FCPX 10.0.5 Bugs & Problems

Actually Apple has publicly stated a new Mac Pro is coming in 2013.

www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/201...n-works-due-in-2013/

I'm sticking with my 2008 Mac Pro, upgrading the graphics card, cause the rMBP doesn't outperform it yet. I'll upgrade next year when I see the next generation of rMBPs and MPs.

Where in this email from Tim Cook does it specifically say "Apple is releasing Mac Pros in 2013"? It doesn't, all it says is we're working on something really great for next year. That doesn't mean new Mac Pros. Anything regarding new Mac Pros is mere speculation. Anyone who says they are coming doesn't actually know.

Franz,

Thanks for your email. Our Pro customers like you are really important to us. Although we didn’t have a chance to talk about a new Mac Pro at today’s event, don’t worry as we’re working on something really great for later next year. We also updated the current model today.

We’ve been continuing to update Final Cut Pro X with revolutionary pro features like industry leading multi-cam support and we just updated Aperture with incredible new image adjustment features.

We also announced a MacBook Pro with a Retina Display that is a great solution for many pros.

Tim

Read the article's update:

"Also Apple corrects to say desktop updates for 2013 applies only to Mac Pro and not iMac.

Apple said today that it is working on new models and designs for its Mac Pro desktop that will be released in 2013."

Other news outlets confirm this:
"Update: Apple PR has reached out and clarified that only the Mac Pro is expected to be next updated in 2013."

An old friend of mine who is an Apple sales engineer has also confirmed this is true and public information.

Well if it is true, I wouldn't hold my breath, especially if I were in the market to update my equipment right now.

Apple announcements of new products have not traditionally gone this way, but instead are always announced at formal events. So whose to say its true or not? Nobody really. We don't even know what it will look like or if it really will be branded as a Mac Pro. It is all speculation. If Apple is working on something new, it may mean a complete departure from the established Mac Pro and pros may look at it and wonder "What am I supposed to do with this?"

My desk is setup with with dual HD monitors, Digital Speakers Blackmagic I/O, External SATA Raid etc. If I can keep going till the new Mac Pro comes out (which Tim Cook suggested was going to happen next year) then I'm hangin' on for dear life.

If it doesn't happen then I'll go iMac but there's no way I'm going to buy a MBPR just to have it sitting there on my desk and never moving.

Agreed, especially when I can get a GPU for my tower that outperforms the rMBP right now.

My 250 Gig HD has 50 Gigs free.

Your comments on corrupted files may have pointed me in the right direction. While running SpeedTools DeFrag, I came across just under 900 files that the program was unable to defragment. Ironically it was only able to defrag a further 200 which is a rather poor percentage. Since I hear people here touting iDefrag, I'm curious...would that program be superior? In that I mean, could it defrag the remaining files?

Remember, I have no external startup disc so everything is being run on the same HD. But I do have a usb flash drive with about 4 gigs space on it...

All kinds of files are fragmented, everything to pdf's, to mp4's, mkv's, etc. Including some of the mov files used by FCPX.

I've saved the list of them. Many of them are my tutorial files which help me learn. They seem to play ok, when I go to view them, so fragmentation doesn't seem to hinder their playback, just the Mac on some other mysterious level. Alas...

Back to the practical... I just want to clarify, you're saying I can update to Lion 10.7.4 without rewriting my entire HD & losing all my files & programs. I use Migration Assistant to bring the programs into line with Lion's system.

Am I following you correctly?

Just don't want to lose everything.. or anything really.

My immediate game plan is to run DiskWarrior.
Upon clarification, install Lion 10.7.4 (but I just read online that this causes Kernel Panics - sounds like an episode of Hogan's Heros)
Look into 8 gigs ram.
Wait for AppStore version of 10.8 that's stable verified.

Dream of MBP retina...

Defrag is a waste of time on today's computers, don't bother. Everything frags on a drive, but drives are infinity faster and much more organized and do quite a bit of defragging in the background today.

