Unopenable/missing iMovie project

Oh, no, the iMovie project I spent two hours on yesterday morning doesn't appear in the Project window of iMovie and will not open when I double-click on it from the Finder
I've browsed this forum and found several threads asking about things like this (going back to 2008!), but no answers.
Everything was fine yesterday, nothing weird happened, it's not a complex project. I imported Events from my camera, started a new project, made a few edits with just 4 clips, a few crossfades and titles, simple stuff. There were no external drives connected, the camera had been ejected and disconnected. All the Events are still there, but the project doesn't show up in iMovie's project list.
The Project file is there in the Finder (user/Movies/iMovie Projects) with a size of 9.8 MB, and the proper time/date it was saved. I have tried:
restarting iMovie
rebooting
restarting iMovie by double-clicking on this Project
dragging the project into the iMovie Project list (it just bounces back).
I have had no problem with this rig doing many similar projects. Any ideas?
MacBook Pro, OS X 10.8.4, iMovie '11 9.0.9

FYI, I did NOT mess around in the Finder, moving things in and out of the iMovie folders. iMovie did not crash, it closed normally. The Info window of the project that won't open does identify it as an iMovie Project.
The only anomaly about this project that makes it different from any of my others, is that two of the clips I dragged in were not in the "iFrame" format; they were AVCHD. I can't recall when it was (during importing as an Event, or dragging the Event into the project) that there was a small warning sentence something like, "this file may not play back in as high quality as the original".
Yet, in the Viewer window, everything was fine, transitions/crossfades worked, I could put titles over those clips, etc.

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Missing hard drive space after aborted attempt at sharing iMovie project with YouTube

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You're in the wrong forum.
https://discussions.apple.com/community/ilife/imovie

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Can an iMovie project be restored once it's missing?

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I have an iMovie project that I've put probably 35 hours into. A very complicated piece with clips, music, pictures, lots of stuff. I had experienced a few recent iMovie crashes, but the project was always still there upon restarting.
But then last night when I quit the application - simply by command-Q'ing - when I started it up again the project was no longer in my project library. I can see the file in my iMovie Projects folder, but double clicking on it does not open it. The file size also seems too small compared to other iMovie project files, but its modification date seems accurate.
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Use Share to QuickTime. Set the format to Sound to AIFF. Take it to iTunes. If you have iTunes set to import using MP3 you can use the Advanced menu to convert the AIFF to MP3.

IMovie Project contents gone missing – what's broken and where is it all?

I used the latest iMovie (iLife 09) on an dual-core Intel Mac tower to make a 6-minute movie for a client. First time I've ever used iMovie. Worked great and I subsequently used iDVD to burn it for standard DVD player viewing. Now when I open the original iMovie project there is nothing there although it's file size indicates there is clearly content. Nothing appears when I move my cursor around the screen and the project name does not appear at the top. I don't know how an iMovie project tracks its content "links". I'm wondering if I may have moved some files or renamed them and the iMovie project cannot find what it's looking for. Any idea what this newbie has done? Thank you all in advance.

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Rather than go into a long winded reply here I suggest that you type the following topics into iMovie Help.
It is a great information resource:
1. Copying or moving a project
2. Copying or moving video from your event library
3. Consolidating a project's media.
Your other disc should show up as an icon at the end of your project library and in the event library there is a disc button just to the right of Event Library.
Hope that helps.
Z
PS If you import directly into iMovie then you will have to move your imports to the other drive as per above.
Otherwise if you import video files to your computer then into iMovie, import them into your other drive instead of your primary.
Message was edited by: zyfert

Dragged iMovie project to desktop.... went missing (in iMovie), won't open (on desktop)

I had a completed iMovie project (that was always visible in the project list) that I wanted on my desktop for easy access. I dragged it from Finder to the desktop to create an icon. When I opened the icon on my desktop, it opens iMovie, but that project is nowhere to be found!!! When I close iMovie and reopen, the project isn't even listed in the projects bar anymore! I check trash on my computer (on a fluke) and found a folder titled "iMovie temporary items." When I click on it, the folder inside is the name of my movie and the next one is 'iMovie Cache.' Inside that is Cache.mov and Cache.plist. I spent hours on this video and absolutely need to locate it! Please, please help!!! :/
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Same thing here. I've tried everything possible including assigning powepoint to a specific desktop. No windows open but when you slide for mission control (mac book pro touch pad) a small powerpoint window appears off the desktop. When I click on it, it goes back to whatever desktop I was working on but no powerpoint window.
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After upgrading to iOS8 my imovie projects are missing???

