Sony XDCAM Transfer and Snow Leopard

[Craig Seeman]

The famous Philip Bloom is having XDCAM Transfer problems.
In his case it’s MacBookPro so that doesn’t ensure success either.

https://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/08/29/beware-xdcam-users-upgrading-to-snow-leopard/

I have been trying to import pro disc footage on my Snow Leopard install 13″ MBP using XDCAM transfer and be having all sorts of problems. Cache not working, unable to relabel disc.

Score is 1 for 3 success on MacPro
2 for 3 success on MacBookPro.

Obviously that’s not the correlate. I can confirm no thumbnails are created in ~/Library/Application Support/XDCAM Transfer/Thumbnails

[Andy Mees]

Craig, any idea if there is correlation between clean installs and upgrade installs on these various systems?
Andy

[Craig Seeman]

I can’t help but suspect these are predominately upgrades. One person has 3 MacPros and only 1 of 3 had the thumbnail cache issue. I think he’d have mentioned it if 10.6 were installed differently on one than the other two. He did mention the issue was on his older MacPro. Phil Bloom mentions his on 13″ MacBookPro which is very new.

My guess is there’s some common utility that’s creating the conflict on some but not all systems. If Sony had something resembling a professional QA department they’d at least be able to point out where the conflict is even if they didn’t have a fix.

Snow Leopard complains about the PDWU1 kext on my system but removing it didn’t help. In fact I’ve done complete delete reinstall of ClipBrowser and also tried delete reinstall of XDCAM Transfer 2.71, 2.8, 2.9, 2.10 along with doing the Snow Leopard upgrade again to no avail. Whatever it is, I believe it involved a conflict with some other component not on all systems.

[Andy Mees]

Thanks for the update Craig … did you do a clean install on your non-working system? My money is on a low level conflict too, and I’d dare say that those who did a clean install are less likely to have such a conflicting framework / extension or what have you lying around in their system. Really, if folks followed best practices for major upgrades (full clean install of OS then step by step install of essential apps and utilities) then by now I’m pretty sure we’d have a much better idea of what is or isn’t causing the issue.
Best
Andy

[Craig Seeman]

[Andy Mees] “did you do a clean install on your non-working system?”

Just an upgrade. Normally I’d do an Archive/Install and reinstall apps as I encounter issues. Snow Leopard doesn’t often that option although from what I understand that’s what it does under the hood and it dispenses with the “Previous System Folder” that would result.

Snow Leopard will actually throw up a warning when there’s a compatibility issue and the warning may be different depending on the issue. So far it’s my scanner kext, SoundFlow kext (already fixed by them), Sony PDWU1 kext. I needed to reinstall Telestream Episode. Again I’ve found Archive/Install to be the best compromise and that’s what SL is doing plus it has an excellent compatibility warning system. There seems to be some issues with permission/ownership of certain files and folders (this was the SoundFlow kext issue) which means developers will have to change how their installer work in some cases. That’s a very simple fix though.

Personally clean installs are not viable for me. I did that once and dealing with the installs updates and serial numbers slowed me for weeks. BTW also the idea of waiting until one is between projects to upgrade isn’t viable. I’m never between projects. I always have multiple things going on at once and some projects can stretch out over a year.

Except for Sony, most of my issues with Snow Leopard compatibility have been very minor. Developers had new drivers ready to go or have said they’ll have them out in short order. Right now Sony is the lone exception. My laptop with Express slot is still on Leopard. I am or was thinking of getting a second laptop but there’s no point to that now, at least as far as Sony is concerned.

Just to be clear, even when I do a .x update I use Apple’s Combo Updater since Software Update can result in the similar type issues that an OS upgrade can do. Apple’s SL upgrade supposedly works as an archive/install which does install all new stuff regarding the OS. It simply doesn’t trash app specific stuff though. Basically the issues I’m seeing are really app related and not OS install related.

The kext issues are app related. The SxS issue is Sony’s driver and method of install doesn’t fix that. The XDCAM Transfer issue is either app conflict related or some aspect of the OS tuned to certain conditions that exist on some Macs.

