Compressor hatred. Resolved?
By S Simmons. Filed in Final Cut Studio, Mac software |
As mentioned in an earlier post or two, I hate Apple’s Compressor. Not because it doesn’t compress well but because it suddenly stops working and will not submit a batch to be processed. The earlier version would see errors like: unable to connect to background processes. The current version (v.3.0.x running under Leopard) might produce this one: Unable to submit to queue. Please restart your computer or verify your Compressor installation is correct. Maybe this hasn’t happened to you. Consider yourself lucky as there’s a lengthy fix from Apple that doesn’t always work.
After having this happen for the 5th time I did a lot of research on how to repair the problem. I’ve tried Apple’s troubleshooting guide only to have it not work on 2 occasions. The easiest fix, a terminal command, didn’t work for me after the upgrade to Final Cut Studio 2 with Compressor 3. What did finally work? A combination of the Apple troubleshooting guide, a reply in this thread and a little application called Pacifist.
First, I did what Apple suggested in the troubleshooting guide: confirm versions and computer’s name in Sharing, delete user preferences and repair permissions. Then comes the process of removing Compressor, Qmaster, the Batch Monitor and all of their supporting files. I say all of them as there are a lot of files to be removed including a number of files in hidden folders. If I knew how to write applications I might write one that automated this process because it takes a while. It also asks you to trash Motion as well, so I did. Then instead of a normal reinstall from the Final Cut Studio disks I skipped over to a step found in this support forum thread suggested by a user named Jason Toth. It uses Pacifist to look in the installer package on the FCS install disk and selectively install just what you need:
From the support forum thread:
Download PACIFIST.
1) Insert your FCS 2 Disk
2) Open up Pacifist
3) In Pacifist… open the FCS 2 install package
4) Once opened find… “Contents of AppleQmaster” select it
5) Click the install icon in the upper left… it will verify the files
6) Once verify completes install BUT make sure you use the REPLACE button
7) Once completed do the same thing for the “Contents of Compressor” Package
Open up the compressor application then close compressor
9) Use software update to get compressor to version 3.0.1
10) Grab a beer.
I did what was suggested with a couple of exceptions:
I twirled down the Content of MotionGroup package and selected only the Contents of Motion.pkg and not the 7.8 gigs of Motion content as that is already on the drive. I then selected the Contents of Compressor and Contents of AppleQmaster and hit Install. As mentioned in the forum reply, when prompted by Pacifist I had it “replace” instead of just install the contents just to make sure it wiped everything out once and for all. Once you get rolling it’s a quick install as everything is on the first install DVD. You do have to do the DVD-swap-dance when you tell Pacifist to first open the package by inserting each Final Cut Studio DVD and letting Pacifist read the disk but it is a quicker install that I experienced when doing it the “normal” way. Once the install was done I did a software update to get to Compressor 3.0.2 and viola:
Will it work forever? Will it break next time I click the mouse button? Who knows. I’ve had to reboot a couple of times as well as a shut down when a storm came through and as of this writing it’s still working. Let’s hope this fixes it once and for all. If it doesn’t I’ve always got the address for Episode Pro. Or Squeeze. Or BitVice. Or MPEG Streamclip. Or VisualHub.
Friday, January 11th 2008 at 3:53 pm
Good Research, this was the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to me in FCS. I had to reinstall FCS2, then make the changes in terminal.
Friday, January 11th 2008 at 11:44 pm
Hey,
Thanks for the great post. I would like to get permission from you to reproduce this post in my blog. Hope you don’t matter.
Waiting for your reply. Please email your confirmation.
Wednesday, January 16th 2008 at 12:32 pm
Many thanks for this, saved my life and you probably save some more.
Saved me alot of time and effort
Friday, January 18th 2008 at 11:16 am
What others have already said: thanks so much for sharing. Your well-written little tutorial probably saved me from rebuilding my Mac from scratch. Thanks for Pacifist too!
Sunday, January 20th 2008 at 10:02 pm
Thanks all for the kind words. Compressor has made me so mad over the last little while with these issues so if I can save just one from the same frustration I had … it’s worth it!
Wednesday, February 6th 2008 at 9:14 am
Thanks, Scott! I’d Restored from ‘Time Machine’, re-installed FCP2, done all that I could, and still that pesky “Unable to submit to queue. Please restart your computer or verify your Compressor installation is correct” message was there.
