Possible solution to iMovie generating thumbnails problem

I have been using iMovie '09 (version 8....) to import videos from a SONY hdr-cx360 camcorder for almost a year without problems. The camera was set (by default) to also take still photos whenever it detected a smile on a face. Last week I noticed one video event had a lot of associated still photos, and I decided to import these into iPhoto. When I was done and went back to iMovie to import the video I started to have all kinds of problems with "failed imports" or successful imports followed by never-ending "generating thumbnails" processes. I searched this community and other online sources and tried a few suggestions.
First I used iMovie to create an archive of my camera on my hard drive. I then tried to import video events from the archive, but encountered the same problems as when trying to import from the camera.
I then deleted from my iPhoto library all photos I had imported into iPhoto from the video camera, but the problem persisted.
Then I deleted the "com.apple.iMovie8.plist" (and the iPhoto preference file) from /Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences
Restarted the computer and iMovie, but this didn't solve the problem either.
I used Disk Utility to fix permissions and verify/repair the disk, but no difference.
I had already looked in Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/ for an iMovie preference file to delete, but there isn't one. Today I looked again and noticed that while there isn't an iMovie preference file, there IS an iLife preference file: com.apple.iLife09.plist
I moved the file from the folder to my hard drive, rebooted the iMac, and launched iMovie. Again I tried to import from the camera archive on my hard drive and this time every video imported fine and thumbnails completed successfully. We'll see if the solution sticks for the next round of video imports.
Not sure what to do with the com.apple.iLife09.plist since I noticed it was not recreated in the Preferences folder. Will hold onto it for a while I guess.
[BTW - I think in my case the trigger for these problems was having iPhoto and iMovie open at the same time and both connecting to the camera].

It sounds like your iMovie is in a "hang" condition, because it should not take that long.
I would recommend that you close iMovie. Then, in the finder, go to the Movies/iMovie Events folder and find your Event. In the Event, you should see the files you just imported along with two additional folders: thumbnails and cache. Leave the main video files alone, but drag the thumbnail folder and cache folder to your desktop temporarily (In case this does not work, you can move them back).
Then reopen iMovie. It should regenerate the thumbnail files.

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IMovie Generating Thumbnails Problem

Hey there,
I'm pretty much a new comer to the Mac World. And I was importing some video footage from my Sony HD Cam. Now there must of been at least 3/4 hours of HD recording and managed to import it all. I set the importing at Full Res. and it imported fine, now the problem that I have is the Thumnail Generating Process. Yesterday, the thumbnail generating process said 23 hours, so I left it to run overnight, and it is now saying 70 hours ? So what/where is the problem ?
Thanks
Sangiev,

It sounds like your iMovie is in a "hang" condition, because it should not take that long.
I would recommend that you close iMovie. Then, in the finder, go to the Movies/iMovie Events folder and find your Event. In the Event, you should see the files you just imported along with two additional folders: thumbnails and cache. Leave the main video files alone, but drag the thumbnail folder and cache folder to your desktop temporarily (In case this does not work, you can move them back).
Then reopen iMovie. It should regenerate the thumbnail files.

HT1014 I'm working with imovie 08 and converted movie originally from VHS tape to .m4v files imovie wouldn't recognize it. I converted to .mov files and imovie generated thumbnails (for hours) and shows a New Event but there is nothing there. Any help?

I'm working with imovie 08 on Macbook pro OS X and converted movie originally from VHS tape to .m4v files imovie wouldn't recognize it. I converted to .mov files and imovie generated thumbnails (for hours) and shows a New Event but there is nothing there. Any help?

markmc78 wrote:
.. I'm really struggling with the concept of events/clips/projects.
consider usage of a diff. editor.. iMovieHD6, you're entitled for a free downlaod at apple.com:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imovieHD6.html
but IF you're relaxed, opened your mind, follow the bright light, ommmm.. for Events & Stuff:
your intended workflow will add another step of quality-degradition (8mm>>avi>>mp4>>iM08) ..
consider the free tool Mpeg Streamclip www.squared5.com for 'chopping' that 90min beast into pieces..
rename these new chunks, follow advice given on my site:
http://karsten.schluter.googlepages.com/im08changeeventdate
there's the manual..
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/iMovie08_GettingStarted.pdf
and the most recommended books from Mr Pogue's Missing Manual series..

