LAFCPUG: Troubleshooting FAQs

From FAQwiki

Revision as of 22:55, 11 June 2008

How do I trash my preferences?

Q. How do I trash my preferences?

Follow the instructions here: How to trash my Preferences

From Nick Meyers:

Both of these offer support for multiple users:

Mulituser Pro is from the folks who brought you "FCP Attic"

And FCP Manager seems to be a new kid on the block.

Another good preference trasher application is FCP Attic

Another good tool is Preference Manager from Digital Rebellion.

Another nice tool is Pro App Reset from InstructorAssets

FCP won't launch

Everytime I try to launch it begins but then quits in the middle

• A. Trash your preferences and try again.

• B. Un-hook all external USB and FW devices and try again.

• C. Your project is so big, you need more Ram.

• D. Your Hard Drives are more than 90% full

• E. Create a new user account on your Mac and log in as that user and try again.

• F. Try launching FCP from the program icon rather than the project file

Serial number issues

Q. I'm having problems with my serial number. How do I delete the original so I can re-enter my serial number in FCP?

In your main drive, go to Library > Application Support >ProApps and drag the 'Final Cut Studio System ID' file to the trash. Empty the trash.

Then relaunch FCP and you should be prompted to re-enter your serial number.

I'm getting dropped frame warnings.

Q. I'm getting dropped frame warnings. What can I do to make it stop?

The reasons for dropped frames are many and varied. It could be something simple and easy to fix, such as an incorrectly set canvas size, or it could be expensive and difficult, such as having your media stored on a drive that is too slow for the type of work you are doing, requiring you to buy different equipment and transfer all your media to that.

A good places to start the hunt for your cause of dropped frames is the Apple Support site article 'Final Cut Pro: Dropped Frames Causes and Solutions'

How do I reinstall/uninstall FCP?

Q. How do I reinstall FCP?

From the Apple Support site 'Troubleshooting Basics' article , which can be found here: Troubleshooting Basics

To [reinstall FCP] you need to remove the application and its receipts, then install Final Cut Pro and use Software Update to install additional updates. You don't have to remove everything that was installed with Final Cut Pro. Follow the steps below to completely reinstall a fresh copy of Final Cut Pro. Note: Make sure that you have your installation discs and serial number handy before starting this.

• 1. Open the Applications folder.
  
• 2. Drag the Final Cut Pro application to the Trash.
  
• 3. Go to /Library/Receipts.
  
• 4. In the Receipts folder, select the "FinalCutPro.pkg" file.
  
• 5. Choose View > as List to view the contents in a list.
  
• 6. Click the Date Modified column header so you can easily see all of the receipts that were installed at the same time as Final Cut Pro.
  
• 7. Drag the FinalCutPro.pkg receipt to the Trash, as well as any other items that have the same modification date within 3 minutes of the FinalCutPro.pkg's modification date.
  
• 8. Click the Name column header to sort the list alphabetically.
  
• 9. Drag any other receipts whose names begin with "Final Cut Pro" to the Trash.
  
• 10. Insert your Final Cut Pro installation disc and install Final Cut Pro.
  
• 11. When finished, use Software Update (under the Apple menu) to update your software to the latest version.
  

Also

Digital Rebellion has a FREE FCS Uninstaller called FCS Remover which removes everything except your projects, render files, captured footage Third-party plugins

Find it here: FCS Remover

FCP can't see my camera/deck after upgrade

Q. FCP can't see my camera/deck. It used to work fine, but now I can't capture.

A. This sometimes happens when you have upgraded to Tiger (OS 10.4) and/or QuickTime 7 and FCP 5.1. To get it working again, you need to remove your old QuickTime receipts. Step by step instructions on how to do this can be found here :

Final Cut Pro: Restoring a DV device connection in QuickTime 7

Other things that it could be:

• Dust in the firewire connections -> Quit FCP, make sure all the connections are free of dust, replace the cables and try again.
  
• Broken firewire cable -> Try using another firewire cable.
  
• Fried Firewire card -> Try connecting another device, such as an external firewire drive to test whether the firewire is working.
  
• Incorrect patching -> For testing purposes, remove all external devices connected to your computer except the keyboard, mouse and deck/camera. If you can capture with all external devices removed, check that the connection *pathways of your devices (such as hubs) are correct.
  
• Momentary tantrum -> Shut down the computer, wait ten seconds and then try again.
  

I'm not getting any picture on my external monitor

Q. I'm not getting any picture on my external monitor.

A. Make sure that your View > External Video is set to ‘All Frames’. Also, try clicking Apple-F12, which toggles the external video on and off.

Other things that it could be:

• Make sure that all cables are connected securely and are not damaged.
  
• Make sure that all external devices are connected and turned on before you open FCP.
  
• Check that you haven’t left the Log and Capture window open.
  
• It could be that you have zoomed in on your canvas or viewer. To fix this, go to the small button at the top middle of your canvas and viewer that has a percentage number in it. Click on this to change it to 'fit to view' or smaller. *
  
• Sometimes using View > Refresh A/V Devices can also help.
  

Why does my system seem slow or unresponsive?

Why does my system seem slow or unresponsive?

From Jim Perry
Final Cut Pro, and working with video in general, requires your Mac to perform at the top edge of its capabilities. Here are some things to look for:

• Make sure your Mac plenty of free disk space on all volumes. A rule of thumb is to have at least 10% free space on each partition. Your Mac makes use of free space to manage the large files involved in video processing and playback. When you have too little free space on a volume your Mac has to move chunks of data around to make space (kind of like those missing-piece puzzles) to store additional stuff. Then it has to read back from this disjointed mess. My experience is that if you keep sufficient free space on your volumes you do not need to worry about running defragmentation programs (which is a change from OS 9 and previous, where the Mac would run into fragmentation problems no matter what).