Michael Trauffer’s link here from Apple’s Compressor Discussions ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6531213#6531213 ) brought me to your page, and I followed all your description ..leading to the latest Compressor 3.0.2 update, and now it all works again. Many, Many Thanks.
Friday, February 8th 2008 at 11:20 am
You are welcome David. So far my Compressor has stayed working (knock , knock). I hope this “fix” might be permanent!
Friday, February 8th 2008 at 10:28 pm
I hate compressor. I thought upgrading to Studio 2 would solve my “background process” problems. It worked for five minutes, and then I ran into this new (but same) problem.
Every other aspect of FCS has been a delight through the years. Why is Compressor such a dud?????
Wednesday, February 13th 2008 at 3:23 pm
eureka!!! it worked thanks for this! i was pulling my hair out.
Wednesday, February 13th 2008 at 3:26 pm
thanks! this solved it. much appreciated!!!!
Wednesday, February 13th 2008 at 3:29 pm
ok, apparently it did go thru the first time….oops.
Thursday, February 14th 2008 at 11:56 pm
Thank you for this post! The step-by-step process above did the trick! (Knock on wood…)
- Tom
Wednesday, February 20th 2008 at 12:37 pm
Worked for me, too! Thanks so much, I felt like I had tried everything else to no avail…
Thursday, February 21st 2008 at 10:27 pm
Worked for me, you single-handedly saved me so much angst and I am now able to use compressor without those blasted errors! Wow!
Friday, March 7th 2008 at 8:58 am
YES, it worked!!!! I have been trying to get compressor to work for ages now. This is the only thing that fixed it. Thank you!
Friday, March 21st 2008 at 1:25 pm
Hey Scott — thanks a zillion for posting this tutorial. I am not sure why it works… but it does. I was in freak out mode just a few hours ago. Thank you.
Monday, March 24th 2008 at 5:58 pm
Brilliant, worked for me. after i wasted many hours re installing, took about 30 mins, many hours less time than a complete re-install. Apple should head hunt guys like you for their support. Many thanks again.
Tom K
Downunder
Wednesday, March 26th 2008 at 7:10 pm
It Works !!! I can’t tell you how frustrated I was when I saw that error dialog !
This was a great tutorial, well thought out and easy to follow. Thanks a million.
My Mac rocks again….
Wednesday, April 2nd 2008 at 3:00 pm
i built an app/automator workflow to remove all the above referenced files/folders check it out:
http://file.meyersproduction.com/Compressor_Remover_V2.zip
Monday, April 14th 2008 at 3:00 pm
thanks for all your hard work, your tutorial helped me… almost. My problem is that there is no AppleQmaster pkg on the FCP4 install disk, or in the FCPHDUpdate4.5 pkg in receipts… Where might I find Qmaster, if not in there??
Tuesday, April 15th 2008 at 1:01 am
I’ve tried your ways of deleting everything and re-installing compressor, but I still couldn’t send my sequence from FCP to compressor, the batch monitor just doesn’t come up. Any advice to what to do
Tuesday, April 15th 2008 at 1:01 am
I’ve tried your ways of deleting everything and re-installing compressor, but I still couldn’t send my sequence from FCP to compressor, the batch monitor just doesn’t come up. Any advice to what to do
Tuesday, April 15th 2008 at 11:16 am
Mabel,
did you remove the qmaster, batch monitor et al? I used AppDelete to successfully remove Compressor – http://reggie.ashworth.googlepages.com/appdelete.
re: my message on 4/14, running the compressorupdate pkg restored my qmaster. Everything working fine… for now.
Scott, thanks also for the lnks to those other compression software.
Thursday, April 24th 2008 at 11:37 am
Scott,
Thanks for this great post. It saved me over the weekend on a major deadline.
Love the new look.
nl
Wednesday, May 7th 2008 at 3:40 am
Worked for me, after hrs of research I found your post did it in half an hr- YOU THE MAN..THANKS
Wednesday, May 14th 2008 at 7:37 pm
Followed all your instructions, thank you. Unfortunately still get the same error. I even tried this http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302845 Still nothing. Any ideas? I have a deadline this month! Thanks in advance!