Importing video while iMovie generates thumbnails

I am in the midst of importing analog video via my Canopus ADVC110. My question is this: Once you've imported the video and iMovie starts to generate thumbnails, is it possible to begin importing a new tape during this time?
Russ
Altadena, CA

Not to my knowledge.

Possible solution to some iWeb 09 problems

Like others here, I've had a very frustrating time with iWeb 09 since installing it. I was unable to publish my old site and got errors. What has worked for me after trying other things was creating a new site in 09, then duplicating each page of the old site and then dragging the DUPLICATE page copies into the new site. Also, try to have a backup copy of your site if possible. I totally lost my old site at one point, but I luckily had a backup copy using MultiSite. Hope this helps

I'll echo that I had some luck with this approach as well. I say some b/c some of the movie pages were inconsistent.
What I found that worked best for me was to delete every reference to the old site off idisk and then re-publish my existing domain (i.e not the new experiment site I had created). This published once with no problem. Then, I goofed up and renamed it as I was checking iweb out and then, ugh, the thing wanted to re-publish. Since then, I have literally had 3 trials x 4 hours each trying to upload and then I get an error message at the very end of the 4 hours. But deleting the old info off idisk was the only thing to help me get it published at X + 48 hours.

Possible solution to the black screen problem

My macbook air is 13-inch, 128GB
OS is os x 10.8.4
My problem is:
After closing the lid, the mac goes to sleep. And after a time which is longer than the value of standbydelay setting (to know what is standbydelay plz refer to https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages /man1/pmset.1.html), open the lid, then the screen goes black directly, no login screen, but the backside logo is lighting, the keyboard is lighting, and the screen has faint light, not complete dark.
My solution:
The following is useless or just temporal
1. Reset SMC or PRAM
2. Select startup disk
3. Reinstall OS X
4. Delete sleepimage file
The following method is not good, so i don't give it a try
pmset -a hibernatemode 0 (disable Safe Sleep, which can result in data loss)
The following is what I use and useful until now
Click System Preferences
Click Power Saver
Click Lock to lock it
Import plz Note: If u reboot it, u need to Lock it again. Because the system unlock it after a reboot or shutdown-start.
Apparently, it's another OS bug which is so ugly. Does apple have a test team?
Try it and check it for a few days
If it works, plz post it to let others and me know

Second day and no freeze from sleep.

A possible solution to FCP X memory problems - it is working for me so far

I think I may have found a way to prevent FCP from gobbling up all available memory (and bring my mac to its knees).
The idea came to me from a post by Tony Reidsma in this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3770230?start=0&tstart=0
He pointed to this page regarding memory usage in FCP X and Motion: http://bradbell.tv/filmmaking/improving-ram-performance-in-final-cut-pro-x/
The above page,mentions a preference setting that exists in Motion but "not in FCP X" - the setting for a "cache percentage".
This is supposed to determine how much of the available memory Motion should retain for caching content (or so I gather).
Sure enough, this preference is not there visibly in FCP X, but since FCP X and Motion share a common foundation, I thought it might be there anyway.
So after looking into the plist files in XCode, I found the name of this preference setting and used the defaults command in Terminal.
I have been throwing everything at it for a day now and it seems to be working well, so I thought I'd share.
Here is the relevant defaults command (NOTE: use this in Terminal when FCP X is NOT running):
defaults write com.apple.FinalCut OZPreferenceManager::CachePercentage -int 20
(this seems leave free about 20% of the ram available when FCP X starts; I have experimented with different values, and apparently the higher the number, the more free memory is untouched)
I have 15 applications running in MacBook Pro (with 8GB Ram), for hours, and no memory problems (and no need to "purge"). And FCP X and all other applications have not shown any of the slowdowns typical of low memory situations.
NOTE: While I have not experienced any negative effects, I have no internal knowledge of the software and no guarantee that this is effective or harmless.
One can revert the above setting by typing (or pasting) the following in Terminal (again, with FCP X NOT running):
defaults delete com.apple.FinalCut OZPreferenceManager::CachePercentage
If any of you try this and it does or does not work for you, I'd appreciate if you post your results back here.

