eject card

I already googled this, and apparently there is no mistake on my side. The revolutionary NLE with superior media organisation can't eject cards. I experienced this before, but yesterday it became embarrassing. Got 8 cards to import, the client sitting next to me, and we were presented the card-not-properly-ejected warning 8 times. Despite the well-known message that the content was imported successfully and did we want to eject the card? Apple communities already discussed the phenomenon in 2012, so I guess it's considered normal by now ...

How exactly are you ejecting the cars? How is the card mounted? Slot in the computer? Hub? Card reader?

Slot in the back of iMac5k, latest MacOS, FCP X 10.3.3, no other applications open, cards never before seen by my system. Mounted by sticking them in the slot whilst FCP X was open. Can't be unmounted by a) confirming the said import complete message or b) hitting the little eject icon besides the card in import browser list (disappears for a fraction of a second, then reappears). Can't be unmounted by hiding FCP X , selecting the card on the desktop and typing cmd+e ("used by Final Cut, quit Final Cut to unmount").

I do have a few old USB 2.0 card readers somewhere in the attic, if it helps I'll buy a USB 3 reader. I honestly wish I did something wrong. Client said, you can't just rip out the card (his cards!), they could get damaged. Not too confidence inspiring that I apparently didn't know how to handle his precious data.

What went wrong?

First, you should make an archive of the card in one way or another. Second, on your description if the card isn't ejecting from the import window then some other app is looking at it, maybe Photos or Image Capture or Lightbox or even DropBox.

I successfully eject cards from inside FCPX daily. Usually after the import is done, I get a Notification the import is finished and asks me if I want to eject the card or not. I click "Eject", done.

BUT, it can't be done from the Finder, because other apps will be accessing it.

One common issue is Photos launching automatically every time you mount a camera card. If it is looking at the card, as already said, FCPX won't be able to unmount it. Thus I helped put together this handy little utility.
fcpxfree.com/collections/apps/products/c...nse-annoyance-prompt

Tom Wolsky wrote: First, you should make an archive of the card in one way or another.

I usually do that with fcparch. On this occasion the client hadn't seen the footage himself and had a few hours to get himself an overview. So I opted for "fast access" in the first step.

Tom Wolsky wrote: Second, on your description if the card isn't ejecting from the import window then some other app is looking at it, maybe Photos or Image Capture or Lightbox or even DropBox.

No idea what this could be. I didn't see either of them open. And shouldn't it then read quit Photos and not quit Final Cut?

What I gather from your and FCPX.gurus answer is that it's no normal behaviour or a bug. Will have to try the usual things, trash preferences, new user account. Thank you for the help.

FCPX.guru wrote: I successfully eject cards from inside FCPX daily. Usually after the import is done, I get a Notification the import is finished and asks me if I want to eject the card or not. I click "Eject", done.

Yes, coming to think of it, I expected it to work that way, because it must have worked like this before. I'll have to try to find the reason,.

FCPX.guru wrote: One common issue is Photos launching automatically every time you mount a camera card. If it is looking at the card, as already said, FCPX won't be able to unmount it. Thus I helped put together this handy little utility.
fcpxfree.com/collections/apps/products/c...nse-annoyance-prompt

Very useful, thanks. Probably not related to my problem. If Photos launches unexpectedly, I can't accidentally miss it. And having to quit Photos I consider a minor annoyance compared to having to quit FCP X every time in order to swap cards whilst someone is watching.

Hi Axel, just to let you know that you are not alone. I have the same issue on both my 5k iMac and my MBP. Not always, but many times. I ejected hundreds of cards by just removing them because of that. Luckily there was never any damaged done. Feedback time!

Overturf wrote: I have the same issue on both my 5k iMac and my MBP. Not always, but many times.

I'd like to know why it sometimes works and what went wrong. Tom Wolsky explaining the official method to ME is like selling refrigerators to Eskimos. I see others use NLEs (and FCP X in particular) with much less care. They seem to think my correctness borders on paranoia, but it's them who habitually commit suicide because they encounter numerous problems they can't trace back to, say, not preserving the card structure. That's why this issue drives me crazy, more than it deserves probably, since, as you wrote, the cards are not damaged.

Overturf wrote: Feedback time!

Of course. I found this behaviour described here (2015, you participated), but also here (2011 and counting, Tom Wolsky participated). Let me cite one comment from 2015:

I can't believe this is still a thing. I've been dealing with this annoyance for YEARS and it bugs me everytime. I have to shut down FCPX to eject any drives or cards.

I've been doing some test with the new a7sii so I don't care about backup and i'm throwing in the SD card and importing the footage and FCPX asks me if I want to eject the card... to which I say I do and it does its thing. Then I see the SD card still in the OS Finder and I try to eject it but it won't let me because it says FCPX is using it (even though FCPX has ejected it!). I'm just pulling the card out and getting the Disk not ejected properly message because i'm tried to having to quit FCPX everytime I want to safely eject a card. I don't get it.

I'd rather find out for myself before I die and rot while waiting for Apple to fix this!

I've used FCPX almost since day 1 and have always had this behaviour in every version. Luckily I usually only have 1 or 2 cards to import so it's only a minor inconvenience - just very annoying!

Just FYI, I've always NOT been able to eject a card properly while FCPX is running, using FCPX's Import window to eject. Only in the 10.3 update did this function start to work on all our Macs here. Seems there could be an OS X component to this the FCPX team needs to work in tandem with them on.

Ever notice some cards eject right away, and some take for every to unmount?

FCPX.guru wrote: Ever notice some cards eject right away, and some take for every to unmount?

Yes. I thought this might have to do with how the cards were formatted. I remember having unmounted volumes with a terabyte of ProRes video that had been in read/write use until right now within a second. And sometimes a cheap stick with some Word files of 10 MB or so remains a ghost for half a minute. Might this be relevant? But then again, I can't influence the way a camera formats it's card, and I f*cking expect FCP X to handle this by it's own routines.

I just sent feedback to Apple and linked to this thread in the comment.

Did this never happen at live demos of FCP X? Wouldn't that be a major disgrace for the company that kept Jobs spinning n his grave? Or did they just somehow disable the card not properly ejected warning?

A stupid warning anyway. It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it is told. Or: congratulations, you have just bricked your medium and lost access to all your data. Didn't you know that FCP X is just another obscure, third-party app, not in any way authorized by Apple? Stupid!

The warning could read: Alert! (description of risks and correct procedure) ❏ Don't show this message again.
or
To make this window disappear, you first have to type "I will never do this again" a hundred times - no copy & paste!