Crashes on fcp x? This could be the reason

Hi, first time poster. Really liked the site, especially the plug in library. Wanted to give back and share an issue and hopeful solution to regular crashes with fcp x. This has also been posted to apple support forum too.

Just encountered an issue with fcp x that according to apple support, is a much wider issue, which, as far as I can see, is not commonly known.

I upgraded my early 2011 13 inch MacBook Pro yesterday, as it was the base model and could not handle the graphics or processing power required to use program's like fcp x, adobe prem pro, adobe ae, etc (I upgraded the ram to 16gb and installed a new hd too). So, yesterday, I bit the bullet and bought a shiny new 15 inch Mac Pro retina, 2.7ghz, fully kitted machine...it's lovely. I had backed up my old 2011 MacBook Pro, that was now running mountain lion, and used the time machine back up to fill up my new retina MacBook.

Hours after it had finished, I started to play. Being a working videographer and editor, I had some projects to complete so started working on them in fcp x. However, fcp x started to crash...all the time. Firstly after about 20 seconds of opening, then, when it stayed open a bit longer, it told me that fcp x could not save... Even though there was plenty of room on the hd (over 50gb).

Having spent literally thousands on new apple hardware and software over the last week (just started using fcp x), I thought I had better get the experts opinion and called apple support, more specifically the fcp dept. what I was told really shocked me.

It turns out that there is a known issue amongst the technicians at Apple, when transferring from a time machine back up from a pc or laptop of any machine that has run snow leopard or previous at some point.... Even if that machine is now running mountain lion (as I mentioned, my 2011 machine had been upgraded to mountain lion), and the transfer is to a new mountain lion machine. The tech I spoke to said it was because the snow leopard os was built to incorporate power pc's and intel, whereas the newer os ( lion and mountain lion) is only intel. The older os leaves its mark even when new os's are installed and effects the transfer of information to the new machine.

The only solution is to just install the user information from a back up, and to not select applications, settings, etc. the information not transferred will have to be re-added manually.... So if you have lots of applicatIons not from the App Store... Like me... Then you're in for a joyous night of sourcing and downloading. In theory, The user information back up will add documents, music, photo's, and most other files and folders to the new pc. It also transfers the iTunes library. All worked well, just downloading all apps again, which will take hours. I was very reluctant to go through this process due to the length of time I knew it would take, but the apple tech seemed adamant that this was the issue. If fcp x is still crashy after all this, I will be having stern words with apple support. Will post an update ASAP.

Anyway, I thought I would share the info as I imagine people that own pre lion os machines, will be upgrading soon.... So please bear this in mind if you have restored from time machine onto a new machine and are getting crashes, not just in fcp x, but, according to the apple tech, in all program's eventually. Why apple aren't either doing something to resolve this issue or make people aware is beyond me, and it has tarnished my view of the company. This is a major deal and will be to a lot of people. I hope there is a fix soon.

Hope this helps.

Rob

Thanks for the detailed report. I have to say that this has always been standard operating procedure for working with pro apps. When moving to a new operating system always install the OS on a clean drive and reinstall all apps from original installers. The only items that should be brought over from the old system are document files.

Tom Wolsky wrote: Thanks for the detailed report. I have to say that this has always been standard operating procedure for working with pro apps. When moving to a new operating system always install the OS on a clean drive and reinstall all apps from original installers. The only items that should be brought over from the old system are document files.

True. The flip side is that I have never done this. I Transfer from old to new machines and update the OS and apps in mid-project, install beta software and try to crash it, discover crashing bugs in X and other apps and repeatedly blow them up so I can document them, etc etc. I rarely have problems. (furiously knocking wood) I do, however, always have backups, run fsck at boot now and again, and regularly check the drive(s) with disk utility and/or Disk Warrior. I repair permissions often and even occasionally reset permissions from the recovery disk utilities. If you can't, or won't, do things safely by the book... constant, thorough drive/system maintenance is the key to happy computing IMHO.

Just an update on my previous post.

Erased hard drive, re installed mountain lion os, 'time machined' user info only across and manually reinstalled applications.... and guess what, fcp x still crashes in the same way.

Apple are looking into the issue and i'm trying a few more things.

I use some of the third part plug ins on this site, so I have deleted them all to see if one of them is effecting the stability of the program. I have also uninstalled fcp and I am transferring my video files and projects across to a brand new thunderbolt Lacie drive to free up the internal HD. Just about to re start and then reinstall fcp x.... hope this works as i have a shit load of work due for tomorrow.....

Rob

I hope they get it fixed quickly for you. We work with Retina Macbook Pro's at work, and they have been an utter joy in speed for us. Much better then our older Mac Pro's. And the speed of FCPX is a joy for us, when working in Prores though.

That being said, I also had troubles installing new machines trough time Machine, even before Lion/Mountain Lion. I quickly learned: all the non-App Store apps, save a .dmg or the disc or both, save a document with all your licenses, so you can re-install without worrying. Yes, it takes time, but it works out the best in the long term.
Although I was also pretty cynical about the Mac App Store (and I still think some things could be better, for instance the sandboxing thing that prevents a lot of more power apps to be sold on the App Store, and being able to backup a .dmg in some way), I must say it has done wonders for me personally and also on the job.

well, the issue looks to have been resolved (touches wood while rubbing a rabbits foot, etc, etc), and, I do not believe it was the time machine install.

It looks as though the issue was to do with the way some .mts files (using a GH2 and GH1 which means AVCHD), were rewrapped using a program called 'media converter' which was recommended on a few forums (non app store). I also deleted the 3rd party apps as well, so this could have been effecting it also. I deleted the rewrapped files and the program, and instead used a program called 'clipwrap' from the app store (which again was recommended on forums, but a lot more than the previous program), and converted the .mts files to 'pro res 422 HQ'. I imported the files again and have experienced no crashes as yet. I hope I'm not speaking too soon though as I have not really started properly using fcp as yet. If anything happens next I'll let you know.

I also deleted the third party plug ins downloaded from this site, which could have been built for older versions of fcp x and not updated.

right, lets get editing.....

Thanks for your comments guys, appreciate the feedback.

Rob