Hey Luis, and everyone else.
I just tried your terminal script, and it has completely cured the sluggish problem with FCPX. Thank you, thank you , thank you!!.
I am working in a pretty large project, and now is flowing like a champ. Even skimmin is on point.
The project is 60 GB in size and I didnt create optimized media or used Proxy, so is working out of the RAW data, and boy must I say is flowing.
Again thank you dude.
PS: to you all out there, if you jump in a large project, I found that by making compund clip over compound clip helps the speed of the whole project. Example: I am braking down scenes in to compound clips, and portions of the scenes in to more compund clips, that has created a fast flow to go in an out of.
Macbook Pro 13 2009,
8GB ram / 750GB HDD
FCPX 10.0.0

Possible solution to iTunes registry permission problem (Vista)

My problem seems to closely mirror many of the ones I've been reading about here and elsewhere on other forums. And at least one person had the same exact problem when I tried to update, install, or even uninstall iTunes 7.6
I kept getting an error that the registry key HKLM\Software\Classes\Interface{915DA835....blahblah} could not be opened, access denied etc. -- even though I was logged on as Admin and I tried running the iTunes package as Administrator.
I tried modifying the permissions for that key. No dice.
I tried a complete uninstall and registry dump of iTunes and QT-related keys -- I even used MS Windows Installer Utility. That didn't work. Moreover, when I tried to reinstall, I was locked out of other subkeys as well.
Then I was searching around MS's support forums and found this thread:
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1423928&SiteID=1
There are detailed instructions (but not too complicated) to restore admin permission to the entire registry. I performed the first two steps of the instructions, and it worked fine.
1) Specifically, I downloaded and ran the utility software
2) Then created the .bat file using NotePad, pasted the command instructions and and saved the file
3) Created a System Restore Point and backed up my registry
4) Rebooted in safe mode with command prompt. I don't know if the safe mode reboot was necessary, but I wanted to make absolutely sure. (Note: the instructions say to "run from the elevated command prompt", which means running Command Prompt as Admin; I decided to use Safe Mode instead)
5) I ran the program +(remember where you save it!)+
c:\[dir where you saved it]>fixregistrypermissions.bat
-- it took a few minutes to run completely, restoring permission to all but but 4 registry keys, for some reason.
6) I restarted Vista normally (oddly, my system started running REAL SLOW; having just done all this last night, I'm not sure if this is now a new problem)
7) Made another System Restore Point, to be safe
8) _Uninstalled completely_ the remnants of iTunes and QT -- including Apple Mobile Device Support, Apple Software Update, Bonjour
9) Made another System Restore Point
10) Rebooted
11) Dumped any app data and folders related to iTunes (deleted AND empty recycle bin); I was not able to remove the Bonjour folder
12) Rebooted
13) Installed iTunes package (run as Administrator); I even ran it in XP Compatibility Mode, which resulted in a prompt that the program is supposed to run in Vista. OK, whatever.
14) Rebooted
15) Launched iTunes, launched QT. Worked fine.
16) Plugged in my Nano and iTunes and iTunes recognized it, no problem.
Hope this works for the rest of you...
PS: I forgot to mention that successfully reinstalled iTunes using the full software package download available at http://apple.com/downloads
I also disabled the automatic updates, which was how my problem started in the first place!

