Let's List Our Leopard Experiences...

[Kevin Spahr]

Maybe we can save some headaches, or give courage to others.

I'll start with a headache...

Installed MacOSX 10.5 on my 12" G4 PowerBook, it has Final Cut Express HD 3 on it and FCE will no longer work! Tries to start, look at the pretty beach ball, and then it goes away.

Tried deleting preferences and added plug-ins without success. Maybe FCE3 is just too old?

I'm afraid to try it on my main machine (FCP5 & MacPro) - I have jobs in-progress there.

Some one give me courage...

[Boyd Ostroff]

Heh, you won't get any courage from me! I always wait quite awhile before upgrading to the next version of MacOS X - and more often than not it's when I get it pre-installed on a new machine. But I'm still running 10.3.9 on my G4 powerbook :-)

[Robert Lane]

Kevin,

As mentioned in many threads, it's imperative with 10.5 that you do a clean install, not simply upgrade on top of your existing OS version.

It's also never a good idea to do a major OS upgrade while you have unfinished projects.

Here's what you should do for both Powerbook and MacPro:

- Make an image of your boot drive (you can do this easily by using the MacOS 10.4 install disks and bring up Disk Utility); save this on an external somewhere.
- Do a clean install of Leopard on either machine, grab any applicable OS updates, do a "repair permissions", reboot then try installing FCE.
- Make sure your G4 Powerbook is has a Leopard-compatible CPU - goto this webpage and cross-reference your machine:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/refurblist.html

On your MacPro the alternative for testing 10.5 compatibility would be to install it on a second internal drive, load all your relevant apps and updates and see how things play with each other. If all goes well you could import your projects, continue working them and see if any major problems occur. If they do, you won't have to go through the process of either full re-installation or, re-loading your saved boot image.

- *Finish* your FCE projects *first* before you upgrade either system or, make sure you save a current project copy using Media Manager prior to doing the OS upgrade in case you have to revert back to your 10.4 image.
- Make sure you have the latest version of FCE 3 - which is 3.5.

This should help.

[Sheila Ward]

I agree with Robert on the clean install. It's a pain re-installing everything, but the time on the front-end is worth it in the long run. It also forces us to make sure we have good backups and that we keep up with install disks and serial numbers :-)

My main editing machine is a Mac Pro. I have no plans to upgrade it until I'm confident everything I need will work. I did a clean install of Leopard on my MacBook Pro last night and I'm using it as my test machine. As I type this, Final Cut Studio 2 is installing. I'll be testing it over the next couple days and will report any issues that come up.

I used SuperDuper! to backup my MacBook Pro, so I can boot from the USB drive should I get into any trouble, plus copy over any files I need. When I upgrade my Mac Pro, I'll do the same so if there are any issues I can quickly boot back to my Tiger system and keep working with no down time.

[Cole McDonald]

Final cut also installs goofy stuff in the system that locks itself to your current setup for its authorization system/copy protection. Small changes in the system don't seem to break it, but I had to reinstall going from 10.3 to 10.4, but not any of the inbetween ones.

Nuke and Pave (who catches the reference? ... who's a real old school mac game geek here?).

[Joseph Hutson]

I just installed Leapord, and need to use FCS 1. It allows me to open it, but locks up immediately!!!

I don't know how to do the clean installation...what do you mean, and is it too late.

What is the future for me, and what do I have to do.

I need to have a short movie done before tonight's church!!!

[Robert Lane]

Joseph,

All is not lost; if you simply installed Leopard over your Tiger installation you can easily go back to that install by looking at your main Mac HDD for a folder called "Previous OS" or something of that nature (it's been so long since I've done that). In there is an entire copy of the previous OS and it's applications.

Here's an older webpage about this process; I believe this will work with going back to 10.4 also:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?...41201071052204

[Cole McDonald]

back up your data, wipe the drive, reinstall the OS, reinstall final cut...

fastest, best case, reinstall final cut... refer to my previous post here, it does things with the system to keep folks from passing around the software.

[Charles Papert]

With everyone recommending erase and install, I'm not sure if I understand what the best procedure is to reinstall all of my files, apps, preferences etc. as simply as possible...does the Apple Migration Assistant make this seamless, or do I have to copy over things individually? You don't have to reinstall ALL of your apps from discs, do you??

