FCPX Locks-Up/Freezes for No Reason

Hey all–

On Sunday, mid project, I got the spinning wheel of death while I was editing. I don’t recall doing anything weird or hitting any strange buttons.

Since then, FCPX will just give me the spinning wheel after I do a couple of clicks and at random places–totally inconsistent.

Any thoughts? I’ve trashed preferences, uninstalled and reinstalled FCPX, upgraded to the latest OS, repaired permissions, uninstalled and reinstalled again, and still nothing.

I’ve set it up so that FCPX doesn’t even have any projects to open when it launches. It will open with their default, dated event, and I can import a file or two, sometimes can create a project, sometimes make an edit, sometimes none of the above.

The one thing that IS consistent is that I am not seeing any video in the viewer. No matter if I bring in a simple .jpeg or a more complex, HD clip, I get no visual. I have the thumbnail in the event browser and if scrub and I can hear the audio, but no visual in the viewer. If I am able to get something on the timeline, again, I get no visual in the viewer. If I try to play the clip in either the event browser or the timeline, I get the spinning wheel.

I’m at a loss. Suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!

Have you verified your system drive? It could a structure issue.

Also try clearing the PRAM when you restart the machine. (Turn the power completely off, press cmd, opt, P R, the computer will appear to shut down and restart, wait till the third chime and release the keys)

I would also try using onyx to clear all your temp files and cruff.

Also you can try FCS remover, it s freeware program that unistalls FCP7 and X. Just to make sure you got all the files.

PRAM won't make any difference. Clearing caches won't fix it. I'm an IT engineer, those are very unrelated things. Only folks who push those products push those oudated fixes. Lots of hype, trust me.

First, use Preference Manager, free from Digital Rebellion, to clear FCP X's preference files.

Next, delete all render files for all Events and Projects.

After that, I'd resort to moving the FCP X application from the Applications folder to the trash, launch the Mac App Store, go to the Purchased tab, and next to FCP X you'll see an "Install" button. Click it.

sorry, new to this forum, I accidentally posted and don't see a way to delete this post.

Thanks for all your suggestions, everyone. After trying every suggestion that had been given to me, I finally got it working. Here's what I did: called Apple Care. Below are the steps I took with them.


They had me create a test log in and launch fcpx through that account. It worked fine that way. (System Preferences>Users&Groups>Unlock the padlock at the bottom>Hit the plus button>Call it "Test" and no password. Log out of your account and into the Test account. Launch FCPX. They also had me go to apple.com/trailers and download a movie trailer to bring in as a test, although during a second test they just had me generate blobs in FCPX to see if things were working.)



Once I was clear in the test log in, I logged back into my main account. Still wasn't working. They had me go into my home, then my "movies" folder. They had me create a "Movies Backup" folder and move everything into there and relaunch. Bingo! Since there were only 3 movies and one other folder, it was easy to pinpoint. There was a folder called "Motion Templates" that I had not been deleting. I was just deleting the final cut events and projects folders. The Motion Templates did have a plug-in, but I saved that file and will reinstall. In the meantime, I trashed the Motion Templates folder and am back in business!

Thanks again for taking the time to give input on the problem. I really appreciated it.

I too suffer from terrible slow down in FCPX. But I can't see trashing the Motion Templates folder in the Movies folder, as that contains many third-party plug-ins. There must be another way.

Slow downs can have multiple causes - without any more information there is little reason to expect your problem is similar to OP's.
That said, the usual things: delete preferences, try running the application from a new user account can help solve or shed light as to what the problem is.
Very often it can be caused by insufficient disk space or slow drive connection