Disk Warrior to repair your drive's directories is the best thing you can do. I recommend once a month.

I did Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion upgrades simply as upgrades, not as fresh installs. Most of my students and clients have, also. No issues. FCP X is not the convoluted cross section of shared resources and instability nightmares that Final Cut Studio was. But if you're really worried, a fresh install never hurts, just back up your OS drive, and use that backup to restore when installing the new OS.

If you don't have an external FW800 or better drive for all your EVents and Projects, you're going to experience overall performance slow downs. Especially with only 4GB RAM. A single hard drive simply doesn't have the data pipe bandwidth to pass the multiple live video and audio streams required of video editing, along with all the OS/App data at the same time.

Trix, You are IMHO running into both a hardware limitation and most likely software issues as well. Looks like you need also need most bang for buck solutions.
For hardware, as already mentioned, 4GB ram barely works, and then only when you are not facing software issues. If possible $$ wise, invest in more ram.
You also state that you only have the one internal 250GB HDD, best practice is to use at least 2 drives, one boot/program and one for media. You are asking your computer work overtime. It must keep swapping data, read/write and apply effects all at once, = performance loss. If at all possible buy the largest fastest(7200rpm) external HD with a firewire 800 port. For your computer this will be fastest I/O without investing in card slot I/O. Do Not get a USB2 drive, too slow for FCPX.
As for you USB flash drive, assuming a stick, don't bother to use as swap drive, but you might trying moving your fragged files to it if you need to save them. Then delete originals.
As far as using Migration or Set-Up Assistant and moving to Lion, Going this route most likely will not help and may make some things worse. Why? MA will only reset your permissions/ACLs to your new account, not clean up your problem drive. Upgrading also may create additional perms/ACL issues.
My advice....More ram, external HD FW 800 for media, remove/delete all corrupted files, repair permissions, work out any remaining problems, and then upgrade to Lion.
Lion will provide some added benefits to FCPX but will not fix your underlying issues.

Trix,

From what you have said, it sounds like your entire OS and install is hosed on your MacBook. These things just happen.

If you have an Apple store nearby I would get the Geniuses to have a look, they should get it back up to speed.

If you can't get to an Apple store I would consider just backing up your drive (use Carbon Copy Cloner) to an external and start fresh with a Snow Leopard Install and then immediately upgrade via the App Store to Lion.

I greatly appreciate you all taking the time to address this with your expert advice.

All the things needed, I have back home, unfortunately I'm in a foreign land & low on resources.

However...

Just ran DiskWarrior (couldn't do the full job because it needs to be run from an external drive or boot disk - don't have that yet)

It found an error that can not be repaired.
===
"System Mac.plist"
Detected that Property list is damaged and cannot be repaired.
Unexpected character at line 1
Location: "Macintosh HD/Users/trix/Library/Preferences/"
===

Is this file like a lot of plist files that you can just throw away, restart & a clean new one will be produced? Or is there something else you recommend?

thanks

Um, if you can put the DVD in your Mac, you can boot from it, and do a full repair. Pop in the DVD, hold the "C" key while it boots (will take awhile), and it boots from your Diak Warrior DVD.

Can't find that file on my system anywhere. You could move it to a folder on Desktop and reboot, see what happens. I'm not sure I'd try it without a alternative drive to boot from, though.

I don't have a Disk Warrior DVD, it was a digital download. Speaking of which...

Sorry to keep pestering you guys. If I go ahead & DL the Lion 10.7.4 from the app.store, how can I install it? Surely I can't install it from a hard drive onto the same hard drive, writing over Snow Leopard... or can I?

Are you supposed to burn it on a disc or have another drive?

How about If I partition part of my 50 gigs of free space?

thanks

PS - I know it seems like we're getting off topic, but really all this is just so I can run FCPX

You purchase Lion off the App Store, it "upgrades" your existing system, nothing gets lost, nothing gets wiped out. It takes a long time to download, then it runs the installer, then reboots, poof, your system is now Lion.

