Compressor not working - has this issue been fixed yet?

[Jesse Morgan]

I started having some issues with compressor a few months ago, it would open but when I try to actually compress something it gave the "Check the validity of your... blah blah blah" message.

I did some goggling and read that it's a glitch in Compressor and that I need to delete about 30 things via spotlight and re-install. Is this still the case? Has Apple not fixed this yet?

I actually need it now and assumed that Apple would have done something by now.

Any advice?

[Eric Emerick]

I have FCP 7, Compressor 3.5, and it's still dodgy. I also would have thought it would be more reliable than past versions, but it isn't. Simply sending a sequence to compressor and assigning a codec, then hit submit, how can that be problematic? Funny thing is, it worked the first time for a particular project, not since. But hey, Apple makes great Nano's!

[Mitchell Lewis]

I find this odd. I use Compressor at least twice a day (sometimes more) and I've never had a problem with it. I'm not saying you're doing something wrong, but it is odd that one user is having constant problems and another is not.

For the record we're running a MacPro 8-core (3 ghz Xeon processors) and Leopard.

[Robert Lane]

Jesse,

Compressor works reliably when the rest of the system is in good working order, specifically the directory and other core items that make the OS do it's work. When was the last time you did any system maintenance?

Highly suggest you run all the maintenance and cleaning routines from Onyx (If you're on Snow Leopard you'll have to wait for the new version to post). Also, a copy of Disk Warrior is a must-have for keeping the directory in-line.

FCP Rescue and other free apps will help clean up corrupted app and cache files that can cause yours and similar problems.

Bottom line: If you're keeping on top of routine maintenance and there are no issues with your hardware then Compressor works reliably.

[Don Miller]

If you sleep or shut down your mac when not in use, some maintenance jobs may not run.

Anyone have a specific list of what maintenance jobs osx will run automatically? I know it defrags large file.

Link to scripts that wake up a mac and do maintenance?

[Robert Lane]

If your Mac is in sleep mode there are no maintenance scripts that wake it up. You can create a script to wake it up but that defeats the purpose of sleep then.

Mac's only run 3 maintenance scripts in the background on their own: Daily, weekly and monthly scripts. Unfortunately none of those scripts do any heavy-lifting for maintenance and are mostly for refreshing cache and low-level cleanup.

The big maintenance items that need run routinely (at a minimum once a week for a system running pro apps).

- Directory cleanup
- Fixing Permissions
- Cleanout of outdated and unused cache/log files
- Rebuilding the launch services database
- Clearing out Spotlight database
- Refresh dyld shared cache

Compressor doesn't work well - or at all - if you have:

- A corrupted FCP sequence (which isn't always obvious until you try to output it)
- Media files that have their resource forks out of order (Disk Warrior fixes this)
- Render files that are either corrupted by FCP or have their directory resources out of order either by being moved around or replaced too many times by re-renders.
- The OS dyld shared cache is out of order or too full
- The OS directory is more than 40% percent out-of-order (Disk Warrior fixes this)

Basically you *have* to keep on top of maintenance items if you want all your apps to work properly, especially things like Compressor or outputting from DVDSP which can both become very finicky if the software environment isn't in good working order.