New Mac Pro SL , FCS3 and problems

[Simon Denny]

Well I have got a new Mac Pro with Snow Leopard on it and two video cards for two screens.
Things that are not working for me.

Final Cut Studio 3 installs but FCP says it is corrupted and wont launch, all other programs launch. I have lost Quicktime Pro. I have found info on getting Quicktime Pro installed from the SL operating disk but it now wants me to buy the pro version.

Oh I forgot, FCP installed the first time but I could not get my second monitor to play back from Digital desk top cinema. I then took an upgrade from the software up grade and lost FCP.

I have been editing on a MBP with Final Cut Studio with Mac OSX 10.5 .8 with no problems but the upgrade to SL is causing problems.

Upgrading to SL and installing FCS 3 is killing me. I hope this doesn't mean I now have to get the FCS upgrade for all this to work.


It feels like I'm back on a PC with these issues.
Anyone experiencing these problems.


Cheers

[William Hohauser]

First, toss out the FCP preferences from your Library folder. If this doesn't help, do that again and then re-install FCP only using the FCS installer picking custom install. Are both your video cards installed by Apple? Check that your video cards are up to date. If you installed your own card make sure it works with FCP, some don't. Make sure 10.6 is up to date. You might find running system utility programs like Onyx helpful here. Losing QuickTime10 is curious and leads me to believe that there is something wrong with your system beyond FCP. Installing FCS gives you the pro version of QT 10 and QT 7.

[Robert Turchick]

Did you migrate your setting from the other computer?
Had issues with a friend's rig and a clean install helped.
Preferences need to get trashed as mentioned below and check disk permissions too. That was my biggest hurdle as all my external drives locked me out. I can point you to a site for that fix as it involves some terminal window code.
QT7 is in your utilities folder. Just drag an alias onto the dock.
This is a major upgrade across your entire system and though it SHOULD go smoothly, it NEVER does.
Be patient and know that once done, your system will rock!
Mine took about 3 days to fully settle in and hasn't hiccuped since.

[William Hohauser]

Occasionally situations arise where the standard Apple install doesn't work. Guess I've been lucky that most of the Apple systems I have worked with over the past decade have upgraded cleanly and without issues. Recently, my big mistake was to later change QMaster settings while a Compressor render was running in the background. That required a clean reinstall of Snow Leopard or nothing would render in Compressor.

[Robert Lane]

Simon,

If you've got system that wonky that sounds like a serious corruption in the directory itself. QT shouldn't be disappearing even in an upgrade scenario unless the foundation of OS X has gone totally awry.

Chances are, your 10.5 directory was already highly unstable and the upgrade process was the "final straw" that pushed things over to the deep end. The system behavior you're describing is lock-step with that kind of scenario.

Your best bet at this point (unfortunately) is to do a clean install of both the OS and your apps. Start from a totally clean installation all around, then if you've got problems it will be a much easier thing to diagnose.

If you just purchased your Mac Pro then you get free tech support direct from the Genius Bar for a limited time; you could always take it to them and say, "fix it" and let them sort out the core of the problem. BUT, unless you've purchase Pro Care from your Apple Store it could be a week or more before you get your system back.

Do a clean install and let us know if things still go wonky; chances are they won't.

ONE last item: FCP has always been buggy with two video cards that are the exact model; GPU generated renders often get confused as to which card they're supposed to talk to and will often cause FCP to crash as a result. I don't think FCP7 has sorted out that bug, so just be aware of the possibility. If you have two differing cards (different models/brands) then you won't have that issue.

[Simon Denny]

Thanks guys,

I have re-loaded OS SL and FCS and so far this is working. Fingers crossed.

The two graphic card thing worries me a bit but I'll monitor through firewire out to a TV set.

I have yet to do a full long edit as I'm still working on FCS2 Leopard, so until I finish what I have started on the old system the new system will sit here doing nothing for a few days.

Cheers

[Nigel Barker]

You don't actually need two graphics cards for two monitors as each card will have two connectors for monitors. It depends on the specific card which particular type of connectors you will have.

I had some problems setting up Digital Desktop Cinema playback on my wife's Mac pro after a graphics card died & I put the replacement into a different slot. I think that they need to be in the first 1 & 2 (0 & 1 for computer nerds) whereas I had them in slots 1 & 3 or 0 & 2 depending on how you enumerate them. This was totally reproducible as I swapped the cards back & forth a few times to confirm. Despite some heavy Googling I could find no mention of this quirk.

My wife's machine has two graphics cards because she uses three monitors.

[William Hohauser]

Card slots are tricky on any tower computer especially for video cards and high speed external drive connection cards. Frequently the only way to find out which slot is best for a particular card is to talk to tech support but you'll sometimes find the info buried in the instructions.

[Robert Lane]

The Mac Pro uses this core app to define where certain cards need to go:

system/library/CoreServices/Expansion Slot Utility

Typically the card manufacturer will have a preference as to where it's card should go; the primary PCIe slot is always reserved for video.

Read the Apple support pages on how to access and configure your setup using this utility.