[Mike Parfit]

What might one want from Leopard?

Stability?

Those of us with consistently unstable Final Cut Pro systems whose instability seems increased by the relationship between FCP and the capture cards, have this little (no doubt vain) hope that the Leopard-FCP setup might help. I have grasped at many straws for over a year now and I want to grasp at this one, but without drivers I can’t.

Not a complaint; I can wait. I’ve come to terms with taking my Kona card out of the machine for long renders and saving on every edit. Just an answer to the question.

Mike

[Mike Parfit]

Hi, Stephen,

People seem to have various solutions, including complete reinstallation, including reformatting the drive. That didn’t work for me — twice — but may for you.

The other things that have dramatically reduced the crashing for me and perhaps a few others, though not eliminated it completely, have been to remove 2 GB of the memory or to remove the Kona 3 card (Or the BM card). Removing the card has been almost completely successful for me, to the extent that when I have to do a long render I routinely just take it out and get on with it. In doing at least 50 of these I have had just one crash, but with the card in none of those renders would have been completed.

This workaround is, of course, completely unacceptable in a system dedicated to FCP but as you have noted here this problem is rare enough that many of those with stable systems simply see us as flailing amateurs and give advice accordingly.

I can see their point, because it is probably some obscure setting that’s doing us in and we may indeed feel foolish when we learn what it is. But it is good to know that other pros with dedicated systems and a willingness to troubleshoot vigorously are also experiencing variations on this story. So if it is a setting it is certainly obscure.

The bottom line is that FCP claims to be an everyman’s editing system uniquely usable by pros and amateurs alike, and if it is boobytrapping some of the relatively competent among us it is simply not fulfilling that promise.

To tell us that we have to spend, literally, thousands (given my remote location, particularly, and the down time that would result) to bring in highly-paid technical expertise to fix the problem (who would no doubt spend my money going through all the steps I have already taken before moving on to the more sophisticated ones) is very likely true but avoids the basic issue: If we have all the equipment Apple says we need and we install and use the program the way Apple says we must and it still does not work properly, then Apple is not providing us with the flexible, powerful, accessible and stable program that it touts FCP to be. If Apple and the equipment manufacturers who claim to work with Apple to make their stuff succeed with FCP, like BM and AJA, cannot solve this issue then there is no debate: They have let us down.

Mike

[Mike Parfit]

Thanks for the reply.

These comments seem right on the money, but they are kind of directed at people who haven’t used FCP long or who are just dabbling in this. However, what I’m grappling with, and I think most of the professionals who have this problem are grappling with, is systems that we think are already optimized for FCP. Both my systems that have instability are completely dedicated FCP systems. NOTHING else on them, including additional plugins. (Colorista has been on the system briefly, but there were no changes either when it was installed, or removed, and the only other things I have are Onyx and FCP Rescue.) So my system is much cleaner than that of many of the people whose systems work fine.

The odd thing is that the one computer in my office that does do multiple tasks — our Macbook Pro, which even runs Windows with VMware Fusion — does NOT have the same instability problems.

To me the FCP program, certainly by version 6, should work flawlessly with other legitimate programs on the system, and should work well with any techniques that editors bring to it, UNLESS it forewarns us not to do certain things. In other words, if setting a parameter to, let’s say, play 36 audio tracks real time, is likely to lead to crashes, inform us of that. Or if using HDV in a 1-hour timeline (which I have done) is risky, say so.

What I’m looking for is something of this nature that I think may be causing these situations. I have tried to eliminate things like this by experiment by comparing the stability of our Macbook Pro to the others, and so far the only thing that highly reduces the crashing is the removal of the Kona 3. However, the crashing still does occur during renders, but at much reduced intervals, so it’s apparent that the hiccup in FCP or in my configuration that brings these things on is only made worse by the Kona, not CAUSED by it.

So the mystery continues. I, too, hope Leopard may improve things, but I’m sure not counting on that one. Leopards are quiet, ghostly creatures in the forest with many ideas in their heads that they seldom share, and a taste for the blood of the careless; best be wary.