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I am having the same issue, I had created an iMovie project for my parents 50th anniversary last year, took me a month, then she passed away this past week and of course I'm thinking Its still there. No, its not, with the migration to iOS8 it is completely lost, apple support can't help either, i'm trying to restore my iPad to a backup from a year ago, but when I created a backup today, and went back to restore it was gone. Now I don't know where iTunes archives the backups. Or even if that will help me get the project back again. Maybe Time machine?
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I have never tried to import other clips from another iMovie project before and I just tried it yesterday. This is what I did:
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Thanks ahead of time for your help!

It sounds like something may be preventing iMovie from properly saving the project on the external drive. The drive format may be wrong, or third-party software might be causing conflicts. More here:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1852869#1852869
Another possibility is that you are opening the wrong project file saved inside the iMovie 5 project. If your project was originally an iMovie 4 project converted to iMovie 5 that's an easy mistake to make. More here:
http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=1971832
Note that the copy/export/import routine you used can be simplified enormously. iMovie 5 lets us Copy and Paste clips much more simply. To copy clips from Project A to Project B, open Project A, select all the clips you want copied to Project B, choose Edit > Copy, open Project B, move the playhead where you want to place the clips, and Paste. iMovie will import all the files that support those clips from Project A to Project B. Note that it imports the entire file for the clip, not just the clip itself. That's so the clip inherits all the non-destructive editing features it had in Project A.
To avoid Project B becoming unnecessarily large, it's important to Copy and Paste all the clips you want together. If you copy two clips at the same time that share the same file iMovie imports their source file just one time. But if you Copy and Paste two clips that share the same source file separately, iMovie imports the same file twice.
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How do I include the photos in a imovie project to the finished dvd so the users can have access to them?

I've included alot of old photos in an iMovie project and would like to include them on the finished DVD I create with iDVD. I woud like the users to be able to have access to them so they can print them, store them on their own computer or whatever they would like to do. How would I do this?

You do this by creating a DVD-ROM section on your DVD. See this explanation from iDVD Help.
Adding files to the DVD-ROM portion of a disc
You can let viewers copy files directly from your DVD by adding the files to the DVD-ROM portion of the disc. These files are burned onto the DVD and are accessible when the disc is viewed on either a Windows PC or a Macintosh computer, but not a DVD player.
You can add any kind of file to the disc. For example, if your disc contains a slideshow, you can add the image files to the DVD-ROM portion of the disc so viewers can download them to their own computers and print them. You can also add a file containing your movie production notes and other “extras.”
To manually add files to the DVD-ROM part of your disc:
Choose Advanced > Edit DVD-ROM Contents.
The DVD-ROM Contents window opens.
Click Add Files, or click New Folder first if you want to create a folder to put the files in.
Browse to select your files or folders, then click Open to add them to the disc.
You can also drag files directly to the DVD-ROM Contents window. When you are done, just close the window.
When you add a file to the DVD-ROM portion of your disc, before you burn the disc the project contains just a reference to the location of the file on your hard disk, not the actual file. So if you delete a file from your computer or move it from its location after adding it to the DVD-ROM contents, you get a “File not found” message when you try to burn your disc. You can either remove these missing files from the DVD-ROM contents or find them on your computer and put them back in the original location so iDVD can access them.
As you add files to the DVD-ROM contents, be sure to check the DVD Capacity meter in the Project Info window to find out how many gigabytes of disc space are being used. The Capacity meter shows the disc space taken up by the video portion of the disc as well as the DVD-ROM portion.

