Problems with FCP 5.1.4 and OSX 10.4.9

Question

I upgraded to Tiger, installed the new FCP Studio and everything was working fantastic.
The next morning there was a software update for Tiger and FCP-5.1.4, it's been a nightmare ever since. When I restarted FCP would not recognize my Sony HDR FX1.
I had this problem once before with 4.5 and I fixed it by re-installing FCP and doing the upgrades, so that's what I did with 5 but this time there was a new problem. It wouldn't let me work on anything that I had opened since I did the software update, so I had to do the update again and then FCP wouldn't recognize my camcorder again on startup. If you pressed log and capture you could control the camera but no capture was possible.
So I re-set the easy set-up and presto! everything was fine and I worked productively for a few days.
But then I had to capture some SD from my Canon GL2 so I reset all the settings for DV NTSC and reset the easy set-up for DV NTSC but now FCP won't recognize my GL2 on start-up. If I click log and capture I can control the camera but no capture.
My next try to solve my problem was to downgrade back to my original 10.4.6 and FCP 5.1
That put be back to square one and everything works fine again except I am left with the problem that everything that I worked on after I did the update won't open, I get error 41.
Now I know this is because I am now trying to work on these projects with 5.1 after they were worked on in 5.1.4. But the problem is that everytime I update to 5.1.4 I can no longer capture or print to tape.
I tried the trashing the FCP prefs thing and the repairing permissions thing but I can't seem to solve the problem.
Has anyone else had any problems using FCP 5.1.4 and OSX 10.4.9?

Answer 1

Not sure how you tried to install 10.4.8 but if all
else fails you can always reinstall the original
operating system that came with your Mac using 'Erase
and Install' then upgrade it to 10.4.8 - probably in
stages.
Erase and install should be used as a last resort! A better option is to use the "archive and install" feature. It renames your old system folder and creates a new one for the OS you just re-installed. That way you don't have to reinstall everything, your user accounts and emails should all still be there, and if something doesn't work, you have your old system folder to pull things like preference files out of.
Eric