BMD DaVinci Resolve 12.0, 12.0.1 and 12.2.2 on Mac - What a pain!

RESOLVE 12 (and 12.0.1) BUGS AND AGGRAVATION

- Crashes A LOT !!!

- Crashes when deleting or duplicating a Timeline (opened or not.)

- Takes forever to load a project and to save a project, and there is a long lag after the save window closes and before you can get back to work without any kind of feedback (is it doing it?) Each time you save you loose 1min. Each day you loose hours.

Apple is leading the charge in terms of functionality, EVERY SINGLE PRO APP must be saving in the bkg like FCPX does, save your every move until the last before the crash, and restore the project to the last move so that you do not loose anything.

- With Resolve 12, one looses work when the app crashes.  Again, should be like FCPX: nothing is ever lost when it crashes. Not only but you have to go through this cumbersome loading of backup projects from the Settings window / Auto save. Why can't backups be accessed from the Project Manager window????  This takes too long and is unnecessary. Just save the damn project once properly and do not corrupt project files to start with.

- Sometimes it crashes without telling you it does, great, project gone, app closed. You come back to the Projects Manager window and they are new projects files here... Or EMPTY Sequence Containers, all with weird names.  Open your project just saved a moment ago you will see that ALL THE TIMELINES ARE EMPTY!!!!  What the hell is that?  Yet again, the only way to go back to your hard work is to load a backup project.  Forces you to auto-save every 5min. (and of course loose 1min. every 5min.)  Still you've lost the last 5min. of work.

- There are ghosts lines that appear in the Node window, making it hard to visualize links.

- Copying a grade to another clip or multiple clips in the Timeline hangs/crashes the app once in a while.

- When mouse-dragging a value drastically (like Saturation) the timeline jumps to some random clip before or after the one you're working on. Yes, I do drastic moves sometimes. This is a pain, please fix this behavior.

I will continue to vent my frustration here as I battle Resolve 12, otherwise a great app... If only it would WORK!

--- Update and more aggravation ---
Updated to v12.0.1 ... promises more stability... right... Nope.

- I need to EDIT the Timeline (1), supposedly that's what Res is all about now, but when I select a large number of audio clips (that are unlincked from video) and delete them, it crashes. Great!

- I need to EDIT the Timeline (2), but when I select a single clip and try to Trim Edit, it crashes. Awesome!

-  And now it crashes on loading the project... This can't be better!

- All right, reloading a recent backup through the stupid Auto Save page...

- Project opened, worked on, saved several times, closed, opened again, all is well.  Except I cannot use anything but copy and paste, select and move clips around, delete one or two clips her and there, and that's it.  Any attempt to Trim, delete a bunch of clips.... Crashes the app immediately.

- Project saved the day before, opened the following day ... make the app CRASH. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the dreaded "this project has not been saved..." etc. bullshit message that pops up without any reason - I just saved the Project and waited 3 min. before closing to be sure.  But no, it had to ask again, all right, I clicked SAVE, I had to close Resolve what else can I do?  What do you know, instead of saving, it CORRUPTED the Project file.  Well thank you so much.  Yet again, back to restoring an Auto Saved Project... And making sure all your last moves are still in there. Great way to start your day.

--- More updates and more aggravation ----
Another thing that's driving me CRAZY!  Why does UNDO work on certain things and not others???  If I do a color correction, and then I do a resizing and undo, it ONLY undo the CC, not the resizing.... What?  This is utterly confusing.  Please undo the LAST MOVE whatever it is, resize, tracking, pasting...  Or at least give us the option to choose what gets undone.

--- Update
So I installed RESOLVE 12.2.2, created a project.  Then I quit the app, came back a few minutes later, tried to open the project I just created... It CRASHES. And again generates the stupid ".tmp" files ad nauseous.  At least the auto-generated ".tmp" opens fine.  But then I have to do the dance: trash the original project, rename the ".tmp"... Pfff, come on BMD, fix the code please.

--- What's your experience with Resolve12.x.x on Mac?
I know my config is not optimum: MacPro 5,1 Quad, OSX 10.10.5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, Dual 1980x1080 displays, Decklink Mini Monitor PCIe, Desktop Video Utility 10.5
II am OK with real time (or less than) rendering, I'm only dealing with HD ProRes files, not exotic formats.

Automated Photo stitching in Photoshop - Photomerge

Great Photoshop tool to stitch photos together: File / Automate / Photomerge

I wanted to stitch a couple 4k background photos together to give me a super wide background image that I can move and pan within.

I used "Auto" Layout and checked "Blend Images Together" - obviously, "Vignette Removal" and "Geometric Distortion Correction".