How do I burn a simple iMovie project to a dvd ?

I am so frustrated every time I make an iMovie project and am ready to burn it to a dvd whether for a client or family/friends because I struggle each time to know what the steps are. When I finally get one burnt it is just by accident it seems and I go through so many dvds it's not funny. I don't like to use DVDR's that are printable because when they don't work I have wasted one of them, and I want to make professional looking dvds with a picture or logo printed on the dvd. There is nothing on the iMovie Help button that leads you to the steps for burning a dvd from your project even after you have shared/saved it in the size format you will be showing it. If I type in BURN IMOVIE DVD or anything at all like that it leads me to dead ends. I eventually seem to burn a dvd but it seems it is only by hit and miss and a lot of wasted dvdr's. Please, can't Apple provide simple steps to follow to burn iMovie projects to a dvd for viewing on various computers and tvs? I REALLY need answers.

In addition to John's suggestions this is what I was referring to. Use a template such as this one:
Select the button that's on the menu and delete it
Make a simple black graphic in any basic graphics application and fill it with black. Just drag the graphic into the menu to replace the background.
In map view place your video in the first play box

How do I migrate iMovie project data/pointers from iPhoto to Aperture?

This may be a rather tricky question but here is what I want to do. I have 22GB of Photo's/Video's in iPhoto that I originally used at some point in the past to create some travel home movies. I currently have about 44GB of Photo's/Vid in Aperture. I like Aperture so much that I never use iPhoto anymore.
I've started moving just the albums with pictures in iPhoto over to Aperture. (simple enough) But now I have a lot of space I need to free up.
My question is possibly broken down into 2 parts.
1) How do I move albums with photo's & video to Aperture and index them accordingly without affecting the iMovie projects that link to the original iPhoto data?
I want to keep my iMovie projects the way they are, in editable form, thus eliminating the need for iPhoto, so I can clean up 22GB.
2) In iMovie, on the left window pane, it says "iPhoto Library" & "Aperture Library", with all the old iMovie projects pointing to the iPhoto library. Would moving the rest of my iPhoto library into Aperture automatically purge iMovie editable video projects?
I've backed everything up onto an external hdd, so I would sincerely appreciate any help on this topic. It sounds complicated, but I think it should be fairly straightforward. However, I thought I'd ask the community before actually attempting to do so.
Again, appreciate your help folks. Thanks.

Thanks for your suggestions, However I tried to do a simple test on one very short iMovie project and this is what has occurred:
Setup: (iPhoto '11, iMovie '11, Aperture 3.1.1 - All up to date)
to understand what's going on, prior to what I did below this is how my projects are setup, iPhoto has an event & album tagged F1 Montreal Weekend '08 with both photo / video. (my test project for the purposes of trying to get this to work) iMovie has a project I created based on that photo video and it's saved as an iMovie project called 'F1 Montreal' with references to the iPhoto database.
Action:
First, in Aperture, I imported the whole iPhoto event above which brought over all 192 photos and about 36 videos. I then filed it in aperture under my new way of storing albums/videos and created a smart album for video within the Aperture project. Once I verified all the data is there, I then trashed the iPhoto event and album mentioned above to free up some space since it's now in Aperture. Finally, i closed both iPhoto & Aperture and loaded up iMovie.
Results:
The project 'F1 Montreal' shows up as normal, with all its edits and such after clicking edit project. However, there is a little yellow exclamation mark that says this on every slice of video:
"This clips media file is not currently available.
/users/{me}/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Masters/2008/F1 Montreal/{moviehere}.mov"
After some research on what this is and how to fix it, it seems there's no menu option to repoint the movie files to a different location, am I missing something or have I moved / merged these files the wrong way? Apparently there is some help in the iMovie help file that shows how to reconnect data, but I can't find it anywhere.
I would really appreciate any additional help on how to do this. I'm sure someone's tried doing this before, yes?
Thanks!

IMovie '11 How do I recover a project that appears within the IMovie Projects folder but does not show in the Project Library?

