[Jim Adams]

[Nick Rucka] “The issue of the renders disappearing or randomly getting lost is also a real hassle.”
[Nick Rucka] “Now I’m especially intrigued by the Color Finale plug in issue that you mention.”

I am currently running tests with library and media on my internal SSD. Nothing is connected externally – not even my audio monitors (I’m getting superstitious). My event contains only 6 fairly short 4K clips that have been “multiplied out” over about 26 minutes of timeline. I’ve added some of those as connected clips. The only plugin installed (on a clean install of the OS and FCPX) is Film Convert.

So far there have been no crashes or freezes. And no strange graphic corruption of the UI that I experienced with the FilmConvert test (orange splotches over the adjustment areas in the Info Browser when mousing over the numerical values). But the oddball re-rendering keeps occurring. I render all. Close FCP. Open FCP. A couple clips will need re-rendering (which, BTW, seems really slow; but maybe that’s my unfamiliarity in working with 4K media). After those clips re-render, if I close and reopen, it doesn’t need re-rendering. But if I trim one clip, render all, close and reopen, new render bars appear in a couple places.

I haven’t talked with Apple about this yet. More testing to do. I sure hate the idea of losing FilmConvert!

[Jim Adams]

[Nick Rucka] “At any rate, I’m very interested in what you find out from Apple Support. In the meantime, I find that rendering regularly, and baking stuff in by outputting and reimporting, does the trick if and when I have onerous playback issues.”

Very helpful, Nick. I agree that misery loves company. I gather that you are much more experienced in all this than I. I am a band of one and do all pre, production and post by myself. (OK, my sweet wife is very important to the pre-production and does all our admin.) No SAN. No editing team. But your response was very helpful. I’ve not tried outputting and reimporting. What kind of output? “Master File”? “Export File”? (I’ve never used Export File before. I’ll have to consult the manual on that.)

Apple’s response: My rep has been very patient with me even when I’ve begun to lose patience. I like him. However, when I reported my issues with FilmConvert after a clean install and running with nothing external plugged in, it felt like things changed. I had asked him about whether I should make a clean partition or completely wipe the drive so that I could test Color Finale. His response ignored my question. All he said was that, obviously, there is nothing wrong with my new iMac, but that I could take it to the Apple Store to test the GPU. (The iMac I returned for a new one passed all those tests with flying colors, but continued to screw up until finally they replaced it.) I have had the same case number for over a year now!

If the philosophy of the FCPX designers is to build a platform that welcomes (even encourages) the development of 3rd Party plugins to do the heavy lifting in certain areas (e.g., color grading/audio), then it makes no sense that they then blame widely used commercial plugins when something goes wrong. “Not our problem.”

I will be testing Color Finale next because it is a real world stressing of the GPU. If it produces a bunch of issues, then I will do another clean install and try something like Lock n Load and iZotope. If they all crash, delay or produce UI corruption on a “pure as the driven snow” 5K iMac, then something is wrong with it. Because to-date, you are the only person I’ve found who reports the strange ghosting, etc. Or, if it isn’t my iMac, then something is wrong with the FCPX philosophy that drives the use of plugins like these.

Thanks again! (And sorry for yet another long post.)

[Jim Adams]

Thanks, Oliver. Helpful info. I tried to avoid rendering, but as the timeline grew things would get very sluggish and eventually FCPX would crash. So I started rendering every so often. If the culprit is a specific plugin, I hope to find out which one. But knowing that others experience these re-appearing render bars is helpful info.

[Jim Adams]

Thanks, Claude. All information like this is much appreciated and helpful as I go forward.

[Jim Adams]

[Jeff Kirkland] “Given everything you’re describing, my thought would be a faulty GPU. Something that’s only showing up when FCPX is stressing it, aalthough I’m assuming other GPU intensive apps like motion are running fine?
“
Thanks again, Jeff, for taking the time to respond.
I am a one trick pony. I don’t use Motion.
I also thought that maybe lightning struck me twice (bad GPU) and that the replacement iMac had the same GPU issues. But the Pro Apps people had me construct a timeline using only an Apple generator clip and an Apple sound effect. I duplicated those many times to make a 30 minute project. Then I retimed, reversed, connected, Ken Burns-ed, colored, moved, resized, added 3D Titles, added effects, transitions, color board adjustments, made compound clips, etc, etc. The system handled all of that without as much as a hiccup even with background rendering on. No re-renders if I closed and reopened FCPX. Everything worked like a dream. Like the dream I had when I purchased the original 5K iMac.
So, according to Apple, the computer is working properly. Now I need to start reintroducing plugins. But WHY this is happening when no one else seems to share my issues….? (And of course, the plugin makers have never seen my issues.)
If I learn anything significant, I’ll post it here.
But if anyone else out there in Cowland has had these issues, I would surely like to know what you have learned.

[Jim Adams]

Thanks for the response, Jeff. If you have a spare minute, I’d love to know if:
(1) you have experienced the unending re-rendering I’ve experienced. If I render all, close FCPX, then reopen it, the timeline has render bars scattered all over the place. And they seem very random. Render, close and reopen, and different clips will show as unrendered.
(2) OR… have you experienced the odd graphics behavior on the interface? Green squiggling “ghosts” of the skimmer, “ghost clips” that really aren’t there, can’t be selected or played, etc.? And since you were so nice…
(3) might I ask if you used the “Render with GPU (OpenCL)” option when you tried FilmConvert?