Problems FCPX, memory full

I have been working with FCPX for years with no problems. Suddenly FCPX freezes and I have to force shut it down. I get the message that the app memory is full (I see that FCPX is using 119gB, this while I am busy with a video of 10 seconds). I have almost 500 GB of free space on my hard drive. I have 24 GB of memory in my Mac. I have moved all the old library files to an external drive. But the problem persists. After about a minute, FCPX freezes. I am using the latest versions of FCPX and Big Sur. How can I solve this?

Have you trashed renders and reset the preferences?

I did and now FCXP has been working without problems for 10 minutes . I will continue to work in the program and will report later today if this is the solution. Thank you for the assistance.

And after 15 minutes FCPX crashes again and has to be forced to stop ...

FSF wrote: I have been working with FCPX for years with no problems. Suddenly FCPX freezes and I have to force shut it down. I get the message that the app memory is full (I see that FCPX is using 119gB...

Please review all your plugins and update them. If you are running Chrome, discontinue that. Many plugins run within the address space of FCP and the slightest bug can cause a memory leak or instability. All it takes is one thread of one plugin to repetitively allocate memory, encounter an unexpected internal condition, then not release that memory. The total memory consumption will rise incessantly. Apps and plugins often allocate and release hundreds of memory blocks per second. A single bug in any plugin code path can cause this.

Due to this and related issues, future versions of FCP plugins will use the FxPlug 4 frame work which isolates problems to a separate host process.

Some plugin components such as CoreMelt VTwinFx are loaded into FCP address space even if no effects are applied to the timeline. 

You might be able to continuously monitor FCP memory consumption using Activity Monitor and correlate the start of an abnormal increase to a certain user action. That might give clues about what plugin, effect or feature is involved with the memory leak.

You can update any CoreMelt plugins using these installers: coremelt.com/pages/downloads

Yes sounds like you have a rouge plugin with a memory leak. I'd go through your timeline turning things off and on to see the result

Thanks for your response. I have been suffering from this problem since yesterday. Yesterday I installed a number of templates (lower thirds) in FCPX. Can these templates cause the problem?

FSF wrote: ... I have been suffering from this problem since yesterday. Yesterday I installed a number of templates (lower thirds) in FCPX. Can these templates cause the problem?

If you made that change and the problem seemed to begin, I'd say it might be related.

Normally templates just call the Motion engine inside FCP, and many built-in FCP effects, titles and generators are already implemented as Motion templates. Overall there is less probability of a problem from these because the template developer doesn't have to manage threads, objects, synchronization, memory, etc.

I'm not an expert on Motion, so I don't know if it's possible to create a template with recursive behavior or which mis-manages resources. However Apple has a long list of items which template developers are supposed to follow. Maybe if a developer didn't follow these it might cause a problem:  support.apple.com/guide/motion/guideline...tes-motn141bd189/mac

Are any of the templates you mentioned from Pixel Film Studios?

Indeed, but I have been using these for some time and (as far as I know) have never caused any problems.

FSF wrote: Indeed, but I have been using these for some time and (as far as I know) have never caused any problems.

We don't know if the problem is caused by Pixel Film Studio plugins, only that they've been involved in many prior issues. I'd suggest you make a snapshot copy of the timeline, open the snapshot, do Edit>Remove Attributes, and remove all Pixel Film Studios effects. Then see if the memory leak happens. 

Internally, software is extremely complicated. Just because certain software or plugins never caused problems in the past doesn't mean the exact same software won't cause problems in the future. This could be likened to a jet plane which never crashed in the past, then "suddenly" long-existing defects manifest under certain conditions. It it is sometimes caused the "Swiss cheese model":  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

Could the problem be solved by completely removing FCPX (incl. All associated directories such as templates etc.) and then reinstalling FCPX completely?

FSF wrote: Could the problem be solved by completely removing FCPX (incl. All associated directories such as templates etc.) and then reinstalling FCPX completely?

That would more likely solve it, but it may not be necessary. First try to remove all Pixel Film Studios plugins using this video. Obviously all references to that in any timeline will show as a red "missing effect" clip, but you can use FCP's Edit>Remove Attributes to remove those.

store.pixelfilmstudios.com/how-to-uninstall-a-plugin/

If you are using CoreMelt plugins, you can remove them this way:  support.coremelt.com/hc/en-gb/articles/2...ove-CoreMelt-plugins

If you are using FxFactory plugins, the FxFactory app will allow you to remove those. 

I'd also suggest deleting all FCP render files in case they contain references to the plugin Fx. After removing any plugins, reboot the machine. To delete FCP render files use File>Delete Generated Library Files>Delete Render Files>All.

Just removed all the plugins I had installed in FCPX over the past few years. Just edited some short video images. No problems so far. Tomorrow we will edit some larger files again and hope that the problems are resolved. Thank you all for the responses.

Add your plugins back one at a time. Or one developer at a time. You'll eventually find the one that is causing you issues.

I have deleted all pixel movie files from my computer. So far I have no more problems with FCPX. Now I am looking for new lower thirds. To avoid buying unreliable files again my question: where can I get (buy) reliable lower thirds?

FSF wrote: I have deleted all pixel movie files from my computer. So far I have no more problems with FCPX. Now I am looking for new lower thirds. To avoid buying unreliable files again my question: where can I get (buy) reliable lower thirds?

You can make your own lower thirds for free, assuming you have Motion. It is not difficult. This Ripple Training tutorial shows how:



For high-quality lower thirds and other motions graphics, see www.motionvfx.com .

My current favorite go-to developers for titles and generators include:
Simple Video Making
FCPX Full Access
Leno FX
XEffects
Premium VFX

Pretty much all of them have a few nice freebies, they're affordable, and great quality.

I've given up on a couple of big names out there because they're way too expensive, don't end up being as useful as the fancy demo videos make them out to be, bog my systems down.

I thought the problem with FCPX was solved but after a day the problem was back. My iMac completely crashed when using FCPX. I started looking for a solution again and found it on a Dutch site. I read this post on that site:

For a long time I had the problem with FCPX that if I imported 1 or more files, be it music, video or photos the next problem. Final Cut started immediately when I opened the import window to eat up memory as the cookie monster. This until all memory was full and my mac crashes.
Tried everything and looked on different forums. Newly installed, preferences deleted, all kinds of plugins thrown out. Nothing helped. The strange thing was that it didn't always occur.
Until I saw that an external hard drive was seen as a Camera. Checked this out and hey ... This was because at the top level there was a camera file in the directory. I had "parked it there" a few months ago. Put the file in a folder and FCPX saw the disk as disk again. The filling up of the memory also no longer occurred.
What became clear from further steps now, if you put a camera file (there are several types) at the highest level on an HDD or SSD, Final Cut sees this as a camera card and scans the entire hard drive and creates Thumbnails. With an 8TB hard drive full of files, this is quite a lot of work, and therefore the memory will fill up until the Mac crashes.
Many weeks of frustration, hopefully this helps others who run into the same problem and run on their gums.

Indeed, I had an external hard drive that FCPX mistook for a still camera. I put all the photo files in a folder and now FCPX works like never before.

thank you! been dealing with this issue for a few days. after trying a lot of things suggested I found your post. it was correct. it was seeing an XDROOT folder from an Fs7 and trying to create a camera archive. moved it from the root of the drive and opening import window now doesn't cause the memory usage to shoot up to cause a crash. thank you thank you!!!