Safe boot makes redcine-x work ?!?!

[Ben Jackson]

Hi guys

I sent this to red support and the specific redcinex email address.

I just wanted to get the community's advice on what would cause redcine-x to be terrible in normal boot, but in safe boot work perfectly at exporting!! It's been running all night perfectly in safe boot, done 200 out of 250 clips.

Here's what I've found....


1. I've downloaded the release of v16, it's the same problem.


2. Redcine-x works PERFECTLY in safe boot for exporting. I've changed to redline and doing 6 clips at once - and it's very fast (not red rocket fast) but I've done 200 clips over night and it hasn't crashed or kernel panicked.


So when I found this out, I tried to replicate what safe boot was doing to enable it to work. I went thru all my kernel extensions and removed EVERYTHING that was not set to load under a safe boot. I got it to start up but still the same problems.


Very confusing.


So safe boot is doing SOMETHING ELSE that is enabling it to work - aside from disabling many unnecessary system/library/extensions.


I have no idea what. I also took out all startup items, all launchdaemons, all launchagents and all login items.


Actually, the ONLY thing I didn't replicate was removing fonts - which safe mode does disable. Maybe I should try that! I just never thought it would be a font - redcine-x doesn't access fonts, right?


As far as I can find on the internet, that's all safe boot does. But I reckon there's something else.


ANy ideas?


It's just unbelievable that I can get it working perfectly in safe boot.


The only reason I want to find out the culprit that's being activated in a normal boot and ONLY remove that bit (whatever it is) is because redcine-x won't PLAY clips when in safe boot - the viewer is white.


which brings me to my next thing:


3. Redcine-x kernel panics and quits about every 10 - 20 clips i'm accessing (when in normal boot) - not just in exporting, but now in just playing footage and changing things etc. So the app is unstable when in normal boot. I didn't really notice it before because I was just exporting so i thought it was just an issue with transcoding, but last night I was doing correction and in and out points on 250 clips, which I started to notice. I couldn't get thru more than 20 or so before it became unstable. Artefacts on the footage making it look like there was something wrong with the footage until I rebooted and the footage was again fine. No correlation on any specific clip.


Overnight on safe boot - it's transcoded 200 out of 250 clips, still running great.




So i just need that assistance to help me find out why safe boot works and what is conflicting in normal boot.


THANK YOU!


And I'm going to bypass it all and see if i can just use the new plug in for final cut x and make the jump from FCP7. Still would like to have a working Redcine-x though.


So - my question is - does anybody know what ELSE safe boot is doing that I can replicate and isolate to make it work?

What this means - is that it's NOT hardware related, only software, as it works PERFECTLY (at exporting) in safe boot. So I just need to solve this software issue.

Thank you for any help you can be.

 

[Ben Jackson]

actually i have effectively disabled fonts on one try - I did the hold down shift key after login screen which turns off all user login items and fonts.

 

[Ben Jackson]

I should also mention that all other apps work fine and are stable

 

[Ben Jackson]

Wow - almost not an issue anymore... I downloaded the JUST updated Final Cut Pro X and the new plugin from Red (thank you!!!!) and it's playing all clips at what I assume is half res debayer (redcine-x couldn't even manage 1/4 in real time), with no rocket, and no transcode! This is AMAZING.

Still like a working redcine-x though

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I am probably not the guy with your answer but, after reading your posts, it occurs to me that it might be helpful if you posted your system specs.

 

[David Ibbitson]

Hi Ben,

Unfortunately we have received no email at redcinex at red. Can you please resend?

It definitely sounds like something is wrong with your system here. Can you send a system profile and also verbose RCX logs. It will make debugging this issue much easier. Send any crash reports you are getting also.

Also, FCPX does a 1/4 res decode when no Rocket is present, assuming you have the preference set to "Better Performance".

Thanks,
David

 

[Ben Jackson]

Thanks for the reply David!

Just now I have nutted it down to 1 dodgy DIMM in the computer. The reason it was hard to find was that Tech Tool passed all the ram, so I dismissed it. Rember, a great os x memory test app was better - it kernel panicked the system on testing 'all' ram - made it easier to test than having to do the 20 minute redcine-x export. It only kernel panicked on one specific dimm, kept it out, redcine worked again.

Whew!

Still don't understand the Safe Boot thing - again, NOBODY has ever said anything about Safe Boot limiting the accessible memory (thus avoiding the issue). I wish someone would say that on all the dullard pages on the internet about what Safe Boot is.

Confused why you didn't get the emails to redcinex AT red... i sent 2.

Oh well. All sorted now. THANK YOU everyone.

1/4 res - right, gotcha. Well, it looks great and runs in real time. Redcine-x does NOT play in real time at 1/4 - doesn't even use all CPU power, whereas FCPX does. And an 1/8 is really obvious, it shows the wavelet compression really obviously. I hope Red isn't purposefully holding back redcine-x to encourage people to buy rockets as my system running real time 1/4 res is awesome in FCPX and no need to buy a rocket. Or maybe redcine-x just needs to be optimsed and re-written to take advantage of all cores/100% of each core if needed etc.

Many thanks