“Out of Memory” on Renders/Loosing Renders on Restart

[Matthew Nelson]

The bug 6.0.2 fixes is FCP drops the renders of nested sequences. If you are rendering nested sequences I suggest you upgrade or never turn off your project or crash until you are done.

As for the error are you trying to render a still? Or have multiple high res layers? I see this error a lot when people are rendering 4K plus stills. Try and ease the burden by dropping the res of any stills to no larger than what you require. You can try baking some elements before the main render to reduce the number of layer. A compositing version of a mix down.

Hopefully the rumors that FCP will be 64bit sometime during Leopards reign will come true soon.

[Adam Taylor]

i’ve also had the “out of memory” error many times, on 20 sec commercials with no stills, and at 10bit uncompressed pal resolution. It always happened when i was in the middle of a render, and once it struck, it corrupted the sequence and prevents me from ever opening that sequence again. My only option was to retrieve a previous version from the autosave vault.

I’ve never had a good explanation of why it happens, and it has happened on all versions from 5.14 up through 6.

good luck

adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Matthew Nelson]

When you say it happens in the middle of renders I would suspect it is the result of a memory leak. Either with FCP or with any plugins you are using.

But to be clear the TRT of the sequence and type of format(s) used are irrelevant. What counts is space in memory for all the elements that FCP requires to calculate each new frame. If memory is not being released you will run out as a render progresses.

[Jack Bibbo]

Interesting about the ‘losing’ of the renders on nested sequences. I am nesting nested sequences. Heavy graphics work/animation. Good to know that 6.02 fixes that.

As far as the “Out of Memory” goes it seems to have decreased now that I have cut my program under 200megs (was 390 before).

However this is VERY limiting as I dup sequences left and right and do SEQ editing A LOT. This is how I have worked in the AVID for years. Again too bad and very limiting for FCP if we need to cut our projects in thirds just to work.

I am cutting with ProRes HQ then up ressing to 10bit UNCOMPRESSED.

thanks for the info.

[Bill Wilson]

I posted this in another thread, but it seems to apply here also:

I am just a FCP user and not familiar with the FCP code itself. However, I think the problem is, in fact, a memory leak. A “memory leak” happens when an application begins executing and starts reserving chunks of memory from the free memory pool. The applictaion keeps this memory reserved until it finishes, at which time it should release the reserved memory back into the free memory pool. If the application code does not cleanly release this reserved memory back into the free memory pool, it remains in the reserved memory pool indefinately. Thus, it appears to the system and all applications running on it that the amount of physical memory diminishes over time, hence the phrase “memory leak”. The only way to release this memory back into the free memory pool is to reboot the system.

I notice in the activity monitor that the “blue” memory slice (inactive memory) continues to grow the longer FCP is executing as the “green” slice (free memory) continues to shrink. The memory in the blue slice is “inactive” but is not available for use. Heavier renders requires FCP to reserve more memory. The next time a render is required, FCP reserves yet more memory from the free pool. After quitting FCP, the activity monitor still shows a very large blue slice (i.e. this memory is not released back into the free memory pool).

The symptoms described by some FCP users, along with the output from the activity monitor is certainly consistant with the notion of a memory leak.

As far as I know, there is nothing we as users can do to manage this other than periodic reboots. As mentioned in the post above, you can delay the symptoms by adding more memory, but the problem still exists and will eventually catch up with you.

As a side note, I also seem to notice that as the memory leak situation progresses on my MacPro, I begin to see unexpected results in render output. If I delete render files and reboot, all render outputs are as expected. Whether this is a symptom of the memory leak issue, or something else, I don’t know.

Bill Wilson
SunDolphin Productions
Birmingham, Alabama

[Adam Mercado]

Just to chime in on this thread as it is exactly the problem I am experiencing. Really need a solution as I am now at a roadblock.

I am working on a very basic cuts only DV NTSC project. Trying to render my selects sequence fails at about the 40% mark. That is at about 10min on a 30min timeline. The only rendering taking place is the audio track for some reason (the FCP sequence defaults audio tracks to 32bit despite me setting at 16bit????).

I have iStat open and the readings go thus, from beginning of render to moment of failure:

Memory
Wired: 160MB – 280MB
Active: 60MB – 84MB
Inactive: 1.5GB – 3.8GB
Free: 2.5GB – 0MB

So from that one can ascertain that FCP or the system is not releasing RAM after using it to render. The only way I can flush FCPs RAM allocation is to quit. AfterEffects has an option to flush cache after an amount of frames. Does FCP have any similar setting?

G5 Dual 2.5
FCP4.5
OSX10.4.11
4GB RAM
250GB internal sys/app drive
500GB FW800 media drive

FWIW, the media was captured using iMovie as FCP kept erroring trying to capture now. The tape had bogus timecode issues….

Thanks for ANY light you can shed. This really shouldn’t be this difficult.

mm66

Adam Mercado
Influxx Media Production
Motion Graphics & Video Post Production
Fullerton, CA

[Jack Bibbo]

The previous thread about rebooting seemed to be a solution. That and doing “small” renders. 5 sec increments seemed to work
for me.

Not much of a solution if you are working on anything long form anyway hope this helps.