Managing extremely long project

I did a dumb thing: while covering a meeting with three cameras, I rolled continuously for more than two hours. After creating a "master" sequence/project using the three cameras plus some audio files, I duplicated the project to create several smaller projects. FCPX didn't complain, but even if I don't have a project loaded, FCPX will crash about every five minutes. To keep on schedule, I copied all the raw data on another drive and started over in Premiere Pro. No problems.

Finally, my question: is there anything I can do to make the project(s) more stable in FCPX? The original footage was a mix of -CAM and AVCHD. Before ingesting the AVCHD footage, I converted it to ProResLT in Edit Ready. Would it help to run the same conversion to the -CAM footage?

Any advice, even if it purely retrospective, is appreciated.

Tom

Did you take a peek at the crash logs to see if there are any clues as to which task is causing the crash?

I frequently edit 2 to 5 hour long meeting projects and I'm having very good reliability. We switch live-to-drive (tape) so I'm typically only dealing with one track of video and prepping for multiple deliveries, but I do duplicate the project file multiple times for specific delivery needs. Our footage is ProRes 422 LT, since it really doesn't need any color correction at all.

FCP X should be able to handle the footage natively. If FCP X is doing background tasks when the crash typically happens, that's something to pay attention to as to where it might be having a problem.

Why not let FCPX create Proxies for you, rather than waste time with ProRes LT via Edit Ready?

More info is needed here, too. What OS X version, what FCPX version, what Mac / drive specs?

Thanks for asking about the system: Yosemite, FCPX newest, 2013 Mac Pro, Pegasus R6. Loaded for bear.

Tom

Newest is not a version number. I have folks say Newest often and not be on the latest version. Also, what version number for OS X? There are quirks with specific version numbers, so I'm trying to whittle that down. "Loaded for bear" doesn't tell me anything, either. No offense, but when troubleshooting technical issues, vague turns of phrase don't help. Dual D700's? Maxed out on RAM? I'll assume so.

Of course. That was lazy of me. The details:

OS: 10.10.5
FCPX: 10.2.2
MacPro: 3 Ghz 8Core, 32 GB, AMD FirePro D700

I do appreciate your help. I'm an FCPX user, but don't know squat about troubleshooting.

Thanks, Ben.

Tom

1st, I'd verify that all connected drives, especially the system drive, have at least 15% of each one's individual total capacity left as free space.

Open Disk Utility and Repair all connected drives.

Also try launching FXCPX while holding both the Option and Command keys down at the same time, delete preference files.

See if any of that helps.

Thanks, Ben. I'm OK on disk capacity on all drives, but will execute a disk repair and delete FCPX preference files.

Again, I appreciate the help.

KR,

Tom

two remarks from the sciolismist ...

a) edited lately a 3.5h theatre play, 3 cam Multicam on our schools 2012 iMac with just 8GB Ram, but several extHDD and >500GB internal free .... no issues.
Doesn't fix your problem, but shows: 2h is NOT extreme whatsoever ...

b) Apps/Utilities has a console.app
launch it, and on the left, User Reports, any FCPX crash is listed (and any other from the past too - loooooong list)
copy paste and post here the part 'til you read "thread0"
"Crashed Thread" is the bad guy....

… and hope, some of the experts here chime it to decipher it .......
not me! .......

One thing to check, is what format the audio is. Did you convert it to WAV/PCM? FCPX absolutely chokes on the default AVCHD audio (at least sony's version) {I think it's .ac3} and one of the things done during final cut's import/rewrap process is to convert the audio to PCM.