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Help I’ve killed it!
I’m fairly new to Final Cut and new to Apple. I have a new FCP system – 2.7 dual with 4 GB of RAM. I was capturing a long section of HDV footage (about 28 minutes). I hit escape to end the segment using a Capture NOW. I got a color wheel and I assumed that it would finish this exercise soon. THat was 8 hours ago and I can’t seem to get Final CUt Pro to force quit. I’ve restarted the system and I still get the wheel. I can’t open other applications and now the hard drives that normally appear on the right side of my screen are gone. I can’t open Finder and now I can’t even make it shut down. Have I killed it? Should I just unplug it? If this was a Microsoft world I would know what to do but I’m not in Kansas anymore. Help me I’m melting!
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5 Replies
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I would unplug it for a few hours. Let the memory drain and start it up and go back to work. DO NOT throw water on it.
Steve Wargo
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Hi
Most likely there was a timecode or video glitch in the captured footage – something that may be invisible to the eye, but which throws FCP…
Try bootting from the OS X install disk 1 with the C key held down at startup. Then ignore the installer screen, but go up to the menus and find Disk Utility, and run Repair Permissions on the start-up drive. (Do it again if there are any amount of repairs to do).
Then try rebooting as usual… -
Thanks. I unplugged it and that seemed to return everything to “KANSAS” (normal editworld). All my stuff works but of course there is no footage that I was capturing. I’ll try to capture in smaller bites now that I know this can happen. Do you think I should purchase more memory or is this a CPU issue? Or maybe it is one of those elusive computer kind of things that you really NEVER figure out – we just find a way to work around it.
I did not pour water on it and that also was a great tip! Thanks again and have a nice day. Rock on dude.
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Before you go away thinking that you’ve just had a “special” experience… 😉
What you describe is VERY common. (In the “FAQ” league of problems.)
If FCP “locks up” during Capture Now (as it so often does), you should be able to use the Mac command called “Force Quit” to stop the “beach-ball”.
Hold down all three of these keys:
Option, Command (apple key), esc (escape).When a window pops up, make sure “Final Cut Pro” is highlighted and click on the “Force Quit” button.
If you can’t get the Force Quit to work, HOLDING in the power button on the front of the Mac (5-10 sec.) should cause a Mac Restart.
If not, unplugging for a few minutes (as you discovered) will do the trick.
NOTE:
All of these “last-resort” measures will cause you to lose anything that was not “saved” prior to implementing them.
Its a GOOD HABIT to manually hit “Command-S” (SAVE) VERY frequently during any kind of computer activity (especially FCP).Back to FCP.
Its a good idea just to NOT USE “Capture Now”.
It has always been problematic.Just VIEW your tape(s) in the “Log and Capture” mode and MARK in-points and out-points for each wanted clip.
Then you can Batch Capture only the “good” clips and save edit time and disk space. -
Make sure your drives are properly initialized with Mac OS extended, as well. Sounds like your drives are wonky.
Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Seminar!
fcpworld.com
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