FCP will not load, deadline is NOW – help please!

[Mike Kahn]

Did you try deleting your render and cache files?

[Mark Palmos]

Hello twentydeuce
No i didnt, but unmounted the entire media drive, so there was no access to those files.
ta
Mark

[Mark Palmos]

So uninstalling Aja allows FCP to load but Motion will not load, and the Motion clips show up as white.

Reinstalling the Aja software brings me back to square 1 with crashing on loading.

Motion cannot be started at all.

I have just completed a 2.5 hour re-install and have one more hour before my last train home, gotta get it done somehow.

[Mark Palmos]

Ive pretty much given up.
FCP reinstalled on a new OSX profile, and the same errors etc.
The only thing left it seems is to reinstall OSX.
what a day at the office…
mark

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Mark,
The 90% of the problems the people find when working with FC arise because the system are poorly optimized. Normally when the people have problems, the first thing they do is to trash the FC prefs. That is normally the last thing I try.
When ever I’ve got a problem or I see that FC start to slow down, the first thing I do is to run DiskWarrior or Techtools. This can sound too much, but is IMPOSIBLE to keep a today’s Mac working well without using any of those applications.
Rafael

[Mark Palmos]

[rafalaos] “the first thing I do is to run DiskWarrior or Techtools”

Hi Rafael,
my system is only a few months old, now i am faced with having to tell the client they cannot tweak their show for the first several hours today while I completely reinstall OSX.

in 15 years of NLE editing on PC i never once had such a complete mess… really disappointing.

thanks all
mark.

[Paul Dickin]

[mark palmos] “my system is only a few months old”
Hi
My commiserations on your nightmare, but your system is gazillions of trillions of clock-cycles old, and the damage can be done in a mere cycle or two. 🙁

[mark palmos] “I dont know how to repair permissions and dont know what PRAM is… please tell!”
The wise shaman may not understand the gods who animate the fields and hedgerows of his village, but he fills in the pot-holes in his mile of road lest someone fall off their cycle and breaks their neck.

Unix (and therefore OS X) is inherently awesomely stable, but this is achieved by awesome internal security powers – when OS X or an application quits (or fails to load) it seems always to be a result of a localised file corruption or file permisson-setting anomaly, which causes unix to pull the plug for its own well-being.

So, as Rafael has explained, a simple trouble shooting procedure – with the appropriate tools – will normally get things underway again.

After Repairing Permissions (from the OS X Install DVD in case there is a System Drive problem)) and long before I would contemplate a complete re-install of OS X, I would run the appropriate Combo Updater to see if that is enough to eliminate the corruption.

DiskWarrior is essential in helping to identify any corrupted media files, or more generalised disk directory problems, and Apple’s Hardware Test on the system DVD will eliminate the possibility of a hardware fault.

In your case the Motion project and/or render files are obviously suspect, and should be got rid of (the project transferred to another drive, then unmounted to get it out of the way).
This means a) understanding, and b) working within, the Finder to do the troubleshooting and file management.

What has happened to you has happened to me a couple of times in my 14 years of Mac editing, and after the second time I’ve always had a second Mac system waiting to be brought into action if my main edit system fails. That was in 1997, but so far I’ve not had to use it…..

I know that’s no consolation to you or others in your situation, and with as Mac-savvy a person as JeremyG being forced into a FCS-performance situation where “clients who just don’t understand the technical hang ups … think that I can’t drive” then there is something bigger going on here 🙁
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/8/960543

Whilst Walter is waiting on the top of the mountain for the tablets to descend, in the form of Leopard-friendly updates to FCS, Apple’s oompa-loompas have already shipped OS X 10.4.10, and QuickTime 7.2, both of which presumably brought forth key Leopard code elements into broad daylight so that FCS 2 would have the sub-structure it needs. and could brought to market even though Leopard was delayed.

But 10.4.10/7.2 has meant that we are currently living through ‘interesting times’, and your problems are not in part or wholely your fault 🙁

Sorry I can’t help more specifically.

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Mark,
I hope you enjoy much more than 15 years editing with Mac, this why I recommend you using one of those application.
If you want FC runs well, first you must make sure that your system is in the best shape. The only way to make Mac OS go smooth is to keep all the UNIX structure clean.
Is nothing related with the age of your Mac. The matter is that your system is made of HUNDRED OF THOUSANDS of files and you need to spend a half hour every two weeks or so to make a basic maintenance:
– Let your computer swithched on at night some times so the Mac can make certain maintenance routines by it self.
– Whenever you install any thing> Repair permission
– In the moment that you notice that the performance of your Mac falls a little bit, run DiskWarrior or TechToolsPro to re-build directories, repair Desktop info, etc.
This is my best adviceing, if you want to have a nice exoerience working with Mac, run and get you one of those programs.
Rafael

[Mark Maness]

I’d like to add something here….

Maybe someone else has seen this…

On both of our systems that we use, one being a G5 Dual 2.7 and a Mac Pro Quad 3.0, both systems were getting very similar errors such as yours, Mark. I would run TechTool on bith to look for drive corruption. On BOTH systems, TechTool would hang and the systems would freeze while checking the system hard drive.

Both systems have cloned drives on them that are current working OSes with full updates applied.

I found that when I replaced the main system drives with new drives and copied the cloned drive to the new drive, everything was running just fine again. I had my IT guy look at those suspicious drives and he found that had serious corrupted sectors on those drives. I don’t know how this happened on both but they were damaged and this was causing my crashes and hangs.

SO…..

If I were you and your system is still not working well. Replace your main system with a new drive and install fresh (since you don’t have a backup drive). And this should get you back and running again.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey

[Mark Palmos]

[PaulD] ”
Sorry I can’t help more specifically.”

Thank you guys for your help, and great post Paul.

Being 8 hours or so out of sync with each other means i was already sitting with my IT guy early this morning too early for the advice… basically nothing he did could sort it.

I eventually installed OSX without reformatting (less drastic but less sure) Reinstalled FCP and Motion and then the Aja drivers, and it worked, more or less… some motion projects showed up on the FCPtimeline as OFFLINE and half of one of them had the composite, the other half was red offline. Weird.

I will do a reformat when i get a break in a couple of weeks.
I am rendering the final video (thank the gods!)

Thanks once again,
Till later
Mark.