Apple switched to an archive/install upgrade because it prevents the “dirty” upgrade issues. I don’t think a clean install would solve any of the above issues. It might help trouble shoot which app might be causing the conflict but that’s not tenable unless one fully tests each app after installing each other app after a clean install.

[Andy Mees]

Craig I hear you … but for me, clone and clean install is always worth the effort. On my laptop I’ve my hard disc partitioned so that when a major OS or app update comes along then I can clean install the new system and apps yet easily boot into and keep using the existing stable install if and when and for as long as necessary. For minor point release type stuff then I’ll update like anyone else, but for the big change stuff then a full clean rebuild is always recommended … it just makes sense.
Just my 2c
Andy

[Craig Seeman]

Andy I understand your reasoning. Keeping the stable system of course makes sense as well as having a clean system as far as keeping things going. I am a trouble shooter not just by nature but by trade. It’s very easy to test on clean systems but I believe in testing in “real world” circumstances.

One could update the “dirty” system when one is assured the fixes are in but of course one can’t find what’s broken in that environment and for me, I’m all about finding what’s broken and why.

I don’t find clean installs practical since, having done it, the amount of downtime reinstalling and copying things over can exceed the amount of time trouble shooting an issue. If one has a dedicated machine with very few things on it that’s one thing. I have hundreds of apps and would need scores of updates and old serial numbers. I remember spending days fighting with Adobe over there horrid sequence of needing old serials to walk through a series of updates.

Companies that only test on “clean” systems are the kind that release apps that don’t work on “dirty” systems. I test for several developers (and have been a former facility engineer) so I’m coming at this with a very different approach than you I guess.

BTW I see this in my Console Sys Log and there’s interesting comments regarding QuartzComposer

Sep 2 11:44:55 craig-seemans-mac-pro XDCAM Transfer[11241]: XDCAM Transfer 2.10.0 (Build 565) Mac OS X Version 10.6 (Build 10A432)
Sep 2 11:44:55 craig-seemans-mac-pro XDCAM Transfer[11241]: Loaded component MXFImport.component from SharedSupport
Sep 2 11:44:55 craig-seemans-mac-pro XDCAM Transfer[11241]: Loaded component EXImport.component from SharedSupport
Sep 2 11:44:55 craig-seemans-mac-pro XDCAM Transfer[11241]: Loaded component SMPTE331MAudioDecompressor.component from SharedSupport
Sep 2 11:44:56 craig-seemans-mac-pro [0x0-0x17f17f].com.sony.bprl.xdcamtransfer[11241]: objc[11241]: Class QCResource is implemented in both /System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/QuartzComposer.framework/Versions/A/QuartzComposer and /Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/ImageDownloaderBlockingPatch-10.5.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ImageDownloaderBlockingPatch-10.5. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
Sep 2 11:44:56 craig-seemans-mac-pro [0x0-0x17f17f].com.sony.bprl.xdcamtransfer[11241]: objc[11241]: Class QCCGLContext is implemented in both /System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/QuartzComposer.framework/Versions/A/QuartzComposer and /Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/ImageDownloaderBlockingPatch-10.5.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ImageDownloaderBlockingPatch-10.5. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
Sep 2 11:44:56 craig-seemans-mac-pro [0x0-0x17f17f].com.sony.bprl.xdcamtransfer[11241]: objc[11241]: Class QCImage is implemented in both /System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/QuartzComposer.framework/Versions/A/QuartzComposer and /Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/ImageDownloaderBlockingPatch-10.5.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ImageDownloaderBlockingPatch-10.5. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

[Andy Mees]

its late here Craig, and I should go to bed, so take whatever I’m saying with a pinch of late night and over tired salt, but …

We’re all troubleshooters in this trade, its part and parcel of the job, and I do realise you test for several developers (as do many of us I’m sure … for example, my lappie actually has 3 partitions, 1 latest, 1 stable and 1 ‘dirty’). But one of the mainstays of troubleshooting as well you know is eliminating what is not the problem and a clean install is a fundamental part of that process. But the terms such as grandmother and egg sucking are now coming to mind so I’ll leave that train of thought! My point is not to blather on about testing methods, its just to note that folks trying to run stable production machines (ie not test beds) are best advised to follow rigorously long-winded but nonetheless proven upgrade procedures.

