Final Cut Pro X 10.4 jerky playhead.

Hi there. I'm on [ {late mac pro 2013} 32 GB 1866
graphic card AMD FirePro D300 and using a USB 3.0 10 TB G Drive.
ever since i upgraded to High Sierra and Final Cut Pro X 10.4 The playhead has been very jumpy after every time that a i make a simple edit and i have to wait for a few seconds, sometimes minutes for it to playback smoothly again.Even on editing just 2 or 3 photos, even after rendering . I have background rendering off as usual ,all files are optimized and view is on Better Performance. any i ideas why? could it have something to do with external drive?thx in advance.

If you have been using that same drive with those same media before you upgraded and you didn't have these issues, the drive is not the problem.

How did you upgrade to High Sierra? Did you do a clean install (erase the boot drive and re-install everything), or did you just put the new OS on top of the old one?

If you have installed High Sierra on top of the older OS, create a new admin user and check if you still have these performance issues when working with the new user.

- Ronny

Thx Ronnie for the quick reply. I didn't do a fresh install dspite all the warning.I just tried the new user trick but, unfortunately the problem still persists.
I am in a middle of a small project and i could do a fresh install but, I am worried that ill have to install every single plugins and and serialize them all over again.
I have another question tho. how do you properly back up Final Cut Pro X plugins?

xtra wrote: ... I'm on a late mac pro 2013, 32 GB 1866 graphic card AMD FirePro D300 and using a USB 3.0 10 TB G Drive....ever since i upgraded to High Sierra and Final Cut Pro X 10.4, the playhead has been very jumpy after every time that a i make a simple edit and i have to wait for a few seconds, sometimes minutes for it to playback smoothly again...

I have two machines side-by-side with 10.3.4 and 10.4 and am testing major projects on 10.4 and so far I haven't seen this.

First make sure you have installed the latest Apple pro video formats version 2.0.6: support.apple.com/kb/DL1947?locale=en_US

If you import a single clip to a separate test library does this happen? What about importing several of the same clips you are editing to that test library? If it does happen, state the clip details: what camera it came from, resolution, frame rate, encoding rate, codec, etc.

If it doesn't happen, maybe it's not the drive and maybe not 10.4 or HS but some effect or an interaction between an effect or plugin, 10.4 and HS.

If it still doesn't happen with several clips in a test library, then drag/drop the project to your test library. This will bring over a copy of all the media. Does it happen then? If so, then select your timeline and remove all effects: support.apple.com/kb/PH12615?locale=en_US

If the investigative path leads toward effects, you will need to update them all. Actually this should be done regardless, but especially after an FCPX or macOS update. Unfortunately (except for those purchased through FxFactory) there is no easy universal procedure for this.

There's no consistent procedure for common tasks like determining what version of a plugin you have and whether that's the latest one. The procedure for updating your plugins is also inconsistent and may require contacting the plugin company for each one. Since plugins play such a central role in FCPX, this can be frustrating. Ironically in the fcp.tv page for top 128 requested FCPX improvements, nobody has mentioned improving the FCPX plugin architecture or ecosystem: fcpx.tv/top.html

Thank you.ill try these steps and report back.again,thank you for the quick response.

I have this jerky behaviour as well with FCPX 10.4. My computer is iMac 27" late 2012, 16 GB ram and a 3 TB fusion drive. I have tried creating a new library as suggested and adding one clip (4k 50fps) to a new project. This play back smooth. Appending a second clip makes i jerky. When I remove the 2:nd clip the first single clip now play jerky as well!?

My old 4k 50fps projects that ran smooth previously are also jerky now.

Is there a way to roll back to FCPX 10.3 or is this a stupid idea?

Thank you!

bson wrote: I have this jerky behaviour as well with FCPX 10.4. My computer is iMac 27" late 2012, 16 GB ram and a 3 TB fusion drive. I have tried creating a new library as suggested and adding one clip (4k 50fps) to a new project. This play back smooth. Appending a second clip makes i jerky. When I remove the 2:nd clip the first single clip now play jerky as well!?...My old 4k 50fps projects that ran smooth previously are also jerky now...Is there a way to roll back to FCPX 10.3 or is this a stupid idea?

What camera and codec is this? That might help others test it. Obviously if two simple 4k clips with no effects has jerky 1x playback, lots of people would see that. Something more must be involved.

If the content is H264 4k/25p, that can be difficult to *edit* smoothly on many machines, but even a 2012 iMac 27 should be able to *play* it smoothly.

You can roll back provided you saved a copy of the FCPX app and your libraries before upgrading, or if you have another machine with the 10.3.4 version you can copy the app from. Once the library is "touched" by 10.4 it's upgraded and 10.3.4 can no longer use it. It's often good to save a copy of the prior versions of FCPX and your main libraries in case a rollback is needed.

If you have Time Machine or some other backup you might be able to recover the 10.3.4 version and previous libraries from that.

I've seen no such problems so far in 10.4 testing but I'm running it on an iMac Pro. I could probably test it on a MacBook Air if you could tell me the exact camera and codec type and if I could get a clip.

I still haven't found why this is happening.Regarding the codec and stuffs, now, i am mainly using SONY FDR3000 [ H.264, Linear PCM] MP4 / 100mb recorded at 1920x 1080.mixed with some pictures on a 1980 x 1080 23.98p time lime .I guess next step is a fresh install?

The footage is H.264 from a DJI Phantom 4 Pro. When switching to playback with proxy media it is smooth most of the time, but even then it stops/jumps from time to time!? Switching back to playback with optimised media is a disaster and sometimes get stuck for a few seconds. With FCPX 10.3 same footages played back smooth without proxy media!?

Please excuse my previous misleading posts. After investigating the content of my Time Machine I relied I've been using FCPX 10.4 since December 2017 and it was running perfectly smooth on a project in mid January. That project cannot playback today. My conclusion is that my problem is related to something else and not to FCPX.

PROBLEM SOLVED!
My problem was related to my system in general rather than to FCPX. Since FCPX is probably the most sensitive app to lagging system I suspected it at first. What fixed my computers sluggish behaviour was:
Resetting PRAM, resetting SMC running FirstAid on the entire disk running from the recovery HD.

Worked for me at least.

xtra wrote: I still haven't found why this is happening.Regarding the codec and stuffs, now, i am mainly using SONY FDR3000 [ H.264, Linear PCM] MP4 / 100mb recorded at 1920x 1080.mixed with some pictures on a 1980 x 1080 23.98p time lime .I guess next step is a fresh install?

What happened when you imported a test clip to a test library with all other libraries closed? Does it still happen then? Can you back up your library, then remove all effects from your timeline? support.apple.com/kb/PH12615?locale=en_US

Does it happen then? If so what if you delete half the timeline? Then another half to 1/4 of the timeline, etc? If it consistently happens after deleting that, it leaves a smaller more portable scenario thats easier to try on another hard drive. E.g, if it still happens with 1/8th of the timeline and no effects, you can easily copy that project within FCPX to a test library located on your internal SSD drive, unplug your USB drive and try that, which will help determine if it's a drive or I/O-related issue.

Hey Bison! beside the SMC Resetting ,i have done exactly what you did.
Have been editing for about an hour now , so far no glitches, no jumpy playheads. It seems to have solved my problems as well .thank you and everyone else for your help. GREAT SITE