IMovie crashes on opening

Question

I open and get "previous attempts to find this movie have failed..do you want to ignore it" (it's been deleted anyway), I schoose yes then as it downloads my files it then freezes on 11% and i get the spinning beachball of death...any ideas!! I have since installed OS LION and imovie/iphoto 11 and it still does it. I have also uninstalled both then reinstalled them..its still doing it.

Answer 1

Hi
There are some places where the problem may be.
• Mac OS X.7 Lion - might be one - This I've not used and do not know
• iMovie Preference file got corrupted - very common origin - trash it and re-start iMovie might work (easier way to do this is to start a new User-account and log into this and see if iMovie now works)
• If Mac been forced to Quit - then one usually run Disk Util tool and
- Repair Permissions - and -
- Repair Hard disk (one has to start the Mac from DVD or from other hard disk to do this last one.)
• iPhoto Library - can also matters as iMovie starts to read this looking for movies etc.
- Start iPhoto and see that it works OK.
Else
Not knowing the origin to Your problem - General approach when in trouble is as follows.
• Free space on internal (start-up) hard disk if it is less than 10Gb should rather have 25Gb
• Delete iMovie pref. file
iMovie pref. file resides.
Mac Hard Disk (start-up HD)/Users/"Your account"/Library/Preferences
and is named. (one or more of these)
com.apple.iMovie.plist
com.apple.iMovie3.plist
com.apple.iMovie7.plist
com.apple.iMovie8.plist
com.apple.iMovie9.plist
and find
com.apple.iApps.plist
While iMovie is NOT RUNNING - move this/these file/s out on to desk-top.
Now restart iMovie.
• Hard disk is untidy. Repair Permissions, Repair Hard disk (Apple’s Disk Utilities application)
• Disconnect all external hard disks and try - FireWire, USB/2, AirPort or Net-work connected.
To work OK I prefer FireWire AND it must be Mac OS Extended formatted - UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange - WILL NOT DO for video - neither for iMovie or FinalCut or iDVD any version ! This also includes any USB-memory sticks.
• Garageband-fix. Start it, Play a note and Close it. Re-try (Corrects an audio problem that hinders iMovie)
• Screen must be set to Million-colors
• Turn off Mac and disconnect Mains/Power for 20-30 minutes - will at least re-set FW-port
• Third party plug-ins that doesn't work OK (not relevant for iMovie’08 or 09 or 11)
• Problems in iPhoto Library can affect iMovie to crash on start-up. Re-build this first then try to re-start iMovie.
This You do by
_ close iPhoto
_ on start up of iPhoto - Keep {cmd and alt-keys down}
_ now select all five options presented
_ WAIT a long long time
• iMovie updated ?
• QuickTime updated ?
• Mac OS version ?
• Program miss-match. iMovie 4 - will not work under Leopard
• Program miss-match. iMovie 5.0.2, up to Mac OS X.4.11 AND QuickTime 7.4.1 - is OK
• Program miss-match. iMovie 6.0.3 or 6.0.4, Mac OS X.4.11 AND QuickTime 7.4.1 - is OK (will work under Leopard and Snow-Leopard)
• Program miss-match. iMovie’08 v. 7.1.4, Mac OS X.4.11 AND QuickTime 7.5.5 - is OK (will work under Leopard and Snow-Leopard)
• Program miss-match. iMovie’09 v. 8.0.6, Mac OS X.5.8 AND QuickTime 7.6.4 - is OK (will work under Leopard and Snow-Leopard)
From LKN 1935. (in this case = iMovie HD (5), I tried it all, but nothing worked.
Your answer (above) has been helpful insofar as all the different trials led to the conclusion that
there was something wrong with my iMovie software. I therefore threw everything away and reinstalled
iMovie from the HD. After that the exportation of DV videos (there has not been any problem with HDV videos)
to my Sony camcorders worked properly as it did before.
Lennart Thelander
I run "Cache Out X", clear out all caches and restarts the Mac.
Yours Bengt W