Motion takes forever to load

Running Motion and FCP (latest versions) on a 2014 Mac Pro with 32 GB RAM via Catalina. FCP loads fairly quickly (<1 minute), but Motion takes 6-7 minutes to finally open to its project screen. Yes, I have many plugins, but both FCP and Motion are dealing with the same ones and I haven't added any new ones lately. Motion has always been extremely slow to load. Is there a way to speed up the booting up process for Motion?? 

Motion has always taken significantly longer to launch than most applications.

Thanks for that, but 6-7 minutes?? I don't know of ANY program that takes that long, or has ever come close to that, on either my Mac or my PC. Surely there must be something that can speed up loading times??

You mean literally 6-7 minutes? No, that's way too long. Something is definitely off.

Hold both Opt and Cmd keys together while launching to delete pref files.
Scan through the preferences to see if too much is turned on (grasping at straws).
Any third-party plugins by a developer who isn't really well know?

Thanks again, Ben Yes, 😀 literally 6-7 minutes! My numerous plugins are nearly all from well-known companies, and I'm sort of assuming (and it is an assumption) that if FCP doesn't have trouble with any of them, hopefully Motion shouldn't either. But that may not be the case. Will try deleting Preferences, but I really haven't set much so they are mostly the defaults. I'm wondering if Motion is going through a verification process for every plugin every time or something. If I work in Motion, then close it, then try to open it again, it takes the same amount of time to load as it did the first time. Again all my plugins are working in FCP. Over the last year, I have had occasional 'glitches' with a few plugins from Pixel Film Studios, but all are working in FCP at present. Never any problems with those from MotionVFX, Stupid Raisins, Leno, BretFX and FXFactory though. So I will keep working on this, but like you, I'm sort of leaning towards plugins, but perhaps not one specific one.

I'm not a big fan of PixelFilm Studios, and have seen some issues fixed by removing their products. Not sure that's your issue, though.
What "percentage" of your system drive is free space?

36% of my main drive is free space. I, too, have concerns about PFS plugins….some will slow down processes in FCP to a point where I have to sit and wait for the process to complete. I am referring to things like adjusting a setting in a plugin that in turn might contain animation. Products from other developers don’t seem to do that. They are also big on quantity as opposed to excellent quality. But then again, some of their content has proven useful. I hope to move to a new M1 type computer in the future, and at that time will eliminate some of my plugins. Right now, when opening Motion though, I have lots of time to go and make a cup of coffee and even consume some if it. 😄

Don't mean to make you feel bad but Motion 5.4.2 on the only computer it's loaded on... a dinosaur 2009 MacPro 4.1 (Flashed to 5.1), High Sierra, Motion 5.4.2 , 32 GB RAM, 7200 RPM 4TB drive... launches in 2:52* including the prompt to dismiss the LUT Gallery wonky plugin warning.

Seldom use it because it takes forever to create things with it but if it took 7 minutes to launch I'd never bother with it at all.
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*Even with a mess of Pixel Film Studio & other plugins.

Frank Lancaster wrote:

…, I have lots of time to go and make a cup of coffee and even consume some if it. 😄

What wrong with a good cup of coffee?

Just to feed my curiosity: what size has your user/Movies/Motion Templates folder?

My Motion Templates folder is about 64GB in size. As mentioned I have a lot of plugins! 😀

No, VTC, you don't make me feel bad, and thanks for your reply. I am still leaning towards plugins or a plugin being the cause, but I can't easily just remove one or several to see what happens. And as you suggest it may not be my computer or o/s at all. What confuses me is the major difference in loading times between FCP and Motion. There is no explainable reason the difference should be that great. Now, back to my coffee! 😀

Again, Motion is a much more complex app and has always taken very noticeably longer times to launch than FCPX, that's not unusual. But Motion should launch faster than several minutes.

JoeEditor wrote:

Again, Motion is a much more complex app and has always taken very noticeably longer times to launch than FCPX, that's not unusual. But Motion should launch faster than several minutes.

Yes, it should load faster than that, and of course that's why I'm here 😀 trying to see if I can find out why it's taking far too long. Cheers, and thank you, Ben.

One thing you could try, download FCS Remover, totally wipe Motion from your system, reboot, reinstall.
www.digitalrebellion.com/fcsremover/

Frank Lancaster wrote:

My Motion Templates folder is about 64GB in size. As mentioned I have a lot of plugins! 😀

Holy cannelloni, Batman, that is huge!

In the past, I was a busy plug-in maker myself, so my MotionTemplates folder is crowded with alpha/beta/gamma versions of 'stuff'… but the effect was vice versa to your observation:badly made plug-ins could freeze FCP, although behave normal in Motion.

but 65GB is … too much, way too much. for narrowing the culprit, you could 'zip' some (the bigger ones) by right-clicking on it in Finder (FCP is off) and select from the context-menu 'compress'; zipped, the plug-ins are invisible for FCP (and Motion) = FCP will complain with a red warning sign 'plug-in missing'.. After your tests, double-click the file in Finder, it will un-zip.

good luck! <sipping the first coffee today, diff. time-zone>

JoeEditor wrote:

One thing you could try, download FCS Remover, totally wipe Motion from your system, reboot, reinstall.
www.digitalrebellion.com/fcsremover/

Thank you, Ben...I will try that. One time when Motion wouldn't open, I did do that, but no success. So I contacted Apple and they said that problem was due to a plugin. So, I eliminated every plugin at the time then added them back in. Near the end I found the one that was the problem. Guess who the seller of the plugin was. 😊 Contacted PFS and they confirmed that yes, they knew there was a problem with that one on some systems. I guess mine was one of those systems.

Karsten Schlüter wrote:

Frank Lancaster wrote:

My Motion Templates folder is about 64GB in size. As mentioned I have a lot of plugins! 😀

Holy cannelloni, Batman, that is huge!

In the past, I was a busy plug-in maker myself, so my MotionTemplates folder is crowded with alpha/beta/gamma versions of 'stuff'… but the effect was vice versa to your observation:badly made plug-ins could freeze FCP, although behave normal in Motion.

but 65GB is … too much, way too much. for narrowing the culprit, you could 'zip' some (the bigger ones) by right-clicking on it in Finder (FCP is off) and select from the context-menu 'compress'; zipped, the plug-ins are invisible for FCP (and Motion) = FCP will complain with a red warning sign 'plug-in missing'.. After your tests, double-click the file in Finder, it will un-zip.

good luck! <sipping the first coffee today, diff. time-zone>

Thank you again for your tip as well. I just might have to do that, but it's going to take a lot of time, so it will have to wait for a day or two. Anyway, I know exactly where I will start and with whose plugins. 😁