Thanks,

Mike

[Mike Parfit]

Sounds just like what happens to me, except I have the Kona 3. I take it out and I can render all night. But also, when I removed an internal raid array, most of the crashes went away, too. However, when I put the three disks back in as separate disks, the crashes returned! But only, of course, with the Kona card in the machine. It has become routine for me to remove the card when I have to do a long render. I can’t imagine that the contacts on the card can survive a lot of removing and replacing.

Mysterious, but it certainly seems that something in the OS or the machine is limping along when it comes to these capture cards.

Let us know if you find out anything, as I will do as well.

Good luck.

Mike

[Mike Parfit]

Hi, Jerry,

Thanks for the quick reply. Everything you mention has been done more than once without success. The most recent batch of memory has been tested thus: I removed 2GB, and the problem mostly went away. I took the 2GB that was working out and put the other 2GB in. Still the problem did not return. I have now done that several times. All the RAM works. The problem is only bad when I have 4GB in the machine AND the Kona 3 installed. If I either go down to 2GB OR take out the Kona 3 the problem pretty much goes away.

Believe me, many a squeaky clean fresh install has been done. That’s why I’m grasping at counterintuitive straws here.

Thanks!

Mike

[Mike Parfit]

Hi, again,

Thanks for all the responses. I have not solved the problem. I’ve posted a new thread asking a different question, this time about internal raid arrays. I’d be curious to know if any of you who are having crashes have internal arrays, so if you do, could you respond on the new thread?

Thanks!

Mike

[Mike Parfit]

It’s very good to know others have this problem. I mean, I wouldn’t wish this on others, but at least if more than one person experiences it we can call it to Apple’s attention as a bug, not some solitary machine.

I also would like to know if removing the capture card — Blackmagic or Kona — helps the rendering problem. In my system it does. Now I routinely remove my Kona 3 if I want to do an overnight render and so far — probably 20 long renders — that’s always worked. Anyone else been able to do this workaround?

Thanks,

Mike

[Mike Parfit]

For drives we have a 500 GB Seagate System drive and 3 internal Seagate 750s in raid 0.

However, the same exact problem occurred on our G5 with 2 500s in raid 0 and various external firewires.

Thanks,

Mike

[Mike Parfit]

QT 7.2?

I don’t have anything other than FC Studio on this machine. Same with our G5.

I have a Mac Book Pro that has a few mainstream things on it like Microsoft Office, but the Mac Book Pro runs Final Cut 6 flawlessly and never crashes, so I use it to do some of my renders.

But what’s this about QT 7.2? I had seen a couple of references to people having some problems, but not lots. Also, this problem has been going on for 16 months in exactly the same form and frequency on two machines, so it’s hard to imagine that QT 7.2 is related to it. Also, we have QT 7.2 on the Mac Book Pro, and, again, no crashes. 2 GB memory in that machine.

Please note Michael Alberts’s post. This is exactly it. We can render short clips forever. This is fine for some things. It’s not even doable for others. And we also have crashes sometimes when I scroll the play head across an unrendered clip. Boom, it’s gone.

Please note that for him, too, going to 2 GB RAM helps.

Something is going on here.

Thanks,

Mike

[Mike Parfit]

Hi, Jerry,

Logic board does come to mind, and unfortunately we have to deliver our 2-hour show in 2 weeks so it is impossible to lose the use of the machine, crippled as things are, for the time it would take to have it diagnosed. However, the consistency of the problem between the two different machines, plus the fact that it works OK at 2 GB, plus the fact that Compressor runs flawlessly for many many hours at a time using the machine’s full bandwith as shown in the activity monitor, would seem to indicate to me that a logic board problem is only a remote possibility. But clearly when the work’s done we’ll have it checked out.

And we have removed and reinstalled the various iterations of the Kona 3 drivers many, many times over the 16 months that this problem has existed.

Let me ask you one other thing — do you do a lot of HDV with those many machines you’re using? I am using HDV very heavily, and I’ve wondered if that could be a contributing factor.

Thanks,

Mike