Wednesday, May 14th 2008 at 7:42 pm
Followed your instruction. Thanks! Unfortunately, it still gives me the installation/restart error. I even tried this site http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302845 Anyone have any other advice? I have a deadline coming soon!!!! Thanks in advance
Saturday, May 17th 2008 at 8:14 am
JT, not sure why this one didn’t work for you. I think that’s the first I’ve heard of it not working. I hate to say it but the only other option might be a full reinstall of FC Studio and if that doesn’t work the whole OS! Good luck.
Tuesday, May 27th 2008 at 3:18 pm
YOU ROCK MAN!! It was bout 3 or 4 months of research , and got no clue!
Thank you, im beating compressor again!!
THANX A LOT!!!
Greetings from Mexico City
Eric
Tuesday, June 3rd 2008 at 12:35 am
Hey, thanks so much for posting this info. Unfortunately, despite my excitement at finally resolving this annoying issue and following your instructions very carefully, I’m still getting the same error message too. I’ve reinstalled to whole of FCS 3 times prior to this so I’m guessing that’s not the issue. Shame, I’ll keep trying but would value anyone else’s feedback if they managed to find anything else that worked.
Tuesday, June 17th 2008 at 1:17 pm
Thanks for the fix. I am always so grateful for those on the web who actually take the time to post fixes and help others.
I have never had a problem with Compressor from the first version until now. I have been deep in post, so haven’t had the need to use it for a few months, so I don’t know exactly which update recently broke it, but I just wound up that message today. Anyway, I did Apple’s steps, then did your install via Pacifist, and it all seems to work now.
Don’t forget, folks, pay up for shareware if you use it. These people really work their butts off.
Anyway, thanks again.
Paul
Saturday, June 21st 2008 at 8:54 pm
THANK YOU SO MUCH SCOTT!!!!!! I’m so grateful for you taking the time to solve this very critical problem! This was the first major issue i’ve had with FC Studio 2, everything else has been a blast to use!
Sunday, July 13th 2008 at 3:20 am
I had the same problem, but I was able to get it going by turning off all the Shared and Managed services in the Qmaster System Preferences, and also by changing the Compressor Preferences Cluster Options to Never Copy Source to Cluster as Needed. I don’t know why this worked, and to test it I put the settings back to the way they were and it still seems to work (but I haven’t done extensive tests). From the sound of things on this and other threads, I’m not sure this will be a solution for everyone, but it is easy & fast to try before getting into the longer fixes. Good luck, and Apple, if you’re reading this… fix your sh*t!
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 12:45 am
Thanks. The Apple community is great because of people like you who post so much help.
I only wish Apple was a little better at helping as well.
Wednesday, August 13th 2008 at 9:04 am
I have the same problem is driving me mad. I tried the solution offered here, I followed the instructions but unfortunately it didn’t work for me. I ended up having the same problem.
PEOPLE, HELP ME. I am so frustrated I tried almost everything that is published as a solution nothing seems to work. And Apple do not seem to be offering any help, they should completely redo the Compressor and come with a new one. Anyway, please if you have any other suggestions, please let me know. Thank you.
Wednesday, August 13th 2008 at 9:09 am
Dian, at this point I think you don’t have any other choice than a reinstall of OSX and Final Cut Studio. Not a fun thing … I might get a totally new hard drive and start from scratch.
Wednesday, August 13th 2008 at 3:47 pm
Thank you is an understatement. Worked first, hopefully the last, try.
Wednesday, August 13th 2008 at 4:58 pm
I’ve struggled with this same problem, and I purchased the latest FCP suite package. It’s time we file a lawsuit to encourage those who sell faulty technology to think about product instead of profit.
Friday, August 15th 2008 at 8:15 am
Thanks for this information. Will Pacifist also work with FC1? We are golf shop and do videos for members and are in transition to DVD. This problem with Compressor and Leopard has stalled that process. Thank you….
Friday, August 15th 2008 at 10:49 am
Thank you! Without folks like you the Apple Pro community would not exist.
Friday, August 15th 2008 at 11:32 am
There’s no reason I can think of why this wouldn’t work with fcs 1. But the compressor upgarde in Studio 2 is very nice!
Monday, August 18th 2008 at 12:12 pm
Thanks so much, my compressor was also getting stuck at the logon screen and would go further. Even deleting the preferences didn’t help. Using Pacifist worked great
Saturday, August 30th 2008 at 11:59 am
Have re-installed Compressor 4 times now wasting a whole day – last one using Pacifist. Still get same “Unexpectedly had to quit” error on launching it. Basically I’m stuffed. Can’t use Compressor anymore. What are you doing about it mr big fat Apple?
