• Avid Media Composer

  Relentless crashes on AVID Media composer ver 8.4.1

  Posted by Sally Moran on February 5, 2016 at 7:53 am

  Hi all,

  I’m doing a short job on AVID MC ver 8.4.1 for the first time, the system is crashing ten times a day and I have no tech support. I’ve tried to trash the settings i.e.: deleting MC state, site settings, site attributes; and the project settings avs file, along with creating a new user, and strangely the old settings seem to still be there. The machine is an iMac and I’m wondering if it doesn’t have enough grunt?

  Its running on OS X yosemite 10.10.5
  Processor 3.3 GHZ IntelCore i5
  Memory 16GB
  Graphics AMD Radeon R9 M290 2048 MB

  Any advice greatly appreciated. Also while I’m here, What is the optimal size processor for this version of avid?

  Many thanks,

  Sally

  Michael Phillips replied 10 years, 2 months ago 6 Members · 8 Replies
• 8 Replies

• 

  Glenn Sakatch

  February 5, 2016 at 4:13 pm

  At what point is it crashing?
  What is your media type and location?
  What kind of drive are you working with?
  How was the media created- or is it AMA?

  These are all contributing factors that anyone will need to know before they can even attempt to answer the “why” question.

  Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling Avid?

  I’m always amazed at how reluctant people are to simply clean out the program and reinstall it. It may fix the problem, it may not, but it only takes 10 mins to do, to make sure there isn’t something corrupt in your system.

  Glenn
• 

  Neil Sinclair

  February 5, 2016 at 6:46 pm

  Also check the Activity Monitor in utilities.
  We had a very similar problem that we traced to the Avid Application Manager.
  Avid Application Manager was taking up huge amounts of CPU for some reason. An App Manager reinstall cured it.
• 

  Stacy Lincoln

  February 5, 2016 at 11:34 pm

  As I read this thread, I have a question. I messed up my IMAC with AVID last, as it won’t launch. I had the old 4.3 version…and tried to upgrade to 6. I understand I needed to uninstall and reinstall, which I didn’t do. I thought it would update on its own, like all other software. I’m a producer/editor and I’m actually a good editor. Just not an engineer…so I was flying blind. There is also a “deactivate” issue that I don’t know how to resolve with AVID. How do you deactivate a system and reactivate it? This is why we hire tech support at the office. Is there an easy “how to” to go over all of the steps to install and reinstall AVID? I know the latest version is 8.4..which I have at my office, so I know I’m outdated at home. However, it would work for many projects. I appreciate any help!
• 

  Glenn Sakatch

  February 6, 2016 at 5:42 pm

  Hey Stacey, are you saying you had to deactivate 4.3? (I didn’t think anything before 5 or 5.5 was on activation…just dongles? Maybe thats just the way we used it back in the day.

  There is an activation program that gets installed with Avid. (mac version might be in utilities). If you’ve already uninstalled it, without deactivating it, you’ll probably have to call Avid and get them to deactivate it.

  For future information, if you aren’t on a dongle, you always need to decativate before you uninstall the software. The software now actually reminds you of this while you are uninstalling it.

  (To be fair to the original poster,you might want to move this to a new thread if there are any more issues)

  Glenn
• 

  Sally Moran

  February 7, 2016 at 10:11 pm

  Hi Glenn,

  Thanks for the advice. Will certainly give this a try.

  The footage is XAVCIntra and Prores, and is accessed via AMA, only 5 hrs or so. The external drive is a 4tb Lacie which is about half full. I was interested to read Stacey’s post about de-activating, so will follow this as well.

  Thanks again,

  Sally
• 

  Sally Moran

  February 7, 2016 at 10:13 pm

  Sorry forgot to mention that it crashes without any error messages, straight to the desktop. Thanks Sally
• 

  John Pale

  February 8, 2016 at 12:02 am

  One other thing…. If you were able to upgrade your avid mc software that means you have tech support, since a basic support contract is required to receive updates.
  Contact avid tech support and get them to help you. You are entitled to it.
• 

  Michael Phillips

  February 8, 2016 at 1:02 am

  I wish AppManager had a preference to not launch upon system startup. It provides no value on a day to day basis to be running all the time. When shutting it down, make sure you also go to Activity Monitor and shut down the AppManager Helper as well.

  I keep an installer download from the Download Center and then I uninstall AppManager altoegther. I wait to hear about a release, then download from the Download Center. I have a dongle, so that is easier to manage this way.

  Michael

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