can anyone shed some light?

[Andy Graham]

Ok, my mac crashed a couple of days ago and ever since then my timeline in final cut pro 5 won't give me the safe RT option in the RT pop up menu. Normally you have a bunch of options in the RT popup menu.....safe RT, RT extreme, dynamic etc but it only give me two now. I tried copying the timeline into another project where i still have those options and it comes up with a red wndow saying "memory full, free up some memory and the window will redraw"

Iv scavanged the user manuel and come up with nothing, whatever the problem is its beyond me so im hoping a smarter man (or woman) than I will come to the rescue.

cheers in advance

Andy.

[Robert Lane]

A crash of any kind especially with the end-results like you're describing mean that your OS and apps have become corrupted in both minor and major ways. Chances are the hardware is perfectly fine.

You'll need some heavy-duty tools to get things back in order:

- DiskWarrior to fix the Max OS X directory
- Onyx for Mac to reset and clean out old cache/temp and get maintenance performed that DiskWarrior doesn't address.

Even after that FCS may still be unstable in which case you'll need this:

FCS Maintenance Pack - Maintain Final Cut Studio, Diagnose and Fix Problems, Manage Settings

This last utility is about the same price as DiskWarrior and I have not fully tested it yet however many have reported good results in getting FCP and other FCS apps back in good working order. Make SURE you read the instructions fully before starting any of it's repair operations.

There is another app that some people turn to in an attempt to get things fixed up, TinkerTool System Release 2. I don't recommend that application to anyone except very, very experienced system techs because it's too easy to actually screw up a system worse with it's very deep tools if you don't fully understand what you're doing and, many of it's available operations are very esoteric and not easily understood by the general Mac user - even more experienced ones.

If you're not comfortable with using DIY tools like the ones mentioned above then a trip to the Genius Bar is your only option.

That is of course unless you have a solid backup strategy in place and have a copy of main OS image prior to the crash that you can restore from.

[Andy Graham]

Thanks Robert, I'll look into the service pack you mentioned. Im wondering.........the fact that i can't copy the timeline to another project where RT works means it must be a RAM problem, Iv had the mac for a good 5 years now and have had many projects including feature length films which still have a lot of render files and auto save files, maybe if I gut the whole thing out of unnecessary files it may free up enough space for thr RT to work?

failing that ill try the service pack you mentioned.

cheers
andy.

[Robert Lane]

I doubt you have a RAM problem otherwise you'd be having more serious problems than just issues with a FCP sequence. However if you're not convinced the Mac OS disk that shipped with your system has a Hardware Test built into it; you can always run the test which will give a thorough IO test to the installed RAM and report errors. You can also download MEMtest and see what it reports.

Otherwise your first step is to use the tools mentioned and see if the combination of those apps clean up your problem; chances are they will.