The final cut, she crashes. It seems to be the project's fault.
by Rob Schultz
on
May 20, 2008 at 1:35:17 pm
Okay, here we go - I'm an assistant / consultant / would-be day saver on this project:
I have before me a 2x3GHz Mac Pro, running 10.5.2, FCP 6.0.3, QT 7.4.5. 6GB of RAM. The only system change that has taken place in the past few weeks was when I pointed out that the RAM was installed improperly (it contains 6GB, but for a while, only 2GB were registering), but the crashes are becoming more frequent.
The project file is currently focusing on a single timeline of about 7 minutes, a promo. The file references approx. 1TB of data. The project does mix interview footage in HDCAM (ingested as DVCPRO HD 1080i60 @ 24fps, 1280 x 1080), b-roll in HDV (HDV 1080i60 @ 29.97 1440 x 1080) and what appear to be temp motion graphics (H.264 @ 29.97, 480x270 native)
The timeline that has been in use is HD 1440x1080 @ 29.97, matching the HDV, although I have also tried creating a timeline that matches the properties of the HDCAM stuff, since either way, FCP6 supposedly plays nice mixing formats, right?
All to say: FCP is crashing a lot. I can't play through the entire promo without a crash. It doesn't crash at a particular place in the promo, entirely rendered or not-rendered-at-all. Sometimes it crashes whilst rendering, but it's only pieces of a 7min whole (I read about people having trouble with the 28+min renders). Sometimes it crashes whilst idling - while I'm browsing the forums here, presumably out of spite.
I'm also running TechTool Deluxe on it, which shows that all the hardware is in good shape, except the Drive Hardware category. The machine contains a 250GB boot drive and a striped RAID of two 1TB drives. The worry was that the RAID could be failing and/or causing so much crashing so dangerously close to deadlines. So I loaded up the backup drive, a 3.2TB array that contains all the footage, on a different mac pro of similar specs (has a kona card the main mac does not, and less RAM).
...And it STILL crashes! So although we may have discovered a drive problem, this seems software based. Is it mixed formats? Presumably the problem is more than just 'volume of edits.' It's a fast-paced program, but the crash-while-idle seems to dismiss that one. Many or most of the clips at this point have the 3-way CC and/or vignette filters applied. There are about a half a dozen text generator clips in use as well.
The project is Saved As daily, I've read through shane's stock answers and saw to it that there are no non-apple quicktime components installed, and I have sacrificed the preference files. I am now looking into ordering a spring-born goat as a certain kind of ritual may be in order. Any alternatives that come to mind would be welcome.
Re: The final cut, she crashes. It seems to be the project's fault. by Paul Leyland on May 20, 2008 at 2:32:47 pm
Hi
Do you have any jpegs in your project? FCP used to reject jpegs with CMYK colour. It now allows them in but crashes all the time. Replace any CMYK jpegs with RGB.
Re: The final cut, she crashes. by Rob Schultz on May 20, 2008 at 2:39:00 pm
Nope and nope, the only time I have more than one sequence open has been while cutting and pasting to test out situations like the different sequence settings mentioned above, and there are no jpegs or any other stills in the project or bins. We have the HDCAM, the HDV, the H.264, and the Htext generators.
We're escalating beyond my league, probably, but google suggests that most people reporting similar problems have DVD player crashing...is MPEG2 the culprit?
-------------
Spoke too soon, naturally. The next crash didn't resemble the first very strongly:
Re: The final cut, she crashes. (error reporting) by Chris Monico on May 20, 2008 at 3:19:27 pm
Was the project created in 6.0.2 and then upgraded to 6.0.3? We've been having issues with larger projects when they were created in 6.0.2 and upgraded.
Re: The final cut, she crashes. (error reporting) by Rafael Amador on May 20, 2008 at 4:02:35 pm
Hi Rob,
The first Log says that crashed the Thread 36. But we can not see that Thread.
Nothing seems wrong in your workflow. Only that H264 as footage is not much recommendable.
Mac OX 10.5.2-FC 6.02-QT 7.4.1
G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM-BlackMagic Extreme
PMBP 17"Core2Duo 4GbRAM-AJA ioHD
JVC DTV-17"
SONY EX-1 . SONY PD170
..and always a big mess on top of the table.
Re: The final cut, she crashes. (error reporting) by Rob Schultz on May 20, 2008 at 4:33:56 pm
Thread 36 was posted immediately below the notice that it crashed in that post, I snipped out the rest. It was the AVACreateRendererDVDExt stuff. And presumably we'll ditch the h.264 when the real stuff shows up.
For now, I'm trying to make an EDL or XML document and create an all new project from this - I can't narrow down what version of FCP they had when the project started, whether it was 6.0.2 or 6.0.3, and as best I can tell, it's just a corrupt project file...mutter mumble, but it IS the last day of the project...
Re: The final cut, she crashes. (error reporting) by Zak Mussig on May 20, 2008 at 5:59:39 pm
Rob,
I, like David, came for the title and stayed for the thread...
I would try both uninstalling the new RAM as well as using Compressor to make the h.264 files something more FCP friendly (maybe match on of your other two codecs). You'd obviously want to do these one at a time; otherwise you wouldn't know which was the fix.
I get the sense that the RAM may have been damaged from being installing incorrectly. How long was the machine running like that? Even if it's reporting for duty, it may be a little hung over.
FCP hates h.264 in the timeline... on par with .m2v files. This may be causing some QuickTime issue which is leading to crashes.