Monday, September 1st 2008 at 8:43 am
And now I find I can’t open Motion either! That’s even more serious – you NEED that to do decent titles. How can you make a living from this toy software? AVID was never like this. FCP needs a complete rethink for vers 7…
Monday, September 1st 2008 at 8:57 am
I think that’s just anger talking Avidfcp …. may people make good livings from FCP. From what I’ve seen, when the Pacifist method doesn’t work then it’s a total reinstall of the OS. It is a huge pain. I agree totally that Apple needs to address this but FCP is still a very usable piece of software.
Monday, October 20th 2008 at 2:03 pm
YOU ARE A TOTAL GENIUS!
THANKS A MILLION SIR.
A FRIEND FOR LIFE – ALL THE WAY FAE SCOTLAND.
THE URBANCROFTER.
Thursday, October 23rd 2008 at 2:48 am
cheers, all better now.
Tuesday, November 11th 2008 at 2:53 am
I know this is a stupid question, but I ripped a chapter off Handbrake and want to edit it in Final Cut Pro. So I opened the .mp4 file with Compressor and have given it what I believe to be the desired setting and destination: DV NTSC and Desktop. This is where I have a problem, after clicking submit it tells me I need a batch name and has also sometimes told me that each target assigned to a job must have a setting and a destination. I can’t find anything in my Final Cut Studio Manuals that could help my resolve this problem and the person I asked to help me is running Compressor Version 2.0 not 3.0.1. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! I am extremely frustrated and feel like a moron.
-Matt
Tuesday, November 11th 2008 at 6:18 am
Matthew, first off you know it’s illegal to rip and edit off of a DVD unless you own the content right?
You need to go through a step by step in how to use Compressor if you have no target. First you drag a clip into Compressor to encode and then you drag a setting to the clip. It then has a target and a destination. Look at the basics in doing a compressor encode and that should solve the issue.
Monday, November 24th 2008 at 4:30 am
Thanks very much Scott… worked brilliantly for me….
Wednesday, December 3rd 2008 at 12:06 pm
Typically this is the result of not having a computer name established and incorrect Qmaster configurations. Do not set up a cluster if you do not have other Macs that you are going to use as a render farm.
from Apple’s Compressor: Troubleshooting basics
Confirm your computer’s name in Sharing
A Computer Name and a Local Hostname must be populated in the Sharing pane in System Preferences (even if sharing is not enabled for any services).
1. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.
2. Click Sharing.
3. If the Computer Name field is blank, enter a name.
4. Click the Edit button.
5. If there is not a name in the Local Hostname field, enter a name.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1888
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1174710
1. In system preferences –> Sharing, I made sure my computer had a name.
2. In system preferences –> Apple Qmaster, I had QuickCluster with services chosen and then at the bottom I clicked on “Start Sharing.”
Thursday, December 18th 2008 at 9:45 pm
… didn’t work for me. None of the above.
I have a clean installed 10.5.6 and FCS2 with the latest updates.
Thanks for the help, but didn’t work here. Loosing one job after the other, Thanks Steve.
Friday, December 19th 2008 at 6:51 am
…OK. After another clean setup I found out what f** up the system. Installed, updated, installed the other software (after every step trying to run compressor which always worked perfectly). Everything was fine. Then I copyed my mailfolder from my 10.4-backup to my library and repaired the rights with disk-util; tryed compressor – off duty, the stupid “Error: unrecognized request.”
So it seems I can’t keep compressor rom trying to use the stupid background-services I DON’T NEED and so every influence on the usr rights confuses the stupid thing. Wha can’t we have a standalone copressor that just works fine? Why does FCS2 force me to install the obviously badly coded qmaster? ’till now: I’ll dump all my mails just to be able to run a simple MPEG-compression.
Out to buy Avid.
Friday, December 19th 2008 at 7:11 am
Hm, it’s me agian. After speculating on accounts, user permissions and stuff, here’s a solution that suddenly made the thing work:
I created another user, went to compressor and after telling me that there was some cue by some other user – I reseted that dialog – it worked just fine.
Coming back to my Admin-Account, now it seems to work here as well. If that’s the problem (user permissions) than I’m fine and Apple should book some 14yearolds to fix that from the beginning.
Someone else to try this?