Folks, as we’ve seemingly found a inconsistent bug with XDCAM Transfer and Snow Leopard then it’d be worth it if you all could note whether any of you did full clean installs and yet still have the problem, and if so on what specific hardware? I dare say we can nail down exactly what does work along the way to finding what doesn’t.

Sorry Craig, as noted too damn late … at least its only a ‘tired’ post and not a ‘drunk’ one eh? I’ll regret posting in the morning 🙂

Very Best
Andy

[Craig Seeman]

Given the time difference I’m sure you’ll be up and responding before me at that point.

A clean install followed by the app in question can verify if the issue is between the App and the OS.

A clean install followed by installing all apps and plugins doesn’t tell you which app is conflicting with which unless one tests the single app in question after each additional app install.

With previous Mac OS updates an “upgrade” was a dangerous thing because it didn’t always clean out old OS junk. An Archive/Install, once optional, now built in to Snow Leopard update, is a clean install of the OS plus copies over app related things. That why one used to get a “previous system folder” (which Apple dispensed with with 10.6) with archive/install. An OS 10.6 upgrade is clean as far as the OS itself is concerned. This is why I conclude that either XDCAM Transfer is conflicting with some part of the OS on some systems or some part of another app.

The part from the console log that I posted seems to imply that there’s a 10.5 QuartzComposer Patch still present. It may be there because some apps need it. It may be that’s creating a conflict in the creation of the thumbnail cache.

A clean install may not have that patch (since there’s no reference to older apps that the installer might use in the decision making process of the installer script) or that patch may be innocuous if the “other app” doesn’t exist to make the “call” to it.

One quick way to check this would be to install a blank hard drive in a MacPro (avoids the partitioning or the whipping of you system disk), install 10.6 on it. Install ClipBrowser, XDCAM Transfer, Final Cut Studio and see what happens on a system that has shown the issue. On a laptop one might create an external bootable drive and test that way. Now if I only had a spare drive handy.

This would show if it’s OS/System specific (something the OS decides to install for certain hardware configs) or whether some app is impacting the results.

BTW we might ask if people have FCS2 or FCS3 on the systems because if there’s a change in how the caching is handled between the two that can also impact things even if FCS/FCP isn’t running.

My system in question has FCS3 on it.

[Andy Mees]

See? I knew I’d feel far less like “spirited discussion” in the morning 🙂

A clean install followed by the app in question can verify if the issue is between the App and the OS.

Exactly.

A clean install followed by installing all apps and plugins doesn’t tell you which app is conflicting with which unless one tests the single app in question after each additional app install.

Exactly … Procedure A (multiple installs without individual verification) doesn’t help as you don’t know which component caused the problem, whereas Procedure B (sequential installs with verification) can help to directly isolate the conflict.

An Archive/Install, once optional, now built in to Snow Leopard update, is a clean install of the OS plus copies over app related things.

Indeed, in essence it’s automating Procedure A above, no? Apologies in advance if I’m misunderstanding.

The part from the console log that I posted seems to imply that there’s a 10.5 QuartzComposer Patch still present. It may be there because some apps need it. It may be that’s creating a conflict in the creation of the thumbnail cache.

Do you have FxFactory installed at all, or CHV Quartz integration?

A clean install may not have that patch (since there’s no reference to older apps that the installer might use in the decision making process of the installer script) or that patch may be innocuous if the “other app” doesn’t exist to make the “call” to it.

One quick way…

Heee … it’s rarely simple eh? Hopefully I may find some time today to do a bit of detective work on my own systems. Mine is a MBP, running FCS3.

Again, apologies if I’ve misread anything, and I do understand that your methods are born of hard fought experience, hopefully you can understand the need to state the case and the rationale for the clean install crowd.

Anyhoo … lets not bicker about methods (too late now eh?) though I’d be happy to discuss off list if you’re intersested (my email is in my profile I believe).

I gotta rush … am going to be late for work if I sit here much longer

Andy