Selected my source files, one Left file and one Right file and a few seconds later, perfect wide background image.

Great time saver.

com.aladdin.hasplmd.plist crashes and respawns constantly

Found a fix here:
http://www.digitalrebellion.com/blog/posts/how_to_fix_hasplmd_crashes

Thank you!  And although it's for v6, it also works in my case for v8 - and I don't even have a dongle, so why is this even running?  Avid???...

How to continue drawing an interrupted Mask in After Effect

It's frustrating in AE  that if you interrupt the drawing of a Mask, the app makes a new Mask instead of continuing the first one.

First be aware of the interruption, then go back to the Pen Tool, select the Convert to Vertex Tool, and then click on the last point of your interrupted Mask.

Then go to and select Pen Tool again, and continue to draw the same Mask. Aaaah!

Apple Motion - How to stop (hold frame) the Numbers Generator

Trying to Hold Frame on the Text Generator - Numbers, does not register in Apple Motion.

I wanted to have a ramp and then hold onto the last number, but no go as the Hold Frame Effect has no traction on the Generator, nor on a Group containing the Generator.

The solution: uncheck the Animate checkbox in the Text Generator/Generator, and then add keyframes to Values, voilà!

Now I wanted to have 2 digits at a larger size than the 2 decimals, but I can't find a way to do this easily. I suppose I can always animate two sets of digits, the second one being smaller and then group them together to simulate a single counter, but it's a bit long and convoluted.

Tip anyone?

Media 100 for $99 - Yosemite supported!

UPDATE: Media100 now FREE!

Good old Media100 is available for a paltry $99! The price includes a copy of Boris Red.

It used cost x100 times that much back in the days... With cards and all, and it only did SD. Still a fraction of what an Avid would cost, for a very high quality, and it crashed less.

I labored on this marvel of technology for a few years in the 90's At some point the switch to FCP was made. The two co-existed for some time, and then HD came along and M100 was abandoned. FCP was more fluid in daily use, so even if M100 had survived the HD shockwave, there was no coming back. 

I think I once downloaded the software only version after the acquisition by Boris Effects, I had to re-open an old project, and it did that just fine if I remember right.


Now M100 is revamped to deal with resolutions up to 4K, Aja cards are supported for I/O, 60 days trial available. The UI looks just like the same old though, and it looks like it still has all the same convoluted ways of doing things. Talk about back in the future!

I'm not sure I would recommend it to anybody, but for the curious among us, here it is:

http://www.media100.com


Scrolling down that page, I also found a Boris Continuum Image Restoration Promo ($99 instead of $299) good until June 30, 2015 "MacVideo Promo".
http://www.macvideopromo.com/products/boris-continuum-image-restoration-unit-for-mac-or-win

Update:
Actually Toolfarm has a similar Promo, good until end of Sept 2015. Toolfarm Exclusive Promo - July 1 - Sept. 30, 2015
http://www.toolfarm.com/buy/boris_continuum_unit_image_restoration

Apple Motion 5.1.3 and FCPX 10.2.1 crash when using CMYK slider in Color Picker

I have a precise color I need to use and the reference is in CMYK.
I am able to switch the Colors selector from RGB Sliders to CMYK Sliders, but when I try to adjust a slider, Motion crashes, FCPX as well.

Are you too experiencing this? Obviously others do:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7031542
https://discussions.apple.com/message/28249186#28249186

Update:
I thought I could workaround this bug by doing this:
Open Textedit, select Format / Font / Show Colors.
That will open the Color Picker floating window identical in all Apps including Motion and FCPX.
Go to CMYK Sliders, and create your colors without crashing, save them in the color swatches (buckets).  Then go back to Motion, FCPX - the colors are there in their buckets, ready to use.
Except that when I pick one of these newly created color swatch, Motion CRASHES.
So no luck...

But then, I had this idea:
Open Textedit, select Format / Font / Show Colors.
That will open the Colors floating window identical in all Apps including Motion and FCPX.
Go to CMYK Sliders, and create your colors without crashing, SWITCH the slider to RGB slider, THEN save your color in the color swatches.  Go back to Motion, FCPX - the colors are there in their buckets, ready to use.
This time, no crash! But, come on Apple, can you fix this please.
From there You can create a new Palette and save and organize your new colors.
---
PS: I can't find a way to "erase" a color swatch (bucket). It seems the only thing one can do is replace a color with another, but no way to drag out a color to empty the swatch. Has someone found a way? Let me know.
PS update: Drag a color swatch to another and that'll empty it. So basically all buckets can be erased but one.

Update:
Apple has corrected this bug in FCPX v10.2.2. Thanks!