FCP 10.8, macOS Sonoma and Apple Silicon Persistent Beachballing Problem when Transcoding

[tangierc]

Folks, I keep having an issue while since upgrading to Final Cut Pro 10.8 and macOS Sonoma.

1. I used to have no issues doing additional work after initiating a transcode. FCP would simply pause it's processes.
2. Now whenever I initiate transcoding to make proxies, I get the spinning beachball which persists until the job is done. I can't click anywhere else or do any other operation within Final Cut Pro.
3. I've closed other apps to free up any memory.
4. The background task does continue though.

As of writing this I am using FCP 10.8.1 on macOS Sonoma 14.6.1 on an M2 Max MacBook Pro with 64 GB of memory.
Media is stored on an OWC Gemini RAID and transcoding via thunderbolt to an OWC SSD where all of my project proxies are stored.
This is also after a complete wipe and reinstall of my computer, the macOS, FCP and a clean rebuild of the RAID.

Has anyone else noticed an uptick or more situations where FCP does not allow you to continue working and pause background tasks? I don't recall having this issue with Intel Processors nor before Sonoma.

[latenitefilms]

I haven't had any negative reports about 10.8.1 - however, I wonder if previously you had CommandPost's Enable Rendering During Playback enabled, so you're used to that behaviour?

[latenitefilms]

To be honest, we stopped using spinning drives at LateNite a few years ago - we only work off SSD's.

[tangierc]

Yeah, I hear you and I get that recommendation from others. However this drive was provided by the production team and it (should be) a very good drive that should work without issue with the codecs I am using. I've had better performance on other and older drives, so I am currently left to believe that something has changed either with FCP, Sonoma, or both involving memory allocation / swapping on Apple Silicon; particularly after doing a full rebuild of my computer, the RAID, and pertinent software only. Still more trouble shooting to do. Right now I am working on the project mostly in proxies on an SSD, but truth be told, I shouldn't have to. It's just smaller, more convenient, and more mobile.

[latenitefilms]

Are you using OWC SoftRAID or Apple's built-in RAID?

[latenitefilms]

Ah right, OWC Gemini has a built-in hardware controller, so ignore me.

[tangierc]

This Gemini is hardware RAID (selector on the back), unlike the Thunderbay I was using on the last project that had four drives and was using SoftRAID. I can still use SoftRAID on this Gemini to assess the build of the RAID and RAID status though.