Friday, January 9th 2009 at 1:54 pm
I just wanted to jump on here to say THANK YOU. Obviously a lot of very frustrated and bamboozled FCS2 users have been saved a ton of grief because you guys took the time to put this together. It worked just as the tutorial outlined and HALLELUJAH, I’m up and running again. In case anyone is curious, my issue was the result of upgrading to a new mac (in this case an mbp15). Being a creative and not an IT-minded guy, I just used Apple’s Migration Assistant Utility–bad move. After 2 weeks of headaches with a sluggish system and all kinds of FCP crashes, etc. I finally did an OS Archive and Install. That solved everything, so I thought, until this Compressor nightmare. I write all of this in case anyone else with such blind trust in Apple and low IT/IQ is desperately Googling for an answer. Many many thanks. And I encourage everyone to take the time to pay $20 to the GENIUS who developed Pacifist.
Cheers to you all!
SCG
Wednesday, March 11th 2009 at 6:54 am
Dude. This is awesome. I was testing out some qmaster render farm stuff and messed up my compressor. This worked for me….you da man!
Sunday, May 17th 2009 at 12:34 am
Thank you so much! Worked like a charm and I’m a Mac/FCP newbie!
Sunday, May 31st 2009 at 12:45 am
I also had several tries. None of which made any difference — Compressor still wasn’t doing anything and had transcoder suspended.
But, I changed something when I did it last time and it worked.
Here’s what I did (could be just one of these steps that made the thing work):
– This time I installed Compressor and Qmaster from LOGIC STUDIO DVD and NOT Final Cut Studio DVD like before.
– When installing Compressor, I checked the checkbox that asked if I want to allow my computer to be a network node.
– Before downloading and installing any updates, I launched Compressor once and then quit.
– Then I downloaded and installed the Pro Applications update, launched Compressor again and there it goes — works like a charm.
Sunday, July 12th 2009 at 8:12 am
Twice now I’ve had success re-installing Compressor and Qmaster using Pacifist, but I haven’t gone through the trouble of deleting it first. Also, you can just hit “skip” to not have to do the DVD dance. No problems either time, and less extra steps (and places to mess up).
Tuesday, August 18th 2009 at 2:48 pm
Great research. I’m not sure if you know, but I’m having a similar compressor related issue, and I’m wondering if your fix will work for my problem. I’ve tirelessly attempted to compress a apple pro res sequence into an mpeg-2 for printing to sd dvd. Every time I select my preferences and go to submit batch, the info window in batch monitor reads waiting or processing for an absurd amount of time, and reads “unknown time remaining”. do you know if you fix would correct this problem as well as the restart/ reinstall error.
Thanks for all the work you put into this.
Dave
Thursday, August 20th 2009 at 4:46 pm
I don’t know if it would fix your issue or not David but since it is a re-install of the application it won’t hurt. If you’re at the end of the rope I say go for it.
Tuesday, November 3rd 2009 at 8:19 am
Hi there,
thanks for the advice about using Pacifist but when i downloaded it it said I had the following command line tools not found
/usr/bin/isbom etc
what does this mean?
Matt Gardner
Tuesday, November 3rd 2009 at 8:32 am
Boy Matt you got me on that one. I have no idea. Did you try a Google search?
Tuesday, November 17th 2009 at 1:33 am
Thank you!!!! it Woked. Can’t imagine apple didn’t fix this already.It is almost 2 years ago since this post was published…???!!!
Sunday, January 17th 2010 at 4:18 pm
HOLY COW! I followed the instructions to the letter in the apple manual and website and pulled my hair out that it couldn’t work. I’m a creative pro… I need to render (don’t we all). Dude… IT WORKED!
Just be sure you do step 10… vital… and all will be well.
Sunday, August 15th 2010 at 2:16 pm
Thank you. worked perfect first time.
Sunday, September 19th 2010 at 7:57 pm
Thanks so much! Great karma points for coming up with the realistic and accessible solution!
Monday, October 25th 2010 at 12:40 pm
I guess I’m a little behind the times… Compressor has always worked wonderfully for me…. until I recently upgraded to OS 10.5.8… Then I got that dreaded error message and couldn’t submit anything. With deadlines looming, I was tempted to go another compressing route… until I saw the 2008 post about using Pacifist. It worked!!! Thank you!!
Friday, November 19th 2010 at 10:25 am
I really like your blog.Thanks for sharing such a wonderful information.