FCPX freezing when editing/playing

[Morten Carlsen]

1. Reboot Mac While pressing and holding the shift key to boot up in safe mode
2. Log in to your account
3. Reboot normally and see if this changes anything

If problem persists

1. Enter System Preferences -> Users&Groups
2. Create a new Admin Account
3. Log out
4. Log in to new account
5. See if problem persists

If problem persists

Log out and log in to original account then :

1. Close ALL your libraries
2. Create new Lib
3. Import to that lib
4. Import clips
5. Create Project and edit

If problem persists

1. Quit FCPx
2. Temporarily remove all your video and audio plug-ins
3. Reboot FCPx and try again

If problem persists

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[Malcolm Karpeta]

Hi Morten, many thanks for all of this advice and have completed most of the actions and in addition since posting have narrowed down the problem following an Etrecheck report
It is not, in fact, FCP that is causing the problem, it is Motion VFX plug-ins. Here is how I whittled down the conclusion.
I uninstalled FCPX (Not really necessary I know but…)
Trashed all FCP preferences, caches and Libraries
Set up Time Machine ok
Trawled Unsigned files and deleted any I know I don’t need anymore
Deleted downloaded apps I haven’t used for over a year or 2
Looked at 32 bit apps but there were lots of them, so as they didn’t seem to affect anything, left them alone
Looked at Kernel extensions deleted those not needed
Reran Etracheck, reported as Performance excellent ☺
Reinstalled FCPX
Moved assets to my SSD drive where all of my cache and render files are directed to
Opened FCPX
Worked a dream ☺
But
Then dragged in a MotionVFX template as an intro (I had recently purchased a couple of new ones)
Fudge cake!
Although FCP didn’t freeze or crash, I got the dreaded spinning ball of doom for a few seconds on every action on timeline. I could have persevered but it was very frustrating.
So, I thought I would use Motion itself to produce the intro and export as a complete file (I have Motion 5)
Opened Motion
Selected a new project to begin
Crash. I mean complete crash. Power off, complete shutdown, armageddon. All except my back up external drive which is connected via Thunderbolt monitor, seperate power supply.
Had to unplug MAC tower for a few moments then restart.
So, conclusion:
I deduced my problems were now due to Motion (Perhaps always)

After some investigation I then:
Deleted preferences in Motion
Opened Motion and applied blank project. No crash
Opened new project and applied MotionVFX Template (1472, part1, for some reason the template appears in 4 parts!) Dabbled a little, seemed to be ok
Applied part 2 of said template. Armageddon.
Uninstalled and reinstalled Motion
Opened and applied same MotionVFX template part01
Applied said template part02, which creates a new timeline, not adding to part01!
Dabbled around a bit and currently all seems fine, but to be honest, I don’t use Motion much and not sure how to join all parts together. But that’s another story.

I would like to be able to use Templates in FCPX without the Ball of Doom slowing things down though, so I have written to Motion VFX asking for advice as follows

I have recently purchased 3 Title/intro templates to use in FCPX. Projects 1472, 1493 and 1507. However, when trying to use in FCP the response is extremely slow, displaying the dreaded wheel of doom, which makes using the plug in rather prohibitive. I have tried trawling the issue through various forums which indicates to me that there is/was an inherent problem, but the posts are from 2012/13. So I am hoping by now, with all of the dialogue that has gone on, there is now a fix. I have tried to open these Projects in Motion but they appear split into 3 or 4 parts and I am unsure how to bring them together to create one timeline of them for export (I do not use Motion much). I have searched for a tutorial on the subject but thus far have not found any.

So, my questions are
1. What can I do to minimise the lag when using the projects as a plug in on FCPX?Failing that
2. Would you point me in the direction of a tutorial to edit the projects in Motion please?
I operate FCPX without any other applications open. Etrecheck Pro reports my system’s performance as excellent.
I am operatingMac Pro 5Mojave OSProcessor 2 x 3.33 GHz 6 core Intel XeonGraphics Radeon RX 580 8GB
Drives:
SSD 2TB, 1.78 TB available (Start up)
SSD 1TB, 415 GB available (FCP Cache and Imports)
HDD 2TB, 214 GB available (Backup)
HDD 2TB, 1.89 GB available (Archive)
Thank you for any help you can provide
Regards…

Sorry this post is so long but wanted to make my issue is fully understood.
I haven’t received a reply from Motion yet but I am hoping that something can be done about the lag when using as plug-ins to FCPX

I was a little comforted to learn that the isuue is/was not uncommon but it doesn’t help!
Perhaps yourself or someone on here has a solution so I probably need to search on this forum, or start another thread on the subject?

