Apple Motion is still SUPER SLOW to Launch on M2

It looks like the problem is not with loading plug-ins, but the Project Browser (since it also occurs when Motion is already running).

If you start Motion holding down the Shift key, it will bypass the Project Browser and open more quickly.

But your idea of putting a sample title, generator, effect and transition in the Dock (which I believe is what you mean by the "bar at the bottom" works too.

Hi Don,

Best to make your feedback and feature requests here

Feedback - Motion - Apple

That is the channel that has oversight from the Motion development team.

It is interesting that there was no plugin or template product you could isolate to find the one causing the lag in loading.

As you may have seen already in this thread, there are a couple settings you can change to skip the 'browser' on start up.

May I ask what happens if you right click from the Motion icon in the dockbar and open a previous project from there? Do you still get the lag on start up?

Hi

The previous thread still all applies here.

For a baseline - remove all your plugins and then launch Motion. You should see Motion boot immediately.

If you have anything from Pixelfilm studios

The issue isn't with Motion, but with the 3rd party developers not catching up such that their plugins slow the launch process down. It is a 3rd party software issue.

It would be good for there to be some kind of detection - like on launch '3rd party plugin XYZ is not responsive' so that we can isolate and remove. That would go a long way to take the uncertainty out of it.

You can bypass a plug in Motion. Remove it from the directory and Motion will not attempt to run it.

Finder - movies - motion templates - you will find all the effects, titles, transitions and generator folders here. Put them in a different location. But - note that if you have these in use in any FCP project - they will be missing now. Any plugin that uses an installer that runs the hosted fxplug tools - contact the developer on how to uninstall.

If you launch Motion to the project browser by default, then yes, Motion will read check every plugin in that process.

If you want to change the default launch - go in to Motion preferences/project and change the launch mode from browser to project. Then use the 'choose' menu to set the default project settings.

Hi

As far as I know, Motion and FCP are not using the same process. It is not as if FCP is faster than Motion to do the same thing. Motion is the motion graphic engine of FCP - (others here can give a more exact explanation of that) - and Motion needs to know what FCP is running so that it can access anything installed template - this is the difference. FCP doesn't need to load anything until it is required to - at the time there is a template to be run - then FCP will process that case by case. Motion needs to load and process everything on start up.

In FCP you will see the lag in a different situation - when you add an unoptimised template to the project - then you will surely see the 'loading XYZ' prompt for excessive durations before it runs - or, beachballs FCP outright.

Chrome I have no knowledge on - I think that at the time back then, it was a known system resource hog that was slowing things down for Motion and other apps also.

Yes, would be other plugins causing issues. I note PFS because the observable trend here over the years with this topic has been that a PFS plugin was the cause.

I thought that Apple Motion was simply crashing on the load of a faulty plug-in. The inability to open started when I had an Intel iMac Pro, but continues with my M1 Studio Ultra. I would launch Motion and then the Force Quit panel would show that it was not responding. I would still wait a bit longer before force-quitting Motion.

Well, today, I accidentally let it try to launch for about ten minutes. When I came back to my computer, Motion had launched! Apparently, it had NOT been crashing but instead SOME plug-in was slowing the launch WAY DOWN. Way WAY down!

Before discovering it was just a massive loading slow-down, I went through the process of eliminating (in steps) ALL plug-ins to find the culprit. But, no joy. Yes, ALL plugins were absent at some point with no change in boot time.

Remember back for a few years and you might recall seeing an app load while listing what step it was on. I mean, steps were changing at a blur of high speed. In my bucket of wishes, I wish Motion would list the plug-in it is loading. Just watching plug-in names flashing by and then seeing one plug-in that stalls the loading will tell you which plug-in is the culprit.

Please please PLEASE Apple, there are so many of us with Motion plug-in loading issues, so if you could find a way to see the plug-in loading sequence would help immensely.

Thank you.

I essentially do the same thing in that if I want to create a new title, I’ll go inside of any title effect and open it instantly in Motion, save as, and then clear that title and work on my new title. Just today, I put the active ingredient of a title, an effect, a transition and a generator in the bar at the bottom since trying to go to a different kind of plug-in from an already open Motion will also stall Motion for a number of minutes.

I have the same problem running a Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra. As I purchased more plug-ins from Pixel, the Motion performance got worse while FCP has been fine. I was also running Clean My Mac X and spent all day removing it and its components due to a lot of advice here saying it can be the problem and is problem software regardless. However, removing didn't seem to do much for the Motion launch, maybe just a little quicker.

Pixel Film Studios plugins have never really played well with Motion.

Motion, with hardly any plugins opens as slowly as it ever did, maybe slightly slower on all our Apple silicon and Intel Macs.

Launching Motion was never fast, probably won't ever be.

June 2024 I came upon this after beginning to look into Motion. M1 Studio Max with 64GB RAM was taking 30 or more seconds to launch Motion. I removed all my Pixel Film Studio plugins ( I can live without them) and bingo. Instantaneous launch.

While we are here - do not update Motion and FCP to the latest versions.

There are regressions that are breaking 3rd party apps across the industry. Just fyi :)

Holding the shift key whilst opening Motion helped. Thank you