability to export Chapter Markers to a text file (can it be that hard to do?!) or give Compressor the ability to recognize chapter markers in .m4v files.

Getting the chapter markers into a text file is something relatively easy to do, even without Apple's help.

Export your project to xml. Then you can filter it to get the lines describing the chapter markers. They will look like this:

<chapter-marker start="108829/3000s" duration="100/3000s" value="Chapter 2" posterOffset="11/24s"/>

A simple grep command can filter all these lines:

grep "chapter-marker" myproject.xml > markers.txt

tygb

Level 9

64,588 points

Nov 29, 2016 3:40 AM in response to Matt13

Open security & privacy > open the pad lock by entering your admin name & password , and click on privacy > advanced check the box require an administrator password to access system wide preferences .

The reason for to check is : preferences with lock icons will be locked when system preferences opens & entering an administrator password accesses all locked preferences .

Matt13 Author

Level 2

432 points

Jan 17, 2017 8:49 PM in response to tygb

Done... but will this help lock in my FCPX preferences and prevent them from resetting?

Preferences won't save in 10.3?