• Shut down any unnecessary programs, especially programs that run in the background like anti-virus utilities (you can scan your Mac for viruses manually when you are not working with video). To see what processes are using resources on your mac, run the application "Process Viewer" in your Applications/Utilities folder. You will see a continually updated list of all the processes (a single program can run more than one process) sorted by CPU usage. You can research what each process is on google.com to help track down any unruly applications.

• Turn off any settings that put your Mac or disks into sleep mode (System Preferences/Energy Saver).

• Watch out for troublesome USB or Firewire devices. I have a cordless mouse that slows the whole system down when it is low on batteries.

• Periodically you should "Repair Permissions" from the Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility). Also, your Mac runs certain maintenance tasks in the wee hours of the morning - if it is on. If you don't leave your Mac on continually, get a free copy of MacJanitor to run those tasks manually.

If you have optimized these things and performance is still not where you need it, consider these upgrades:

• Memory upgrades are probably the most bang for the buck in performance. Check your memory by selecting "About this Mac" from your Apple menu. Less than 1GB will definitely slow your performance; more is better.

• Put in a new drive (internal) as your capture disk. Use this disk only for capture, then wipe it clean between projects.

• Processor upgrades are expensive, and usually don't solve other performance bottlenecks. With lots of memory and disk space, the only place a slower processor will really show up is in render times.

Also see:

Troubleshooting your FCP System

When Good Apps go Bad

FCP Troubleshooting Basics

FCP 5.1.2 crashes on start up

Q. I just upgraded to FCP 5.1.2 and now FCP crashes before it even finishes loading. What the?

Apparently there are some Quicktime components that conflict with FCP 5.1.2 and may prevent FCP from starting up.

10/19/06 - UPDATE: Apple has just released a AppleCare doc sating that if you have more than 64 Quicktime Componoents installed, FCP 5.1.2 will fail to open. To work around this issue, you can remove or temporarily relocate some third-party components so that the total number of items in /Library/QuickTime/ is 63 or fewer.

Final Cut Pro 5 may fail to open with 64 or more QuickTime components installed

Final Cut Pro 5.1.2: Some third-party QuickTime components may cause Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 to unexpectedly quit at while opening.

A number of third-party companies develop QuickTime components (also sometimes referred to as plugins or codecs) that can enhance and extend the capabilities of QuickTime. In some cases, it's possible for Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 to encounter a conflict with a third-party component, preventing Final Cut Pro from starting normally.

Affected Products:

Final Cut Pro 5.1.2

Solution If final Cut Pro is unexpectedly quitting while opening, check to see if you have any third-party QuickTime components installed. You can take the following steps to temporarily relocate your third-party components. This is a way to test whether they are causing a conflict with Final Cut Pro.

In Finder, navigate to /Library/QuickTime/.
Drag any third-party (non-Apple) components to the desktop.

Note: The following components are not third-party components; they are installed by Apple software, and should not be removed.

• AppleHDVCodec.component
  
• AppleIntermediateCodec.component
  
• DVCPROHDCodec.component
  
• DVCPROHDMuxer.component
  
• DVCPROHDVideoDigitizer.component
  
• DVCPROHDVideoOutput.component
  
• DVCPROHDVideoOutputClock.component
  
• DVCPROHDVideoOutputCodec.component
  
• DesktopVideoOut.component
  
• FCP Uncompressed 422.component
  
• IMXCodec.component
  
• LiveType.component
  
• Motion.component
  
• If you're not sure whether a component is made by Apple or by a third party, you can check its version info to see if Apple made it.

Select the component in the Finder.
Choose File > Get Info.
In the Info window that appears, look at the Version info.

The components made by Apple will be marked with Apple copyright information.
If Final Cut Pro doesn't open normally after taking the steps listed above, then the issue you're seeing probably has a different cause than the one discussed here.
The document, "Final Cut Pro Troubleshooting Basics" is a good reference for general troubleshooting.

What maintenance should I do?

Is there any periodic maintenance I should do for my Mac?

Mac OS X is Unix based, and therefore runs its own maintenance programs in the wee hours of the morning and at other regularly scheduled times. If you tend to turn your computer off at night, these tests may not be being run.

This is no cause for alarm.

There are several good free applications you can get to run these tests whenever you like. One is MacJanitor
Another good, but slightly more complex one is Onyx

Also, you should repair your permissions periodically. Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Select your hard drive in the left hand panel, then click on the First Aid tab. Then click 'Repair Permissions'.

Most Mac OS X versions defragment themselves, to a pretty good degree.

You can also run Diskwarrior now and again just to make sure your directories are in good order.

Also read this article (Care and Feeding of Panther) by Charles Roberts for more helpful tips.
NOTE: Despite the "Panther" in the title, this article is relevant to OSX Tiger and above.

Up to this point (June 2008) there are still no viral, malicious spyware or adware that affects Mac OS X. And in fact if you are running FCP it is recommended that you do not leave anti-virus software running, as it can interfere with capture and cause dropped frames.

Mac OS X has been virus free for five years, but this is not to say that a virus will not happen. If you have a mission critical editing system, your best bet is to keep that system off the internet.

Greg Kozikowski adds:
If you do the First Aid tests while the normal system is running, the system files running at that instant will not get checked. Better to run the machine from the install CD and point the test to the now completely available System Drive.