Some folks prefer a clean install, but, I've found SL and Lion to both be very safe upgrades.

If you partition a hard drive with Disk Utility, you actually wipe it clean. Not an option.

Now, Lion has a utility to create a book drive on a USB stick, and you can put Disk Warrior on that, and boot from it.

Thanks Ben, you're a wealth of knowledge.
As for the strange systemMac.plist file, the reason you can't find it is that it's invisible. You need to use a little program like iVisible (free) to see it.

www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24682/ivisible/

The file is only 4k. Amazing if that's the source of my troubles, such a small thing, but wreaking havoc. I've searched online for any info on trashing it, no such luck. Though one article talks about opening it up & changing it with Terminal. Not within my paygrade.

Your Lion idea sounds best.

Trix,
Sorry for your situation, you're between a rock and a hard place. Sounds like you are traveling or something without a backup of current drive.
I disagree with the advice to simply upgrade to Lion (10.7..) on top of your current system SL 10.6.8? Having just gone through some major issues using Migration Assistant (MA) and now repairing someone else's laptop, I can speak first hand, Sometimes doing the simple makes everything go south.
Without a backup and really a backup + a clone you risk losing your files.
My advise is DO NOT INSTALL LION yet! Fix your underlying problems first before upgrading.
Troubleshooting long distance is very problematic to say the least. You really need to look through the file system using terminal and maybe even as root. Very dangerous if you do not know what you are doing as you can mess up the underlying file system.
While your problem on the surface does not seem to be caused by this, be aware that Apple is migrating to a new architecture (NFSv4) if I remember right. This changes and expands user permissions and Access Control List (ACLs) A whole lot of other issues as well, Apple forums are full of people having problems. Installing a new OS (Lion) and then using MA may make matters much worse by screwing up the underlying file structure. Lion seems to really bring this on. 10.7.4 was supposed to finally fix this, it did not and for me I had to enable root to get to some locked/hidden files to repair.
Also, the nVidia 320M is having issues right now.
Just from your comments it seems that your problems are not just related to FCPX, i.e. long boot times, SBOD, and even Kernel Panics (KP). You really need to get to the problem. Is there anyone near you with either extensive Mac or even Linux/Unix experience that you can get help from? That may be your best bet.
Without a backup, I think everyone should proceed with caution. Have you tried ONYX? A free program that runs system maintenance routines, verification, permissions and optimization routines. Even there where it is just a GUI for running built in Apple scripts, He advises always have a back-up.
If you think FCPX is the problem, then as suggested, uninstall and then re-install a clean version from the app store. You can copy the events and projects to save the media, but if your problem is due to a corrupt file, you will have to find that file. Tedious.
Good Luck, I feel for you!

Onyx only does routine system maintenance your Mac does already, won't help fix anything like this.

I assumed that you reinstalled FCP X already, but if not, that's the safest thing to try. Move it from Applications to Trash, launch App Store, Purchased tab, click Install for FCP X.

If you still have problems, you need Disk Warrior before doing anything else.

If you upgrade to Lion, it gives you the tool of creating a boot USB (SL doesn't) that you can then run Disk Warrior from, and fix the problem. Upgrading isn't that dangerous, and actually does a lot of system checks and repairs in the process.

I may have an "on the road" solution for you, but let me get some info first.

What exactly is in the DMG file that you downloaded? When you double click it to open it, what's there? I've always just updated my same DVD for years.

Yep, I may have a solution for you. Check your message!

It is true Onyx is designed to only run system maintenance scripts, however, these scripts only run on a specific schedule and only if your computer is on and not asleep when scheduled, i.e. 3:00am. (Daily, Weekly, Monthly) If you turn off your computer, or it is asleep during these times, then Macs never run them automatically.
The Onyx program also gathers many different system routines into one program and gives you a very nice GUI and the power to run them with just a click or two.
So I highly recommend it. That is why it can make a difference.