I have had my MBP for just over 3 months now! Yes, I made the switch and up until now I have been quite happy.
I now have my Time Capsule, Apple TV running and am generally getting used to life as a Mac user.............even bought Aperture and loaded all the family photos. Now time to make some Travel movies.
I have been working on a particular IMovie project for a few weeks now. Size is 365MB. Yesterday I closed IMovie and when accessing later that project is not available in the Project Library window. It does appear in the IMovie Projects folder but I cannot open it. I have copied the file to DVD just in case. All up I have 4 Projects, the other 3 are practice files, smaller but they do appear in the Project Library.
I have scoured the bulletin boards and tried many suggested fixes to no avail. Main suggestion was to remove the following files from Library/Preferences
com.apple.iMovieApp.plist
com.apple.iApps.plist
However, this did not sort out my problem. In the end I put back the original files.
Does anyone have a straightforward fix for my problem or is this one of those ongoing issues that that needs Apple's attention.
After all the file is there with the others. They are available.
I realise that I can restore from Time Capsule but I am missing the last three days thanks to 'drop out'.
Thanks.......

Gweggie Boy wrote:
Yes, considering we have an ongoing 'glich' within an Apple program with no obvious solution, we should be able to direct it straight to an Apple rep. I will peruse this possibility when I get a moment.
You can report the problem by providing feedback to Apple. In the iMovie app, from the menu select iMovie > Provide iMovie Feedback. This will take you to an Apple page where you can complete a form and submit it to Apple.
The fix for this will probably turn out to be simple/easy.....................so why doesn't Apple comment and/or address it????
Other than the forum moderators, Apple doesn't normally monitor these forums, nor make comments on posts. So, it's up to us to report the problem to them directly (using the feedback form mentioned above).
As the problem has affected me just the one time (touch wood), I haven't bothered to report it as yet. But, after seeing your posts on this, I'm now reconsidering that. Something must be triggering it. My system is in pretty good shape, so I'm guessing it must be a glitch of some sort, either in Mountain Lion or in the iMovie app itself. Perhaps it's a 3rd party app causing the problem? It doesn't give us much confidence now, in that we may start worrying about losing other projects.
A good practice is to duplicate the project from time to time (something I'll be doing more of), although Time Machine backups also provide the necessary security. To duplicate, in Project Library view (where all the projects are listed) click on the project name so that it is highlighted, then select File > Duplicate Project. Alternatively, right-click (or Control-click) on the project name and select Duplicate Project from the pop-up menu. Of course, you may already know this. Duplicating probably won't guarantee that the copy will not also disappear from the Project Library, but is worth doing anyway.
As I mentioned in the post I linked to earlier, when the problem arose with my iMovie project I was using ProRes 422 clips I had imported from a Final Cut Pro X Event. My immediate thought was that ProRes 422 had caused the problem. But this of course may have been coincidental - reinforced now by your experience, where you are probably working with Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) clips.
Anyway, glad to hear that you've recovered your project through Time Machine. Unfortunately, I had to start from scratch as I had Time Machine turned off during my editing sessions (that's a story for another day).
John

Saving and backing up iMovie projects

Here is a question I never dreamed I'd be asking: how do you save an iMovie "project"? Since 1984, every Mac application has had "Save" under the "File" menu where you could name and save your file. "Save often" became the main way to avoid disaster in the event of a application malfunction. Idiocy reigns at Apple; saving is no longer possible. Now I know iMovie is supposed to auto-save, but really...the Web is full of disaster stories of crashed apps and lost files.
Anyway, I want to do several things: 1.) I want to save my project so that I can open it at a later date and work on it again. 2.) Related to #1, I want to start a new project, confident that my old project is still accessible. 3.) I want to do twice daily back-ups of my working project so that if iMovie crashes I don't lose more than a half day of work.
All of this has become almost automatic in my nearly 25 years of working on Macs. File saving and backing up are one of the few constants that, until iMovie, were unchanged. Apple, in a regrettable display of poor decisionmaking, has abandoned this tried and true procedure. I really hope I'm missing something simple and I have to eat my words. Can anyone help me save my files? Thanks. By the way, no Time Machine here. I want to save these files manually.