Try modifying the extension.
kwadz wrote:
Were you guys having problems with any other Windows apps touching the registry, too? I'm having a ton of these problems, mostly where my apps won't retain reg saved information like settings, etc. iTunes is the first place I noticed it, though. I also can't boot into Vista's safe mode without getting a crcdisk.sys error. Running the msft application to edit reg perms didn't help me as many of them failed.
Any ideas?
No problems that I can tell, though I came back to this thread to remind me how to fix it because iTunes started acting up again. <grr!>
But if you've tinkered with the registry before, that could cause a lot of problems. I would check with Microsoft about the "crcdisk.sys" error. Sorry, buy I don't know what that is.
As far as having to fix it this time around, good thing I still had the .bat file on my computer. I ran it again, tried "repair" of iTunes in the Control Panel instead of the laborious process of uninstall/reinstall. I have to reboot to see if that worked. :fingers crossed:

What are the possible solutions..?

I have a column in a database table of type LONG RAW . This column was represented as an OLE Container - which in 10g is obsolete - in a form (Forms 6i). Trying to compile this form to Forms10g , I receive an error FRM-30454.
Is it possible to retain the form as it is , by simply change a property , ....
Anyway , What are the possible solutions for this kind of problem?
Thanks , Simon

Nice subject title. It is as good as "Urgent. Please help". Why don't you go back and edit your message and change the subject to something like:
Long Raw / OLE: 6i to 10g

Imovie is not generating thumbnails for MPG video files

Hi everyone,
I have what I hope is a quick question with an easy solution. I'm using iMovie '09 8.0.6 to make a movie for my parents of their granddaughter. Imovie has generated thumbnails for all my video in iPhoto (most of which is .mov format), but two short clips (about a minute in length each) were apparently taken with a different camera and are in .mpg format. For some reason, imovie is not generating thumbnails for these .mpg videos, though in the past I have never experienced a problem here. What is wrong? What can I do to get these clips into iMovie or have iMovie generate these thumbnails?
Thanks.

No, the orientation is not the issue, The first set of 4 imported videos were from a GoPro 3 camera, and the one that was lost doing an "update thumbnail" operation was also a GoPro3 fie.
Just now I did another experiment, I chose to update thumbnail from a video file created with my Pentax WG-3 and it worked.
I updated thumbnail on a horizontal and verticle video from my Galaxy S3, and now those are also gone with no thumbnail...
So far the only one that actually works for me is the Pentax video, which is a MOV file. , the GoPro 3 and Galaxy are mp4 files, so it's possible that the mp4 format has something to do with it. This is very frustrating losing my thumbnails like this.... Luckily I have not deleted ver11 yet.
I hope they repair this issue soon.
Thanks for the help so far,

Imovie 9.09 unable to generate thumbnails on my iMac running 10.6.8

I'm trying to digitise camcorder footage currently saved on vhs tape. Although I'm now using a 27"iMac running Yosemite, I don't have the usb lead with the std usb connector on the computer end to connect the digitiser to it, so I'm using my old iMac running 10.6.8 and iMovie 9 as I have the correct lead for that iMac.
I did a test one minute file transfer and this digitised, opening it in iMovie 10, ok so I saved it onto a USB stick and transferred it to the 27" iMac though without any content displayed in the clip. Even so, it plays ok so I'd be content if the remaining tapes got digitised with this problem. But.....
When I tried to import 2 hours as one file the conversion appeared to be going ok until I stopped it. I then got a message saying that it was generating thumbnails and would take a minute. this changed to 2, then 9, then 2 hours, then 4 hours. After it had been running for 12 hours with no change in the 4 hours estimated for generating the thumbnails i did a force quite, then tried to get back into iMovie.
When it opened, it went straight into generating thumbnails, estimating the time needed as 9 minutes. It's now been stuck on "less than a minute" for about 30 mins so I'm about to do another force quit.
All suggestions welcomed, ideally to generate thumbails in the shortest time possible - though I'd be content just to get the file transferred with no thumbnails.
Advice please.

Save the photos to the camera roll on the iPad, then connect it to your computer with a USB cable. You can import the photos using iPhoto if you have it or image capture if you don't.