Actually OS X will run them eventually. And they are not routines that will make or break any system. It's a nice toy.

ALL FIXED!
I'm very happy now, thanks to you guys. Especially Ben. Yes, I know VidGreg warned me, & I thank you for your concern, sorry about your bad experience. However, being almost at my wit's end, I threw caution to the wind, said a little prayer, & bit the bullet, installing Lion. It took its sweet time, saying it would only be 35 minutes, seemed closer to an hour, but afterwards … Voila! I have Lion.

After a couple of restarts, my startup time is now 45 seconds from power button to desktop. Granted, the desktop hasn't finished all it's startup tidying, but I can already open Shoutbox & start typing this. 45 seconds to me, is very fast, less than 30 seconds behind those braggarts with the SSD. I am positively jubilant! Sorry if this all seems a bit over the top, but if you went through the eons of agony I did, you'd understand.

A couple of Lion traits take a little getting used to; the window scrolling is the exact opposite direction I'm used to, but I'll get the hang of it. The new direction actually makes more sense, because you're looking at the document you're moving, not the scroll bar. This new spell correction thing is a bit of a trip, correcting my mistakes, then showing me briefly where I went wrong… Hmm… ok Azlan, you lead, I'll learn.

However, I did find a feature I'm not overjoyed with. In SnowLeo if I control clicked on a word, did a dictionary search, the thesaurus choice was right there too, then I could click on any alternative word & it would automatically replace it in my document. Not anymore…. Bad Kitty!

If any of you use the sound program Amadeus Pro, you know that opening lengthy mp3's is a slow process, not anymore, lightening quick! Speaking of quick, I ran SpeedToolsPro to check the fragmentation thing again, that process, that used to take 15 minutes or so, now zips by in about a minute! Yes, 250 megs of files, checked & defragged in about a minute. Well, when I say defragged, it only managed 55 out of 900, but at least it's now faster in its inefficiency. Probably have to do the boot from another drive to completely defrag. (Ok, Lion's speller definitely doesn't like the word defrag & keeps changing it to defray - which strangely, as I just typed defray it corrected it to something else - I might be turning that feature off.) Didn't care for the new layout of Apple Mail (trying to make it look like Twitter), but fortunately they left us an option in the preferences, click - classic inbox list view.

So.. now the reason we all came here… FCPX. Guess what, it's flawless! Opens fairly quickly, seems to have less lag-time with effects, sure I still could do with another 4 gigs of ram, but one thing at a time. The first time I booted FCPX under Lion, when it finished loading its Compressor support & all the other things it mysteriously does while opening, I noticed my project had all it's little fuzzy orange render bars back again. Yet no activity in the progress monitor. The project played perfectly, as if all the items were fully rendered, yet still those oranges persisted. After a night of having the machine off, all is well upon restart.

Some immediate improvements are instantly noticeable (I'm sure more will follow). Switching between transitions & effects in the effects browser, is now INSTANT, that used to take some time, even occasionally producing the pinwheel of satan. Skimming over effects to see their magic on my clips is also much faster, & smoother.

Suddenly now, I'm empowered, my projects are less of a procrastinated frustrating chore as creative effervescence wells up within me.

However, I was able to crash FCPX. Sorry to report. I was trying to find the key combination to move the playhead to the beginning of the project (the guide says ^ Shift I, but what is the ^ key? Tried Cntrl Shift I, nothing, then tried Capslock Shift I, got the spinning wheel, then crash. Hmm… I'm thinking it must be Function? I'll try again.

Next, I shall explore Disk Warrior booting from the flash drive, see where that leads. As mentioned, still have close to 900 corrupted files to deal with. Just waiting on Ben to respond to the email I sent, so he can tell me how to utilize Lion's ability to make my flash drive a boot disk for Disk Warrior. The necessity for extra ram is not forgotten & the retina MBP still sounds her siren's call. In time…