[Jim Giberti]

[tony west] “Jim, these post were very useful.

Thanks man

I cleared a bunch of space on my HDs”

Glad it helped Tony.
FWIW I still think that Apple did something fundamental in 1.0.3 that bogged down the system.
Previous to the update I would say that FCPX was snappy in it’s response and a pleasure to work in.
Since then, even with constant memory maintenance, it’s just sluggish and tentative by comparison.

I really wouldn’t be surprised to find it was the new auto backup taking place every 15 minutes combined with the ever growing project size. Like the way you don’t want Time Machine to kick in if you’re doing any serious work.

I also wouldn’t be surprised to find out that all the crashing since 1.0.3 (which never happened once in the months of use before) occurred during those backups.

I honestly think Apple has to get a 1.0,4 patch out asap to fix the performance issues which are likely causing the other issues that some of us have had.

In the meantime keep it small and clean and stay vigilant my friend.

[Jim Giberti]

[Steve Connor] “The scale of yours appears to be, I haven’t seen another example of that scale of corruption to drive level
“

That was one time – one time too many.

I’ve read lot’s of stories of corruption and in my hour long talk with Apple it’s a term that they used regularly.

I’ve never had a corrupt file in the thousands we’ve produced in every version FCP before X.

Apple now considers it a problem with their new program.

I think if I help people know that, it might save them the nightmares we had on two big projects.

FWIW, previous to the last disaster, I was going to start a thread about how we produced a national film, TV campaign and even the associated radio campaign all with X.

I did pull that off, but it would hardy be the encouraging story to X users that I intended it to be.

I’m still working in FCP, but much more warily and with much greater supervision of it’s flaws.

[Jim Giberti]

[Tom Wolsky] “Earlier versions of FCP did the same thing. All render files for all sequences were retained as long as the application was open. And if you closed a project the render files for all the sequences for their playback were retained. Even if you never opened any of the sequences again or even opened the project again. “

But this isn’t the earlier version.
This is the version where every project is open all the time which means you may be sitting on hundreds of gigs of junk, which is why I’m saying keep your project folder clean.

And I never had any earlier version spin beach balls and display a regular delay in key response.

Also you realize that the new backup that was implemented in 1.0.3 now saves your project every 15 minutes. Imagine trying to run a complex edit, while your program is trying to backup a 56 GB file 4 times an hour – which is why I pointed that out.

Deleting Unused render files and keeping a clean project folder is good advice in a thread regarding the nagging performance and beach ball issue that’s regularly discussed.

I’m just trying to give good advice Tom.

[Jim Giberti]

[Steve Connor] “That’s ridiculous, surely they can limit the amount of undos and wipe the render files associated as other NLEs do.
“

Surely they can.

[Jim Giberti]

[Steve Connor] “I know you’ve had a horrible experience and there are huge flaws in X at the moment but that statement isn’t really correct…. however it also seems to be going badly for people as well. It’s still new, but if some of the memory and bloat issues aren’t solved in the next couple of releases then even I’ll think about dropping it.”

Not looking to Argue Steve, just share experience at my company and with Apple.

But just looking at your paraphrase above I don’t know how you can say that my comment isn’t “really correct”.

Sure it is. It’s what happened.
And just because something has performed well for some people in some circumstances doesn’t negate the things it’s done poorly for others in other circumstances – and mine is hardly unique.

Most importantly, the key information I’m trying to share about the horrible media/memory management and self bloat (that leads to corruption as Apple knows) doesn’t need to be soft peddled as you clearly state in the second half of your post.

I was one of the strongest proponents of X at the COW until it cost us thousands of dollars and many sleepless nights trying to fix it’s messes.

My posts of support and criticism are experience based and unemotional and come from someone who’s purchased and operated every Mac and virtually every Mac based creative program ever developed.

[Jim Giberti]

[Joseph W. Bourke] “I think you have it backwards, Daniel – the executives that are out of touch seem to be at Apple. Check out labs.adobe.com some time – they listen to their users, and they actually give us what they’re working on to see whether it works. With Adobe, it’s Design, Test, Ship – with Apple it’s Design, Ship, Test.”

OK Joseph, you’ve inspired my analogy of the day.

I wasn’t looking for a new girlfriend, just the opposite, I was really happy with the way things were going – especially knowing that we were always working to make a better relationship.

Then I woke up one day and she dressed and acted completely different than she had in our ten year relationship…just so she could sleep with all the young guys with Macbooks. To make things worse, she tried to convince me that this change was best for both of us.

