[ This article was first published in the April, 2010, issue of
Larry’s Monthly Final Cut Studio Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. ]
Bill Yahraus asks:
Larry, a truoble-shooting tip that is often suggested is to create a new user on the computer. What does the new user account fix?
Larry replies: Bill, a new user account basically resets EVERYTHING — FCP preferences, OS prefs, QT prefs, every preference everywhere.
It does NOT affect any projects you’ve created or anything inside those projects.
My suspicion is that the dropped frame errors are occuring because of latent conflicts in the operating system, not in something inside your FCP project.
Creating a new user does no harm to your existing project because it doesn’t touch the project. However, you will lose access – while you are in that new account, to your existing home directory and email.
When you log back into your existing user account, your home directory, email and everything else will come back.
So, if this works, you can switch into the new user account for editing, then switch back to your existing account for everything else.
I’ve had to do this a few times while I tracked down what was causing problems. Since no current settings are deleted or altered, I have no hesitation in recommending it to see if we can get this working.
NOTE: If you, by accident, have files stored in your existing home directory, this is a good way to find them because when you switch to your new user account, all your home directory files go offline.