TS3391 iMovie 11 is not working. I try to open it and it says it is generating thumbnails for one of my previous projects. All the commands are gray. I have to force it to quit. I just want to capture clips to start a new project.

iMovie 11 is not working. I try to open it and it says it is generating thumbnails for one of my previous projects. All the commands are gray. I have to force it to quit. I just want to capture clips to start a new project. I googled the problem and there were discussions about deleting files in various folders and renaming clip extensions. I don't like the solutions I saw there and I am not sure they will work.

Nobody replied so I called Apple. They seemed to think they could fix the problem but I had to agree to pay about $20 first. I told them to put it down as a complaint. I only want to use the software I bought. I can't see that it is my fault it is malfunctioning. I guess I will have to pay. It doesn't seem right.

IMovie update 7.1.2 crashes at start while generating thumbnails

Since I updated iMovie to v7.1.2 it crashes every time I open it. First shows a message saying that a camera has been detected (although there is no camera connected) Then it starts generating thumbnails and crashes.
I re-installed version 7.1.1 and works wonderfully

After a very patient work I could make my iMovie work.
When the iMovie 7.1.4 update starts (7.1.2 had the same issue) it checks your HD (and all other storage devices you may have connected) for video files. This is different from version 7.1.1. If during the check, for any reason, cannot access a file, it crashes.
In my case I had to check permissions for every video file and/or folder containing them until I solved the problem. Fixing permissions with Disk Utility or changing permissions for a folder and all enclosed subfolders, it is not enough. You have to check each individual file. Not very difficult but time consuming.
Now iMovie is working fine. I really regret that Apple made a change in the two last updates without any warning. After all the turmoil provoked in this and in other related forums by desperate iMovie users experiencing this problem, they should have acknowledged the issue. By the way. it started last June. I would have expected that they publish some suggestions in their support website.
I spent almost 4 hours doing what finally was the answer to the problem. Not to mention the timeless trials I made during the last months.

IMovie 11: issues generating thumbnails with large import

I have a HDV tape that was in a flood, and is not in great condition (It's a sentimental family movie). It imported OK, but iMovie recognized scenes really weird, in that it separated the 60 minute tape into so many segments (157) that it's causing fits for iMovie to generate thumbnails. At the import, it got all the way to the point where it said it had 1 minute left -- but it stayed there for over 3 hours. So I "forced quite" iMovie. I relaunched it, and it did basically the same thing -- it got to a minute left, then stayed there for several hours. So I forced quit it again. This time it got to the point where it said 4 hours left, and I left it over night. It was in the exact same spot this morning. So I forced quit, then rebooted the whole computer. When it came up this time, it said it had less than a minute, but it's now growing in time (the bar is moving towards the right, so maybe it's working...we'll see).
The problem is now, as soon as I boot up iMovie, it automatically goes into the generate thumbnails mode, and I can't do anything else with it. So, my question is 3 part.
1. Is there a way to get the import process done, so that I can start to edit the video.
2. If I can't, how can I clear this project, so that when I start iMovie, I can do something else with it?
3. I have 8 HDV tapes in similar condition (some worse than others) -- what is the best course of action to extracting all the movie that I can from the tapes?
Thanks

By the way, here's a video of my issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGHjiv0-5y0&feature=youtu.be

Trying to import video files. Clock on files and hit import. Imovie says generating thumbnails and importing. Then after loading, no movies there. help?

My 14 year old son is trying to import videos into iMovie. He's done this a dozen times before with no problem. Here is what he's doing "I went to import movies, clicked on the idv files and hit import. On iMovie it said "generating thumbnails, and importing". Then it gave the loading sign. When it was done, none of the movies/videos were in Imovie. He needs to have this done as a xmas gift for a friend by Thursday .

After much research and troubleshooting, GoToMeeting replied with the final answer: We do not support the uploading of recordings to editing software. If you are having issues uploading a recording, unfortunately, we do not have tools or steps to resolve this. It is not a supported feature. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
The no longer plan to support editing of recordings made with their software. So, we are planning to find a new meeting provider.

Possible solution to iMovie generating thumbnails problem

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