Cannot open old iMovie project

I have an old iMovie project from 2008 that I cannot open.
If I double-click it, terminal opens.
Recommended applications are Textwrangler, Terminal.... not really the right thing to watch a movie.
Final Cut Pro X cannot read the file, because it's in the "bundle" format. Quicktime is also grayed out.
Is this some weird format that is no longer readable by anything? Or can I turn it into an .mp4 file?
Thanks.

iMovie doesn't support importing one iMovie project to another. When we try, we get exactly the error you quoted.
You can, however, import all the Timeline video and audio as a single clip to a new project. Or you can drag files from the Media folder of the project to the Timeline of a NEW project.
In the Finder, Control-click on the project icon and choose Show Package Contents from the popUp menu. You'll see the movie "Timeline Movie.mov" in the window that opens. You want to import that movie to a new project, or import selected files in the Media folder.
To import, drag the file to the Timeline of a NEW iMovie project. If importing the Timeline Movie, everything on the Timeline of the original project will arrive as a single clip in the new project.
If the project failed on the external drive, it may be because the disk does not use the disk format required by iMovie. Use Disk Utility to check the disk format, which must be "Mac OS Extended". If it's not that format, use Disk Utility to reformat the drive. (Which will erase all the files on the drive, so make backups.)
Karl

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I have a few old iMovie projects from around 2001/2002 on an external hard disk. If I try to open them, they won't open in iMovie. Instead it would give a "Parse Error". The folder looks something like this:
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It seems as your external disk is not Mac-formatted (Mac OS Extended), but PC-formatted (FAT32).
First copy your files over to a disk that is Mac-formatted (Mac OS Extended).
Then you apply my file fixers a bit down on this page:
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Hi Stephen,
Your memory is probably better than mine but I would go as far to say that you can probably open them with iMovie HD 5 without much ado just not on your intel or any machine running 10.3.9 with QT 7 as things have changed considerably with that combination. If you have or have access to a computer running 10.3.9 or earlier with QT 6.5 or earlier you should be golden provided you didn't save anything while it was opened in 6..
It's not that I am saying timing is my only problem though either. But It appears to be the cause of why things aren't working correctly and that iM keeps trashing files as nothing is making sense to the timeline anymore and projects created before the 3.9 & 7 combo had no clue what a graphics card even was and now that is the only way they are being processed. Don't get me wrong I do like my Intel but the PPC was a different beast altogether as it was capable of doing things the Intel never could and never will as it doesn't need to and can do what it does best allowing your graphics card to do what it does best as well. They just aren't in sync causing issues in any areas and not just iMovie.
If you do not need to re-edit you may be able to open the timeline movie in iM6 instead of opening the project though I am not sure how this will work in the long run as it will only be a reference movie and require the original to work.
Hope this helps. Please let us know how if it works out for you.
Thank You.
Sweet Polly

Opening old iMovie project

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Cannot open an iMovie project file

I can no longer open an iMovie project file from my external hard drive. Other iMovie projects on the hard drive can be opened, but not my main project. I've transfered it back to my MacBook Pro and then tried importing it into a new project, but I get an error -43 message about Quicktime not able to 'parse' the file. I have also tried Lennart Thelander's "File Fixer" but this still does not open the file. File icon and file size (39.02GB) seem to be the same as when the file could be opened. Is there a way to recover this file?
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iMovie doesn't support importing one iMovie project to another. When we try, we get exactly the error you quoted.
You can, however, import all the Timeline video and audio as a single clip to a new project. Or you can drag files from the Media folder of the project to the Timeline of a NEW project.
In the Finder, Control-click on the project icon and choose Show Package Contents from the popUp menu. You'll see the movie "Timeline Movie.mov" in the window that opens. You want to import that movie to a new project, or import selected files in the Media folder.
To import, drag the file to the Timeline of a NEW iMovie project. If importing the Timeline Movie, everything on the Timeline of the original project will arrive as a single clip in the new project.
If the project failed on the external drive, it may be because the disk does not use the disk format required by iMovie. Use Disk Utility to check the disk format, which must be "Mac OS Extended". If it's not that format, use Disk Utility to reformat the drive. (Which will erase all the files on the drive, so make backups.)
Karl

I cannot open my imovie project

I just reinstalled leopard, before I formated my macbook pro, I copied my imovie project files and events to an external harddrive. My question is, how do I load them in imovie now? Which folder and files should I copy from my backup? Thanks Alex

You must move everything back to where it was on your internal drive, and then move it from within iMovie. If you are short on space, you can do this one Event at a time. Be sure iMovie is closed when you move it back, then restart iMovie so it will recognize it.
The reason you need to move your projects and events back relates to the architecture of iMovie. The video files are in the Event. The project consists of a text file of instructions that are executed when the project is shared. The project expects to find the Event file where it was when you created the project in iMovie. If you move the Event file from within iMovie, the Project file is updated with pointers to the new location. If you move the Event file in the Finder, iMovie has no way to know where the Event has gone.

