Motion 2.1.2 crashes, quits unexpectedly, seemingly at random

Question

Bear with me, as I am a relatively new Mac owner; however, I did try to first find, and read, all of the existing posts concerning this same topic, beforehand. I thank you in advance your input, and will mark this thread as "solved" or "helped" if we can get this issue resolved.
I have a Quad G5, running 10.4.8 with 2.5 Gb of RAM, and using the GeForce 6600 video card. In the FCP suite of programs, I have had no problems running Final Cut or DVD Studio (can't say I have found a use for Soundtrack Pro yet).
Motion, on the other hand, has crashed a great deal, and with baffling irregularity. It often aborts on loading (I'd say about 1 out of every 5 of 6 tries to open the problem). Sometimes it crashes when I try to create a new project or open an existing one. In order to dedicate my resources to Motion, I have been closing all other programs before launching.
Other times, I have been working in Motion, and it terminates unexpectedly. This has yet to happen when working with text (unlike many others who have posted here about Motion crashing). Also, I am not using any 3rd party filters. Two of the most recent crashes happened after trying to apply the Basic 3D filter to a replicated object. Another crash occurred when I tried to play a 10 second clip I was working on, with the Light Streaks 1.mov in one of the layers.
Following the advice on the motionsmarts site, I have checked the "fixed resolution" flag of each layer as I create them. I have also been keeping the projects at 8-bit Bit Depth.
The following are some of the header entries in the Motion crash log from the most recent abends:
Date/Time: 2007-01-25 18:50:44.071 -0500
OS Version: 10.4.8 (Build 8L127)
Report Version: 4
Command: Motion
Path: /Applications/Motion.app/Contents/MacOS/Motion
Parent: WindowServer [55]
Version: 2.1.2 (2.1.2)
Build Version: 2
Project Name: Motion
Source Version: 1976100
PID: 214
Thread: 24
Exception: EXCBADACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERNPROTECTIONFAILURE (0x0002) at 0x0000001f
2007-01-25 19:07:30.341 Motion[402] invalid drawable
Date/Time: 2007-01-24 20:15:47.252 -0500
OS Version: 10.4.8 (Build 8L127)
Report Version: 4
Command: Motion
Path: /Applications/Motion.app/Contents/MacOS/Motion
Parent: WindowServer [91]
Version: 2.1.2 (2.1.2)
Build Version: 2
Project Name: Motion
Source Version: 1976100
PID: 663
Thread: 0
Exception: EXCBADACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERNPROTECTIONFAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000000
2007-01-24 19:34:25.341 SyndicationAgent[642] WARNING: BestCalendarDateFromString - can't interpret: 'Wed 24 Jan 2007 16:12:47 -800'
Jan 24 20:09:53 justin-coles-power-mac-g5 crashdump[650]: Motion crashed
Quad G5   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   2.5 Gb RAM, nVIDIA GeForce 6600

Answer 1

Finally placed a call with Apple support, and they also recommended trashing my preferences. I tried to do that before, but I was apparently looking in the wrong directory (whoops). The correct library is user -> library -> preferences and then the file is "com.apple.motion.plist", just in case others are looking in the wrong location.
I am going to leave this question as unanswered for now, because I want to work with Motion for a few more days before I mark this as "solved". However, at this time, Motion has not crashed once, and I have been giving it a real workout.
The other recommendation from the tech, in case trashing the preferences doesn't work, was to remove the 2 Gb of RAM I added, and then use Motion for awhile. That will be my next step if Motion acts up any in the next few days of testing.
Some things to keep in mind if you are having the problem with Motion crashing:
- Trash your preferences and then reboot
- Try to remove any devices since the program last worked, and try Motion without them. If that works, then re-add those components and test Motion again.
- Upgrade Motion AND the FCP suite (don't just upgrade Motion by itself).
- Uninstall any 3rd party filters and test again.
These are just some of the recommendations the tech gave me. Like I've said, it looks like my problem has been resolved, but I'm not counting those chickens just yet. I will post again to this thread if it hasn't crashed in the next 5 -7 days.
Quad G5   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   2.5 Gb RAM, nVIDIA GeForce 6600