Those are kinda shots in the dark, but I hope it helps.
Re: H.264? Dude, WT (insert expletive here)! by Rob Schultz on May 21, 2008 at 11:57:04 pm
In this case, it wasn't possible to keep FCP open long enough to export clips, and the crashing was happening before the graphics folks started delivering stuff - I'll watch out for the h.264 in the future though.
At long last, we managed to copy and paste audio and video tracks from the old project into a new project, just trying repeatedly until it pasted without a crash.
Thanks to all for the helpful offers and suggestions. I don't know when the project corrupted, but that seems to have been the case.
FCP6 crashes with ProRes HQ / Redcine .r3d files by Aram Bakker on May 28, 2008 at 3:22:11 pm
Hi everybody, i´m completely new in this forum and my english, above all the technical one, is not very good, i´m spanish in spite of my dutch name.
Well, i´m a videoclips director (beginner) with my own little production company, that has his own FCP 6 workstation running on a MacPro
, wich is
Nombre del modelo: Mac Pro
Identificador del modelo: MacPro3,1
Nombre del procesador: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Velocidad del procesador: 3.2 GHz
Número de procesadores: 2
Número total de núcleos: 8
Caché de nivel 2 (por procesador): 12 MB
Memoria: 8 GB
Velocidad del bus: 1.6 GHz
Versión de la ROM de arranque: MP31.006C.B05
Versión SMC: 1.25f4.
With it i have a Raid 5.0(Sonnet).
Right now i have in my machine a project that had to be hand in yesterday, and i cant end it cause the FCP crashes constantly, and with it the Finder, so i had no choice to press the button to turn it off, anytime! 5 times daily, four days!
So now, though i have my backups of all the Media and the project, i told my client i´ll stop the project since i resolve the problem, my machine´s in dangerous.
About the memory i have 160 Gb free on the HD, and 2 TB free on the Raid, so that´s not the problem i think.
To summarize,
i´m working with .mov ProRes 422 HQ files (1920x1080) captured from REDCINE software from .r3d files (i shooted the videoclip with the REDONE digital camara). All my project and sequence settings fits to that.
Special or "unusual" things i´m doing in this project:
-Using a multiclip sequence.
-Using three variable-speed sequences (one for each instrument, wich i shooted at slow motion and then i fit them to the song´s sincro at 235% speed, more or less -variable-.
-I use to, in the first days of the edit, copy and paste segments from these sequences to the Master one, and i use to have 6 sequences or so opened at the same time (raid 5.0 and 8 nucleos allow that, i think). In fact, the FCP didn´t ask me for renders, it went fine till
IT CRASHES...
...then...
-I call my expert friends at the support (Gráfica Directa here in Madrid), and told me to erased the Preferences with the FCP rescue, it didn´t run on my Leopard so i did by hand in the customers library and erased the .plist and all the others in the FCP folder(Prefs,Obj cache,prof cache), as Ken´s Stone´s and fellars say.
Then, i checked and repaired the permissions of the HD, and also pass the Raid through Disk Warrior, rebuild and replace just to be sure.
Everything were ok.
-I start to reduce the number of open sequences in the timeline, and stop copy and paste segments from variable-speed sequences and from the multiclip to the Master sequence.
-As i need the slow motion shots, i work with them with the Fit to Fill option.
-As i need the multiclip shots, i put them in the timeline and substitute them pushing F, and taking it from the viewer. No renders asked. The playback goes just fine
I DIDN´T USE ANY FILTER, TRANSITIONS, ETC, NO EFFECTS NEITHER HARD PROCESSING FUNCTIONS...
But then, anytime during a playback
IT CRASHES!!!
And always crashes all the system the same way: FCP crashes, i force launch of FCP, it launchs but still appears alive in the dock, then i insist and nothing happens, i can use the other software..but when i get into the Finder it crashes also!! i force launch, everything disappear from the desk, unless the force-launch window, and doesn´t want to relaunch till i press the f---- on/off button of the MacPro. Always the same. It really hurts!
The machine is 5 months old, and i had to format both HD and Raid once.
Two months ago, due to a problem that i had with a colorist that put the scratch disk of the Color software in the HD and not in the Raid, the Color crashes and the Raid appears with a padlock in the desk and start strange and irregular behaviour. So with the supervision of the support guys, i back-uped everything, format the Raid, finish in 40 days some works i had in process and when i finished them, following the support guys advice, i format the HD with the proper back-up (including the Media of the REDONE project that´s tormenting me now). Reinstall MacOs and reinstall FCP 6, reconnect the Redone project and its media, and start the crashes and hungs. With the support guys i thought could be the project, that was corrupted, so i made a new project with exactly the same settings, copy and paste all the sequences(including the master one and the multicamara clip), and save it as a new project.
No improves, still crashes.
PLEASE NOTE: THE ADMIN TEAM HAVE REMOVED PAGES AND PAGES OF FCP ERROR REPORTS FROM THE END OF THIS POST AS THESE ARCANE CODES DO NOTHING TO ASSIST USERS IN ISOLATING THE PROBLEMS. NOT SINCE MAC OS7 HAVE CRYPTIC ERROR CODES MEANT MUCH OF ANYTHING TO ANYONE EXCEPT FOR THE MACHINE-LEVEL CODERS (WHO DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN FORUMS NOR DO THEY OFFER ASSISTANCE HERE). PLEASE DO NOT POST THESE KINDS OF THINGS ON THESE BOARDS IN THE FUTURE. THANK YOU.