So here’s this cute Adobe. I’ve known her since I was a kid (I produced some of the earliest non-linear projects on PP1.0), but I’ve never thought of her “in that way”.

She may not be as sexy or fully compatible as my honey Seven was, but she’s so faithful, and she cares about me and listens to me, I’ll never have to worry about her dumping me for the young guy with the tight pants and tats.

In the movies, I always end up with Adobe.

[Jim Giberti]

[Michael Hadley] ”
Two things: Were you actually recommending regularly deleting render files to improve performance?

And what do you mean by getting corrupt versions out of your project folder? Are you suggest creating another project folder, on another volume, and then copying/pasting the new project into that location?

Thanks.”

Absolutely Michael – you must do this.

Here’s what Apple hasn’t explained to people and as I told them it should be on the cover of the manual (that they didn’t write.) – They actually “designed” a program that keeps every change you make in any editing session and all of that meaningless data will build forever until your program shuts down.

When you select a project and choose Delete Project Render Files you get a dialogue that asks if you want to delete only unused files. As one of my people watching this mess unfold asked “why the hell would a program retain unused render files? It’s like some first year coder wrote this thing.

So yes, just like X gobbles all your RAM with no Clear RAM feature, it actually gobbles all of your hard drive and will do so for eternity unless you regularly delete what should never exist in a program – it’s own bodily waste.

Regarding the corrupt projects. As soon as you suspect you have one, get it out of the project folder. And if the corruption (as it did with us twice) gets passed onto duplicate projects that you’re trying to copy into in order to save, then get all of that out of your Project Folder too.

It’s a very boggy, tentative program once you start asking it to do more than (and I hate to say this) …more than iMovie level stuff.

It’s a sloppy, self-destructive thing for professional use simply because of the mistakes and omissions in it’s core development.

If you’re doing demanding or critical work you must work way harder at managing your system and the program than anything I’ve seen since the early 90’s.

It’s flawed.

[Jim Giberti]

[Steve Connor] “How on earth did it corrupt a drive? I haven’t heard of that happening at all
“

Ask Apple.
They didn’t seem surprised when we were talking about it, they just discussed all the new things we should be doing to backup and protect our work from what they obviously know is an unstable environment.

Honestly, I haven’t had corrupt media let alone a drive in modern times.
But apparently the media was so corrupt and the projects so corrupt that on one of the countless crashes that day Mr Mac felt compelled to advise me that my boot drive was corrupted and that I had to try and save it (which fortunately I was able to.)

The mistake I obviously made Steve, was operating my system and this program as I would FCP7 or anything else I create with. I was flying through design elements (basic simple stuff) audio edits and sweetening and constant image enhancements without constantly monitoring the bloat of the project.

When I did, this one 2:06 film was 56 GBs and apparently because there were 4 TV spot projects in progress, also associated with the same master event, it just collapsed under it’s own weight.

When I deleted the unused render files that day that one project shrunk back to 2GB.
People used to get fired for designing stuff this badly.

[Jim Giberti]

[Michael Hadley] “Apple also recommends making a duplicate of your current project once every few hours in case it gets so corrupt you can’t open it. That seems to be an issue for some poor souls. And then even the backup won’t open.

My guess this “corrupt project file” issue is big and something they are working on given how quickly the service tech offered it as the potential solution. And it is working so far.

Guess that’s why some folks never work with a .0 app. Hopefully they solve this (or reduce it) in the next update.”

They’ve certainly heard a lot about it from us – two hopelessly corrupted projects and media..and drives.

They now know how badly the memory issues are with X…very immature code and concept

I didn’t need them to recommend copy and pasting contents into a new project, it’s the first thing I tried, but after a certain point the corruption travels with it like a ghost in the machine…bad, bad dogs, Apple.

Anyway – Make sure you regularly use “Delete Project Render Files” to keep any project as healthy as possible, especially if you do lot’s graphics and color correcting, and audio work for that matter. You know, what we call editing.

Get any and all versions of a project that’s problematic out of your Project Folder.

Keep your project folder clean – Apple is absolutely crazy making this a “see everything program”. It’s like some senior member had the idea and no one had the balls to tell him that no Mac could actually run the program under the concept.

The RAM and project memory issues are unprofessional and absurd.
The corruption issues are beyond absurd.

[Jim Giberti]

FWIW it’s why we distribute everything that has to be delivered physically on thumb drives.

Even the most “technically unsophisticated” clients we deal with want to show their work in HD , hi-res.