Uninstalling Final Cut Studio
On Thursday afternoon I tried to upgrade FCP from 6.0.2 to 6.0.4, which required upgrading the OS from 10.5.2 to 10.5.4. Now, my desktop computer is not a real Mac, which means it requires extreme care when upgrading the OS. What I did instead was run software update and assume everything would be fine.
It wasn’t fine. It turns out if you can run a vanilla kernel (which I can) then you can upgrade from 10.5.3 to 10.5.4 using software update. But going from 10.5.2 to 10.5.3 generally causes kernel panics. Luckily I had backed up my Library, Users, and System folders. So I did a clean install of 10.5.2, then copied my User and Library files back in while I was booted up in Windows. I used Kalyway’s patched upgrade to 10.5.3 and then used software update to get to 10.5.4. I was then able to upgrade FCP to 6.0.4.
Unfortunately, the older version of nvinject that I was using didn’t work with the new OS and I lost QE support. I tried switching to NVKush, which brought back QE, but whenever I was playing video in FCP the position bar didn’t update. So I got a new version of nvinject, which works great.
Then I started actually working with FCP. The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that I did something a little screwy a few paragraphs back. I copied my backup files while I was in Windows, which totally screwed up the permissions of a large number of my files, including some of the very files that are supposed to facilitate permission repair. I couldn’t load Compressor, Motion, or any FXPlug effects. I tried re-installing FCS, but I was doing it manually and didn’t delete the very important receipts for the “frameworks” that are required in order to load the things I couldn’t load.
Eventually I tracked everything down, but what I should have used is FCS Remover, which does all that stuff automatically. There is a TON of stuff floating around in various folders. Don’t try to do it all yourself.
