FCPX 10.0.7 hangs when loading multiple projects - a non-destructive work around

Question

FCPX 10.0.7 hangs when loading multiple projects - a non-destructive work around....
Hi Guys, I upgraded from FCPX 10.0.6 to 10.0.78 and discovered to my immense frustration that many of my 100+ FCPX projects would not load.
Symptom:
FCPX 10.0.7 appears to hang ("spinning beachball") with either high CPU% on a single core or  with 1-2% CPU busy (activity monitor.app) when a FINAL CUT PROJECT is selected. No logs error information in /var/logs ..hmm
notices that the "status circle" spins around endlessly.
Actvity Monitor.app shows "Final Cut Pro (Not Responding)
and also I notice in some cases that an OEM filter ("NEAT VIDEO NOISE REDUCTION") is in progress to be loaded. FCPX V10.0.7 must be FORCED QUITtted to remove it from system.
History: Upgraded FCPX from V10.0.6 to V10.0.07.
"FINAL CUT EVENTS" and "FINAL CUT PROJECTS" on a single file system on SAS 16TB disk array (768MB/sec read via AJA system test) and 60% utilised capacity… FCP EVENTS has 400 events in it .. some 5.2TB of Prores essence etc .. all works fine! (i.e. the storage system is first class and is NOT the issue)
32GB of RAM on MAC PRO 2009 Nehalem 16 x Vcore with ATI 5780 card and ATTO HBA's (i.e. plenty of resources!)
As usual with any "upgrade" to FCPX 10.0.? all the EVENT objects need to be upgraded. In my case this takes an hour or two.. so I do that when asleep.
After experiencing above, I restored the FCPX EVENTS LIbrary of that file system from LTO4 tape archive (BRU-PE ) and still had the same issues as above.
WORKAROUND:
FORCEd QUIT FCPX V10.0.7
RENAMEd "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects" to "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects_original"
created (make) a new "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects" (use finder)
For each project !!! in "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects_original", (do one project at a time!!!)
MOVE "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects_original/one_fcpx_projext_nnnn_folder" to "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects"
Make sure you move ONLY one project at a time. If you have a subfolder of projects, please do each project one at a time (serially!)
Launch FCPX V10.0.7 and BE PATIENT!!! .. DONT click or fiddle with the UI.. it seems when you intervene it locks up as well…
Let FCPX V10.0.7 settle….
select the project you just added above  and RELINK any objects it needs. Thumbnails and proxies will be rendered again.. just be patient
wait until ALL the rendering as stopped.
QUIT FCPX V10.0.7
(now if FCPX locks up, just force it out and start again as above).
repeat for all projects in "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects_original" (go to step 4 ad do until all projects moved)
When all is COMPLETED MAKE SURE YOU ARCHIVE an instance (or make a backup ) of "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects"
If this procedure has worked the folder "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects_original" will have zero (nill, none) projects in it.
I have managed to restore ALL my  "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects" this xmas between drinking etc. I'm satisfied that its all ok.
Other issues:
use DISK WARRIOR or TT PRO 6 to make sure that the file system volume where your  "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects" are is physically ok. I noticed some entries in file system's  volume table that represented objects in  "/volumes/some_file_system_volume/Final Cut Projects" were at fault when I used these utilities… FWIW.
SUMMARY: yes this took ages to d, however luckily I had everything in at least 3 instances in an archive which has saved me many time in the old FCP& and prior days… it was just a matter of time to put it back together.
I put this outage down to may be my own impatience when I first fired up FCPX 10.0.7 after the upgrade.
I'm interested if this workaround is helpful to others and in addtiion if others have a more satisfactory remedy.
HTH
warwick
Hong Kong

Answer 1

Hi Eb, yeah I could not see any "memory leak" or unusual consumption of REAL memory whose less availability would cause excessive PAGEing and SWAPping as seen in the Activty Monitor.app
I watch this carefully especially the use of REAL MEMORY by 3rd Paryy apps. BTW there are a few that cause ALLOCATED but NOT USED memory (blue in the A.M.app UI). Simply a unix PURGE command can release that memory and help clean up the PAGE and VM swap files (its alleged!).
Yes, you may be might with the element of "Luck" involved. I would add though, that having MULTIPLE project displaying in the STORYLINE window and loading always caused my FCP 10.0.7 jam up at startup with h symtoms and observations I described.
TIP: I might also add that for a super speedy launch of FCPX one may also emply setting each PROJECT's UI to show only AUDIO thus negating the need to contstruct or reneder out a PREVIEW ui in each clip in the storyline.
Your/Apples  suggestion of the movememt (rename) of "Final Cut Pro Projects" to "Final Cut Pro Projects Hidden" is similar to what I proposed above to stop FCPX 10.0.7 accessing and building it up at startup. This workaround has been useful inthe past as well.
ALso one might also get the stick out and remove (delete/rm) the ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.FinalCut.savedState in one's home ~/Library so that FCPX wont do such a neat job reinstating FCPX last time you crashed it... This has been helpful also in diagnosing my issues.
Lastly I have noticed that:
impatience clicking on the FCPX UI when in the unstable state causes it to lock up with NO visible CPU% busy.... as if its waiting on something which is usually me MEMTERMing it via FORCE QUIT and
the projects where I have employed the NEAT VIDEO Noise Reduction OEM filter for FCPX seem to exasserbate the PROJECT loading issues when several PROJECTS are available at FCPX startup time.
As of yesterday I have some 400+ EVENTS Final Cut Pro Events and 130+ projects of varying compexites in a single file system on Final Cut Pro Projects all working fine and as good as gold again!
Oh and one more thing, I had to RE-RENDER many projects of them again... strange as the FCP PROJECT library was renstated from a recent LTO archive as of V10.0.6 FCPX.. strange that...I would have expected if the projects and events were 10.0.6/7 compatable as proposed by Tom, that this would not be necessary... hmm straneg that
I'll monitor this thread.
Thanks for your comments lads!