Hi:
Michael Brown12 wrote:
Anyway, I want to do several things: 1.) I want to save my project so that I can open it at a later date and work on it again.
Quit iMovie and open it later when you want to restart your project.
2.) Related to #1, I want to start a new project, confident that my old project is still accessible.
In iMovie, menu File > New. It will open a dialog box that allows you to name your new project and set the aspect ratio you will use.
You can see your old projects by clicking the "Project Library" button at the upper left corner of the iMovie window. It will show you all your projects. You can duplicate or rename any project, as you wish, in the library. If you want to edit an older project, select it in the library and then click the button "Edit Project" in the upper left corner of the iMovie window.
3.) I want to do twice daily back-ups of my working project so that if iMovie crashes I don't lose more than a half day of work.
iMovie store the projects and project events in the folder Home Folder username > Movies > iMovie Projects and Home Folder username > Movies > iMovie Events. Feel free to back up those folders as often as you'd like. I would incorporate some kind of naming convention that allow you to readily see the date/time of your backup, but that is up to you. If you crash for some reason, you can restore the contents of the folders from your backups.
All of this has become almost automatic in my nearly 25 years of working on Macs. File saving and backing up are one of the few constants that, until iMovie, were unchanged. Apple, in a regrettable display of poor decisionmaking, has abandoned this tried and true procedure.
Well, hmmmmmmm. Most mission critical software that I know, such as QuickBooks Pro, or Filemaker Pro do not have save commands, as I guess the designers feel that it is safer to have the program do the auto-save after every change the operator makes than leaving it up to the operator to remember.
Even Final Cut Pro, Apple's flagship edit software, has built in auto-save *in addition to* the manual save commands. I have my auto-save in FCP set to every two minutes.
Hope this helps.

IDVD won't recognize imovie project

Hello people.
I have an 09 Mac desktop computer. I have now made seven iMovie projects ranging from ten minutes to almost two hours. Each time I shared the project with iDVD to burn the finished product to disc. Each time I made sure I could play back the movie on our DVD player.
I was able to play back each of these movies on my computer as the files ( I am assuming they were files ) were automatically stored in a movies folder right after they were shared with iDVD from iMovie. Since they take up space on the hard drive, I decided to store the files on an external hard drive. I believe each one copied to the hard drive. Once each one was on the hard drive, I made sure I could play it back. Then I trashed each file on the computer, again making sure right after that I could still play each file on the external drive. They would open in iDVD and I could play them. All was good.
Recently I made another iMovie project of my children's high school play. As I did before, I shared it with iDVD and it appeared to be working as usual. It was to take approx. 30 minutes to create the movie from the project. HERE IS MY FIRST PROBLEM! Usually after the movie is created, it then opens in iDVD and from here I can burn to disc. iDVD did not open! I tried a couple of times and nothing. I then tried a short 30 second clip from iMovie with no titles or transitions or anything. This worked. iDVD opened after creating the short movie. My project is an hour long. Consequently with this project I shared it with the media browser and made it into an avi file. I then used a program ( Toast ) that came with my Roxio Converter ( VHS to DVD ) software to burn the movie to disc.
HERE IS MY NEXT PROBLEM! I went to view the movies on my hard drive and iDVD won't recognize them. It says it can't find the missing audio and video files. Can anyone help me with this?
Thanks

Hello darrenfromnanaimo
Cross your fingers for a satisfactory answer to the "NEXT PROBLEM." When you copied the iDVD files to your external drive and deleted them on your computer -- hopefully you just deleted the iDVD files and not the iMovie files. If that's the case, you can reconnect the external iDVD files to the original iMovie files and you're back in business (open the external iDVD project and use it's browser to find the original iMovie files). If the iMovie files were deleted, that's a more difficult problem -- you'll need to recreate the iMovie files (re-import from the camcorder and re-edit), or you'll have to "rip" your DVDs back into an electronic file (which gives you only the finished product of your original editing, with slightly degraded video resolution).
John

Unopenable/missing iMovie project

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