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Sorry, I interpreted "old projects" as having come from an older version of iMovie.
I've tried going through OPEN and IMPORT, but I can't seem to get it right.
Have you tried and failed with "Open Project" in iMovie as "Open Recent" only holds the most recent and holds none after a delete of preferences.
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This is a strange one...
I recently upgraded from iMovie 4.01 to iMivie HD 6.03.
I opened an old project from mu 4.01 version, and although all the data and edits are correct and identical, all the color is wrong. There is no moving video in this old iMovie, just photo's with transitions and heavy effects editing. Everything that is supposed to be black, even the background, is now a horrible purple and the images in my movie have this discoloration consistantly. Even without playback, the iMovie window is purple and not black. With new projects everything is fine, but this color issue seems only related to opening OLD iMovie projects. I looked in preferences for an option, but thereseemed to be no logical solution. Please help!

Others have reported this problem too, with a variety
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I believe it helped when they changed their iMovie
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Karl
Thankyou. That helped. Everthing looks normal, as it should. strange bug though, I dont understand how this could occur... weird. I just hope my output now looks normal as well, as when I 'Bounced' to Mpeg with the quality setting fo rplayback at 'highest', it was purple throughout the subsiquent movie file. Now, it saves as normal, but I wonder exactly what the 'Quality' preference really does???
Having said that, Thank you karl, I can get back to work!
Top advice!
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Cannot open old project

There was a topic about this that has been archived, otherwise I would have replied to that one.
Trying today to open an old iMovie project, one that was done with a prior version of iMovie (before 6/HD), and I got this error message:
+The project could not be opened, because the disk is full, the folder is locked, or the folder permission are incorrect.+
The previous thread about this did not arrive at a specific solution. And like the prior thread, one piece of the puzzle is that I have not only cloned my original hard drive to a larger one, but I've also re-installed Leopard as a "clean install", to get rid of things I've dragged along in upgrading from Panther -> Tiger -> Leopard.
Anyway, I tried looking at permissions, and they were okay as far as the chmod settings were concerned. What I missed was looking further at it in Terminal was the owner and group was not as it should be.
With one file, the owner was correct ("steven"), but the group was "501". Although that is my group, the file opened correctly when I changed all the files to have the group "staff". Whether or not this was the problem I cannot say; when I finally got it opened and save it with a different name, the group was again "501". In any case, it works to load and save now.
With another file, the owner and group were both "502", which was from changes made while using a pre-Leopard version of Mac OS X.
So, if anyone has this problem, it might get better if you can use the terminal to change the owner and group to the correct values.
To do this, for a movie named "My Great iMovie" in the user folder Movies, start Terminal and execute these commands:
cd ~/Movies
ls -laFB
This will list all files in this folder, and put a "/" at the end of directories. (Note that iMovie project files are actually folders of files). In that list should be your movie, or in my example "My Great iMovie". It might look like this:
drwxrwxrwx 23 steven 501 782 Jul 13 15:15 ./
drwx------+ 18 steven staff 612 Jun 23 17:38 ../
-rw-rw-rw-@ 1 steven staff 6148 Jul 13 14:36 .DS_Store
drwxr-xr-x@ 7 steven 501 238 Jul 13 15:17 My Great iMovie.iMovieProject/
now change to the movie project folder and display that directory:
cd "My Great iMovie.iMovieProject"
ls -laFB
and it will display something like this:
drwxr-xr-x@ 7 steven 501 238 Jul 13 15:17 ./
drwxrwxrwx 23 steven 501 782 Jul 13 15:15 ../
drwxr-xr-x@ 5 steven 501 170 Jul 13 15:17 Audio Waveforms/
drwxr-xr-x@ 5 steven 501 170 Jul 13 15:16 Cache/
-rw-r--r-- 1 steven 501 99239 Jul 13 15:15 My Great iMovie.iMovieProj
drwxr-xr-x@ 86 steven 501 2924 Jul 13 15:15 Media/
drwxr-xr-x@ 5 steven staff 170 Apr 9 2006 Shared Movies/
Note that if the owner is not the same as your short username, you will not be able to go into this folder, because you don't have permission. In that case, you will need to change the commands to have "sudo" in front of them, like this:
sudo cd "My Great iMovie.iMovieProject"
To fix the owner, enter this command:
sudo chown steven *
(but use your short username instead of mine, obviously).
To fix the group, enter this command:
sudo chgrp staff *
you can display your changes with
ls -laFB
Change back to the next directory up with:
cd ..
and be sure to do the same for the project folder also:
sudo chown steven "My Great iMovie.iMovieProject"
sudo chgrp staff "My Great iMovie.iMovieProject"
If the permission problem is what is preventing the file from opening in iMovie, this should resolve your problem.

.

I previously made an iMovie project, but with the new version of iMovie (10.0.1) it does not have the option to import. How do I retrieve my old iMovie project?