[Kevin Spahr]

I understand that a fresh, clean install is the best, but that will not guarantee that old software will run properly under a new operating system. I would love to hear of one person running an old version of Final Cut on Leopard. Every other app I have works great after the upgrade to Leopard.

Over the many years running Macs (My first was a Mac II), there were VERY few problems when installing system upgrades. More often the problem is old versions of software that have to be upgraded for the new OS. That's my guess in this case - so I'm guessing it's time to spend some $$...

I just thought that anybody else that has been using an old version of FC should be warned ahead of time - if indeed it is true that you need FCS2 for Leopard. Maybe over the next couple of days we'll hear something from Apple on this issue.

[Joseph Hutson]

The thing is, Final Cut Studio 2 has not been working properly either.

Also, if you want to find one person who has FCS 1 working with Leapord, talk to Captain Mench at captmench@mac.com

or look at his remarks at http://discussions.apple.com/thread....98424&tstart=0

[Cole McDonald]

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

With everyone recommending erase and install, I'm not sure if I understand what the best procedure is to reinstall all of my files, apps, preferences etc. as simply as possible...does the Apple Migration Assistant make this seamless, or do I have to copy over things individually? You don't have to reinstall ALL of your apps from discs, do you??

Based on my years in IT, I run with all of my OS and apps on one drive and data on a second...that way, if I have to reinstall OS and apps due to technapocalypse, I don't lose any of my data. I reinstall my OS from scratch once a year, and run diskutil repair once a month. For OS updates, I repair the permissions and the disk before the update and after as well.

I keep a spare drive around empty to backup to before doing major upgrades on my system, this drive is only used for backing up my OS + apps drive. I always repair permissions and disk before doing backup.

I always backup before doing larger upgrades on the OS or any of the apps...or once a month if that hasn't happened.

With my data, I use the philosophy, "How much work am I willing to redo?" I backup that often. For me, it's a week.

These "best practices" for me make upgrades painless as I always have a backup to fall back on. They also give me a free and clear way to just jump into a new OS to see if it'll work or fail...and if it fails, I can just pull my data back and move on with my day 'til the next fix comes out.

The extra effort every once in a while will make the issues and apprehension disappear as you're always working with a safety net.

I have yet to get leopard (but will be doing so on my next payday!)...and then I will just install knowing that I can go back if necessary.

To make these backups easier, I've purchased a wiebetech drivedock ( http://wiebetech.com/products/firewiredrivedock.php ) allowing me to buy inexpensive internal IDE harddrives in whatever capacity and just shelve them for backup...I use these for project backups as well...I have roughly 2Tb sitting around on my self that I can just plug in and go when I need to throw out another batch of DVD's for a client or whatever.

I'm currently running FCS1, so I'll be able to get to you with my experiences. If you prepare well for your shoot, it goes smoothly...same goes with computer work...and construction...and...

[Joseph Hutson]

I just opened up FCP again, and as usual it locks up with the beach ball as the mouse cursor.

But what is different, is that instead of force quitting like I usually did, I let it run on for about 3 minutes, and now I am able to open previous FCP files, import video, and audio files, and livetype files.

Also, the same exact thing happened with Motion 2. It would freeze up for a couple of minutes, and NOW I may use it just like normal.

[Nate Weaver]

I'm having no problems so far with FCS2 on 10.5.

Made a disk image of main drive with CCC, wiped drive, installed Leopard, then FCS, then Kona LHe drivers.

Everything so far seems to be fine.

[Sheila Ward]

Things seem good for me too after the clean install of 10.5 and FCS2. I have one little weird thing I can't figure out.

Motion templates are listed in the FCP effects tab, they play, but the video is all black. I can modify text, parms, etc in the viewer but all it ever plays is black video. If I move it to the timeline, same thing, plays the duration but nothing shows up.

If I try to save the project with one of these Motion templates in the timeline, it gives me an "Operation not allowed" error. I remove the template from the timeline and I can save the project with no issues.

The templates work fine in Motion, I can edit and save them with no problems.

I searched the Apple forums and found a couple references to it in different threads, one with FCS2 and one with DVDS3, both after the 10.5 install. No resolution reported yet.

Would love to know if any of you guys are having the same issue.