Thanks again

[Morten Carlsen]

Hi –

Per say Motion Effects aren’t slowing things down for me. That said it IS possible to create Motion Effects which DO slow the system down. Especially when it comes to Titles. Titles are great in FCPx but they are also performance killers.

I would write the support of the people from whom I purchased the Motion Templates and ask them for advice.

Again, a Motion Effect in FCPx is NOT just a plug-in it is a complete workflow. And if that particular workflow is grand then your performance WILL suffer 🙂

——————————————————————

Pro Color Monitor – Get Your Color Balance Right
Get it on the AppStore Today->

https://apps.apple.com/de/app/pro-color-monitor/id1495383011?l=en&mt=12

[Malcolm Karpeta]

Many thanks Morten. I have noticed some FX, for example Freeze Action, work fine. It’s just the templates with drop zones that seem to slow down.
Hopefully I will get a response from Motion soon

Thanks

[Morten Carlsen]

Wish you the best of luck. At least now you know where the issue lies 😉

——————————————————————

Pro Color Monitor – Get Your Color Balance Right
Get it on the AppStore Today->

https://apps.apple.com/de/app/pro-color-monitor/id1495383011?l=en&mt=12

[Joe Marler]

[Malcolm Karpeta] “Crash. I mean complete crash. Power off, complete shutdown, armageddon. All except my back up external drive which is connected via Thunderbolt monitor, seperate power supply.
Had to unplug MAC tower for a few moments then restart.
So, conclusion:
I deduced my problems were now due to Motion (Perhaps always)”

In general a user-mode app like FCPX cannot hang the the entire OS unless there’s an underlying system problem or a bug in a user-installed kernel-mode driver. The CPU’s hardware-enforced isolation between processes and user vs kernel mode prevents this.

You can sometimes see what *appears* to be a plugin or app that hangs the system, but it’s not the fault of that app or plugin. It’s similar to how a truck could drive across a faulty bridge and cause a collapse — the bridge is decayed.

Due to current limitations in MacOS plugin architecture, a plugin *can* hang or crash the host app – FCPX in this case. This is because currently all plugins run “in process”. With the new FxPlug 4 SDK, it will be possible for developers to migrate their plugins to an “out of process” design which will not crash or hang the host process: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/professional_video_applications/fxplug?language=objc

Re Neat Video there was a bug which caused problems if combined with FCPX background rendering, but it was not a MacOS hang/crash. I strongly suggest you upgrade to the latest version of Neat Video due to this and also because it’s much faster.

Be sure to run the built-in Neat Video optimizer which measures your memory, CPU and GPU performance then recommends a specific configuration. It is in the Neat Video menu Tools>Preferences>Performance>Optimize Settings.

[Malcolm Karpeta]

[Joe Marler] “Re Neat Video there was a bug which caused problems if combined with FCPX background rendering, but it was not a MacOS hang/crash. I strongly suggest you upgrade to the latest version of Neat Video due to this and also because it’s much faster.

Be sure to run the built-in Neat Video optimizer which measures your memory, CPU and GPU performance then recommends a specific configuration. It is in the Neat Video menu Tools>Preferences>Performance>Optimize Settings.”

Thanks for that Joe, I will try that.

[Morten Carlsen]

[Malcolm Karpeta] ” It’s just the templates with drop zones that seem to slow down.”

So it does appear to be a motion specific bug or do you have a template which uses drop zones without performance penalty ?

——————————————————————————

Pro Color Monitor – Get Your Color Balance Right
Get it on the AppStore Today->

Pro Color Monitor.

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[Malcolm Karpeta]

[Morten Carlsen] “So it does appear to be a motion specific bug or do you have a template which uses drop zones without performance penalty ?”

Good point, I don’t have any other templates similar to MotionVFX ones which I bought.
I have just tried an FCP Credits template which doesn’t cause a problem but then they do not have Drop Zones per se, I just put my photo/video clip below the Credits template and it works fine.
So it certainly looks like a MotionVFX issue
Are there Templates I can buy other than those made by Motion? Happy to try one, in fact I’ll do a search!

[Jim Ball]

I just got Final Cut Pro in December and haven’t done much with it. I was working on a small project for practice and it was working fine a few weeks ago. The other night it was freezing up constantly as I worked on it. After reading this, I uninstalled Motion, which I got in a bundle with FCPX. Now it works fine.