Motion hangs/freezes/pauses

[Alan Smith]

We experience the same thing when ever we attempt to do any animation or effects. We get the beach ball for every click of the mouse. And I have the same system as you. I dont understand either!!!!

Alan

Alan Smith
Media317

Check out my blog – https://media317.com

[Pj Palomaki]

I found an interesting site which has some pointers on optimising Motion performance https://provideocoalition.com/index.php/smartin/story/getting_the_most_out_of_motion/

One of the points caught my eye:

4) Stick to one monitor. Dual monitors are great, and you can tear off any tab of the Motion interface to move it to another screen, but by running two monitors you are splitting the VRAM on your graphics card, which impacts performance (assuming, of course, that you are driving both monitors from the same card).

I wonder how much this has to do with Motion performance since we use two 23″ cinema displays and I use a windows layout with the timeline on the second screen and all the rest on first screen…

PJ

[Alan Smith]

I have dual display, but only use one monitor when working in Motion. I dont have any of the Motion windows on my second display and I still have speed issues.

alan

Alan Smith
Media317

Check out my blog – https://media317.com

[Alan Smith]

That was a good article. I found that if I reduced the quality to a third or quarter, that I was able to work without getting the beach ball. I was able to work much faster. The article indicated that it didnt seem to have any effect, but it was significant on my end.

Alan

Alan Smith
Media317

Check out my blog – https://media317.com

[Mitch Ives]

We’re having the same problem. It starts out fine, but after awhile, every time I do anything, Motion pauses. I don’t always get the spinning beachball, but you can click to move the playhead and it can take up to 30 seconds before Motion catches up. It’s a real time waster.

This is an early 2008 8-core (2.8), with 16gb ram, nVidia 8800 GPU, 10.5.6, QT 7.6, Motion 3.02. FWIW, a colleague has the exact same problem on a Dual G5, with an x800XT GPU, 8GB ram, and all the same versions of software.

I’ve tried disabling the auto-save. I’ve tried closing the layers window (cmd-4). So far these things seem to help a small amount, but it doesn’t solve the problem. I’ve disabled all background processes in the user accounts… I’ve even tried having every single program closed except Motion, so it isn’t something else running in the background.

Motion clearly has a problem that needs to be addressed. This is adding a lot of unproductive time to the project (read: losing money) and it’s hurting us on deadlines. Apple, are you aware of this problem?

Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com

[Chad Mumm]

I was having the same problem, but then I uninstalled FX Factory (a plug-in for FCP/Motion/AE etc) and now Motion is flying again! My guess is all of you with this hanging problem have some 3rd party plugins installed… well, ditch ’em and get back to work!

Chad
My Machine: Late ’08 Mac Pro Octo-behemoth w/ 6GB RAM

[Chad Mumm]

It’s hard for me to believe that it was anything else. As a last ditch attempt to speed things up, I uninstalled FX Factory. The difference between Motion with it installed and without was astonishing. Maybe it had to do with the way (or where) the directory was installed (I have multiple arrays for my storage), but regardless, uninstalling FX Factory made my Motion usable again. There was nothing else I changed. Anyone else w/ this problem get similar results?

[Peter Wiggins]

Chad,

Knowing quite a bit about FxFactory, it was unlikely to be the cause of your problem.
I’m not saying it wasn’t, just unlikely. 🙂

Peter

[Stephen Smith]

FX Factory made it so I could not log P2 footage a while back. I had an old version of it. When I was told to install the newest version that took care of everything. If you have FX Factory just stay current on the updates and you should be just fine. PS-FX Factory has not slowed down my machine.

Salt Lake Video

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[David Van akkeren]

None of this worked for me, BUT

turning of the behaviors (click the wheel right of the layer name) did the trick for me.
I set the behavior and then disable it. I then turn it back on for the final render.
I do hope Apple will fix this. I have a 8 core with 16 Gb, so it has nothing to do with your horse power.