I previously made an iMovie project, but with the new version of iMovie (10.0.1) I cannot import the project. How do I retrieve and import my old iMovie project?

You have to upgrade your iMovie 9 projects from iMovie 10 before you can use them. See:
http://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.0/#mov902ad0c31
Geoff.

Problem old iMovie project to iMovieHD

I upgraded to iMovieHD ages ago, and today decided to send an iMovie Project I created in old iMovie to DV tape. When I opened the project it asked to convert it to iMovieHD, when it did that playing the project was very jerky. I set it streaming to tape and the DV result is very jerky then stops.
Is this a none problem with old iMovie project, is there and work around?

update:
1. I ran Mac Sweeper: played okay in iMovie but still jerky/stopping sharing to DV tape
2. I moved project from External Firewire drive to HD (I have previously made loads of iDVD's and DV tapes with project on external Firewire Drives: same results as 1.
3. Made loads more space on HD, disconnected Firewire and USB external drives and disabled Airport, ran Mac Sweeper again: same results as 1
4. made new projected, imported a little different footage, made 2 min iMovie and exported to tape, did this to rule out camcorder and cable issues: 2 min movie worked fine
Never tried doing a flat file before so going to give that a try next if I can figure out how.
I greatly appreicate everybodies assistance. This is the first time I have had this problem and I have made a lot of iDVD's (and I always send a backup to DV tape before deleting, usually I do that straight away, for some reason I didn't with this particualr project - sods law) todate.
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Updating old iMovie projects

I'm using the latest version of fcpx (10.2) and I'm trying to move all my old iMovie projects into fcp
I have old iMovie projects on almost every version of iMovie dating including iMovie HD, iMovie '11, iMovie 10
I'm very confused between the latest iMovie versions. I believe that iMovie 11 is actually older than iMovie 10? ('11 referring to the year it came out and 10 relating it to os X or fcpX?)
I think its the iMovie 11 software that used the iMovie project and iMovie events folders. I think this older iMovie software expected you to import the iMovie project from the old version earliest version of fcpx? (or export an xml file?) I think the newer iMovie 10 wants you to export the iMovie project to the latest version of fcpx 10.2?
Is it possible to move a project from the older iMovie (11?) to the newest fcpx (10.2)? Do I need to do an intermediary step and upgrade from the older iMovie to the newest iMovie? Do movie trailers work the same way from both iMovie programs if converted first to movie project form?
Thanks

Hi I had the same issue and fixed it with deleting "UpdatedtoiMovie10" see step 4.
n the Finder, click the Go menu and choose Home.
Open the Movies folder.
Move the “iMovie Library” file to the Trash.
Note: If you have imported content or created projects with iMovie version 10.0, do not delete this file.
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Can't open old iMovie files

Hi. This has probably been answered before, but I couldn't find any thread about it.
Anyway, I'm trying to open a movie made and saved in an older iMovie program, and it doesn't work.
It starts fair enough by asking if I want to convert it, and starts doing it until 50% has been converted.. But then iMovie always falls out/quits by itself.
Is there anything I can do? Patches? Anything?
And if not, does iMovie 6 fix this bug?

does iMovie 6 fix this bug?
I wouldn't assume it's a bug. There may some tool used to make the old iMovie project -- a third-party plug-in or a font perhaps -- that isn't installed for iMovie 5. (Even if installed, sometimes third-party plug-ins are incompatible with iMovie 5.)
It's almost impossible to diagnose the problem so I wouldn't spend much time trying. Rather, you should continue editing the project with the version of iMovie that created it, or import its video to a new iMovie HD project. (Instead of converting the project.)
The most recent versions of iMovie created a reference movie inside the project folder that you can import into a new iMovie 5 project. Look for the (small) QuickTime movie with the same name as your old project. Drag it into the iMovie 5 timeline and iMovie will import everything in the timeline of the old project to a new project as a single clip. (If that import fails, that suggests an underlying problem with the source video or audio.)
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Cannot open old Illustrator files (pre version 8) in CS4 trial

Hi
I am thinking of upgrading from Illustrator CS2 to CS4. However, I have downloaded the trial version and have found that Illustrator CS4 cannot open old Illustrator files earlier than version 8 (pre 2000) whereas Illustrator CS2 had no problem with this. I do not want to resave my old files as there are way too many of them (hundreds!).
I am running Windows XP.
Has anyone else had this problem?
Thanks

Exactly what happens when you attempt to open one of these old files in AI 14 (CS4)? (If you get an error message, what does it say?)
Can you post a sample file up on a server or service and provide the link here? That way, others with AI 14 can test to see whether it's something peculiar to your installation.
Please also tell us exactly how you are attempting to open the files. (Double-clicking in Explorer? Using File | Open from within Illustrator? Dragging and dropping onto an AI 14 shortcut?)
>...CS4 cannot open old Illustrator files earlier than version 8...
I find it very difficult to believe AI 14 can open version 8 but not version 7 files. There was no significant change in the native file format.

Cannot open old iMovie project

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