FCPX never ending transcoding after Mavericks?

Question

Hello folks,
Saw some of the other threads about problems with FCPX and Mavericks.  Fortunately, everything has been fine for me... up to this point.  I didn't see this discussed yet so I figured I'd post my issue in it's own thread. 
I've been trying to import some files (AVCHD) as usual for ongoing projects.  I copy the files and transcode them to optimized media.  Never had a problem before.  It seems to copy all the files fine, but seemingly never stops transcoding.  I've been trying to import two different projects... about 4-5 hours of footage each... and it's been two days now and the transcoding never ends!  Typically one such project takes about real time to import and transcode (4-5 hours, if not faster, never really timed it).  I'd begin an export in the morning and come back after lunch and it would always be done. 
That is no longer the case it seems. 
Has anyone else experience the same issue?  I just installed any and all updates available (nothing for FCPX however), restarted my computer and FCPX, and am trying again.  Hopefully the footage ingests fine this time.  But for the sake of losing more time and getting more frustrated, I'm hoping someone out there has a solution to this in the event the same problem persists for me.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
Matt

Answer 1

Hi Russ,
Thanks for taking the time to respond.  You've been extremely helpful in the past!   As an update... I started the import around 7pm last night (EST).  This morning, at 5am, it was still importing and transcoding... but it looked like it was at least working.  After restarting last night, I tried to import and transcode a single short clip before doing the full import and that was easily successful. 
When I get to the import prompt, I only check off "Copy files to Final Cut Events folder" and "Create optimized media".   This workflow has been great for me.  I turn off background rendering and don't even render 2 hour long projects with heavily edited footage before exporting to m4v master files (which turn out just fine without the rendering).  That's beside the point though. 
Back on track, when I open the Background Tasks, of course the transcoding is going.  The Importing Media is stuck on 99%.  Not sure if that's normal or not... never really paid attention to that in the past.   The Rendering says it's creating audio waveforms.  Again, not sure if that's normal or not. 
In Activity Monitor, I might have found a problem.  It seems FCPX is only using around 0.5% of CPU during the import.  No other program is running really except for Activity Monitor, which would leapfrog FCPX in how much of the CPU it's using at time.  At the bottom, it says my computer is around 98-99% idle!  That all raises an eyebrow to say the least.  I'm not a computer whiz when it comes to the technical aspect of how my system might be performing and I have admittedly not tried an import on another machine yet (I have three iMac's).  So it may just be an issue with this one machine. 
It's a 2011 model year running a 2.93 quad, i7.  At least I'm pretty sure of that.  I'm on a corporate event now typing away from another one of my iMac's and won't even know if the import and transcoding back at home is successful until I get back in tonight around 6:30 or so. 
Even if it is, there's definitely something going on with how long it's taking.  What's typically a 4-5 hour process (est) was still ingesting 10 hours later.