FCP Crashing osx - myth or reality?

[Toe]

wow... you're the kinda person who gives mac users a bad name. i've had it crash. it was a stock configured machine right from apple. maybe you're just "lucky" or not using the same stuff as i am.

But I'm not one of those people... I am one of the people who used to harang Apple all the time because their OS crashed so often. I have administered hundreds and hundreds of Macs in my time, and I really do know a thing or two about OS X. I can believe that some people may experience crashes from time to time, but it is the most stable OS I've ever worked with (and I've worked with most, from the TRS-80s, to VAX minicomputers, to Windows for Workgroups, to Commadores, to DOS, to XP, to Red Hat, to...). The great majority of "crashes" people may experience, especially with Tiger, are either not crashes or are not the OS.

If I'm "lucky," then I was horribly unlucky under OS 9, and miraculously lucky hundreds of times when I moved to OS X. More likely, the people who really crash the OS just don't know what they're doing and configure something very wrong. I would think that a FCP studio would have a respectable I.T. department.

Modern Unix systems such as Macs use protected memory and multithreading, meaning that it is very difficult to make the entire OS crash. You can crash the Finder (though it's not easy). You can crash the graphics core if you're clever. But it is very, very difficult to crash OS X ever, let alone to crash it "constantly."

All of my statements have been about this particular situation: FCP crashing OS X. And it is ludicrous to state that FCP always crashes OS X, as in the kernel. I will continue to stand by that not out of zeal, but because of my understanding of the architecture of the systems involved, and my experience with a lot of Macs.

And BTW, crash right out of the box is really one of the most likely times it could happen. A connection can come loose in shipping, or a partially wired connection may have to burn through before becoming fully reliable, or a hardware flaw that would crash the system anytime would also tend to crash it the first time you try it.

 

[DXoverDY]

But I'm not one of those people... I am one of the people who used to harang Apple all the time because their OS crashed so often. I have administered hundreds and hundreds of Macs in my time, and I really do know a thing or two about OS X. I can believe that some people may experience crashes from time to time, but it is the most stable OS I've ever worked with (and I've worked with most, from the TRS-80s, to VAX minicomputers, to Windows for Workgroups, to Commadores, to DOS, to XP, to Red Hat, to...). The great majority of "crashes" people may experience, especially with Tiger, are either not crashes or are not the OS.

If I'm "lucky," then I was horribly unlucky under OS 9, and miraculously lucky hundreds of times when I moved to OS X. More likely, the people who really crash the OS just don't know what they're doing and configure something very wrong. I would think that a FCP studio would have a respectable I.T. department.

Modern Unix systems such as Macs use protected memory and multithreading, meaning that it is very difficult to make the entire OS crash. You can crash the Finder (though it's not easy). You can crash the graphics core if you're clever. But it is very, very difficult to crash OS X ever, let alone to crash it "constantly."

All of my statements have been about this particular situation: FCP crashing OS X. And it is ludicrous to state that FCP always crashes OS X, as in the kernel. I will continue to stand by that not out of zeal, but because of my understanding of the architecture of the systems involved, and my experience with a lot of Macs.

And BTW, crash right out of the box is really one of the most likely times it could happen. A connection can come loose in shipping, or a partially wired connection may have to burn through before becoming fully reliable, or a hardware flaw that would crash the system anytime would also tend to crash it the first time you try it.

i've had it flat out freeze up and refuse to respond to anything. i had to hold the power button down just to get it to shut down.

it wasn't hardware related because nothing has changed on that system, i use it daily now.

i'm not arguing that it's not stable, it is. i'm simply saying that it DOES HAPPEN. you cannot sit here and say that it simply does not crash, that's just ridiculous. i've had it crash only a handful of times, nothing configuration related, mostly programming bugs that have since been fixed with updates.

and as far as crashing is concerned, my idea of crashing is ANYTHING that prevents you from using the system. that screen saver bug, in my eyes is causing a crash .. granted i wouldn't call that a crash, i'd call it a very serious glitch that needed to be stomped on*. however if my finder locks up and i get the spinning beach ball of death, and no way to stop it, that's a crash. if my whole system freezes, that's a crash. and this happens everyday to people all over. just because you've gotten lucky and probably run a very small handful of applications you probably remove a lot of the chances that might take place.

* i called apple up, hoping to talk to a tech about the screen saver issue, saying i have figured out how to replicate it and thus narrowing down the issue. but they refused to talk to me without me paying THEM money. it was past my 90 day phone support or whatever it was. i told them to kiss my ass because i wasn't going to pay them to fix an issue in their setup. had they listened to me, the bug would've been fixed in june/july of last year... instead it lasted until the very end of the year.. i think 10.3.7 fixed it.

 

[Toe]

i've had it flat out freeze up and refuse to respond to anything. i had to hold the power button down just to get it to shut down.

it wasn't hardware related because nothing has changed on that system, i use it daily now.

i'm not arguing that it's not stable, it is. i'm simply saying that it DOES HAPPEN. you cannot sit here and say that it simply does not crash, that's just ridiculous. i've had it crash only a handful of times, nothing configuration related, mostly programming bugs that have since been fixed with updates.

I am not saying it never crashes... I am saying that it is ridiculous to say that the current implementation of OS X could consistently crash with FCP. I am also saying that full crashes of the system are very rare, are almost always misconfigurations, and in any event have usually been resolved with software updates... as you just said above. How many times has anything from 10.3.7 to 10.4.1 crashed on you?

and as far as crashing is concerned, my idea of crashing is ANYTHING that prevents you from using the system. that screen saver bug, in my eyes is causing a crash .. granted i wouldn't call that a crash, i'd call it a very serious glitch that needed to be stomped on*. however if my finder locks up and i get the spinning beach ball of death, and no way to stop it, that's a crash. if my whole system freezes, that's a crash. and this happens everyday to people all over. just because you've gotten lucky and probably run a very small handful of applications you probably remove a lot of the chances that might take place.

I was going to give up on this thread, but that comment really gave me a kick. In addition to being an IT director, I'm a webmaster, and I use far more apps than most people. I've included a screenshot of my current running apps. This isn't crafted... this is just what I have running right now as I do my job. Often I run quite a few more apps than that (usually Dreamweaver and FMP Developer 6 are running, but I haven't gotten to them yet today). I've been running the same suite on OS X on an iMac G3, then an eMac, and now an iMac G5, and I simply do not crash the OS ever. Nor, as I already mentioned, do any of the 50 Macs and 7 servers I admin. Ever. Sorry.

 

[DXoverDY]

well obviously i misunderstood you. you were making it sound like your systems absolutely never crash. period.

i agree it's incredibly stable. after using OS X i don't ever want to switch away from it. however i won't be buying a new system due to the intel switch. at least not for another couple years.