Can't make Timelapses anymore with Compressor - "Job Controller Down" error

Question

Can't make Timelapses anymore with Compressor - "Job Controller Down" error

Hi there,

Just upgraded my M1 MacBook Air to Ventura 13.5 and latest Compressor 4.6.6 and now cannot get an Image Sequence (Timelapse) out of Compressor. On export I get the error message "Job Controller Down".

Anyone else experienced this?

I did the Option+Command preferences reset but no luck. Will have to go back to Lightroom to make my Timelapses, just wanted to do a quick first pass here on Compressor first though.

Cheers,

Susan.

MacBook Air 11″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Oct 17, 2023 1:00 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 22, 2023 3:33 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hi Luis... under the gun here on a deadline so haven't had time to download and run Etrecheck (also worried about installing something new on my system while I'm in final delivery mode).

I have not upgraded to Sonoma, I am still on Ventura 13.5 as Larry Jordan posted that there were issues with going to Sonoma. I'll upgrade as soon as I am out of my delivery stress.

I've included a screengrab of my error messages... I see now that there is another person experiencing this (RVKperson in comments below), and their identical error message is not with timelapses but also on Ventura.

I'll report back as soon as I've finished my delivery and report back, fingers crossed it fixes it... for right now I'm doing a workaround in Adobe Lightroom and Premiere.

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Answer 2

Oct 18, 2023 12:40 AM in response to Ceratotherium

Can you tell us the exact settings you are using with Compressor, so we can try and see if it is reproducible?

Also, does using Compressor with other settings like, say, one for Apple Devices or Quicktime, run correctly?

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Answer 3

Oct 18, 2023 5:29 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thanks Luis, I am so puzzled by this:

• Upgraded M1 MacBook Air to Ventura and latest Compressor.

• Compressor > Add Image Sequence (in PAL land so change the "Set frame rate" to manually 25fps, but have tried "Automatically based on the file format" as well with no luck)

• When the files load into one video file, I can play it (does stutter as it's a MacBook Air) and jump through in the Compressor timeline, so the video is there and In and Outs are set correctly.

• Start Batch using the Apple ProRes 422 setting with Video only in the Format pull-down menu and Location I've tried Desktop, RAID drive, the SOURCE location, you name it, but no luck.

• In the Active menu I can see the job processing but about half-way through it stops and in the Completed menu area I get "Faild: 2x job controller down"

Yes, tried other settings but no luck. But, all other conversions I have done in the past two weeks work fine, i.e. A ProRes export from FCPX to H.264s or BITC-HD m4v versions for our final mix guy and subtitles team, etc work as normal.

So it seems it's the timelapse from still images thing that is not working. I of course can make an event in FCPX and import, Ctrl-D to 1frame and pop on timeline and export, but it is so clumsy in FCPX. Much prefer the Compressor way of doing it (I do a one pass in Lightroom and then correction and etceteras once pic is locked and go back and compile the final Lightroom graded images back in Compressor, so will miss doing it this way, but at least I can use FCPX).

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Answer 4

Oct 18, 2023 5:54 AM in response to Ceratotherium

I will have to do more testing, as I am about to leave now.

I did a take a very short image sequence, convert it to ProRes using Compressor 4.6.6, and it worked fine.

I tried it on a 2019 16" Intel MBP, and also on an M1 Max Mac Studio, both running Sonoma 14.0.

Maybe there is something else on your system causing trouble.

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here. Use the "additional text" button and paste the report into the text box.

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Answer 5

Oct 22, 2023 2:45 AM in response to Ceratotherium

Hi, I've also started to get this error: "Failed: 2x job controller down" when I try to compresss edited videos into 4K streaming files in Compressor. I can compress them using the share option from inside fcpx but get the "Failed: 2x job controller down" message when I try in compressor. Have tried many times. Very frustrating. Use an M1 mini mac

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Answer 6

Oct 22, 2023 3:16 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thanks for the prompt reply :-) Yes, I get this trying to compress video files, selecting the 4K streaming preset, which has always worked for me. I also tried to compress it with the "Apple devices 4k" preset and get the same error. And I've also tried processing another video file and get the same message. I use Apple Ventura 13.2.1, Compressor 4.6.5

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Answer 7

Oct 22, 2023 3:20 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thanks for the prompt reply :-) Yes, I get this trying to compress video files, selecting the 4K streaming preset, which has always worked for me. I also tried to compress it with the "Apple devices 4k" preset and get the same error. And I've also tried processing another video file and get the same message. I use Apple Ventura 13.2.1, Compressor 4.6.5

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Answer 8

emmc

Level 1

8 points

Mar 2, 2024 9:40 AM in response to Ceratotherium

I have run into this error as well when using an HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) destination. In my case I was able to narrow the issue down to having captions included in the job. Removing captions from the job seems to prevent this bug. I’ve filed a Feedback with Apple.

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