While sharing to iDVD -- computer crashed

Question

Twice in a row, while sharing an iMovie 11 project to iDVD, the computer crashed. How can I gather information to find out why it is crashing?
The first time, when I rebooted, I continued the sharing (presumedly from where I left off), but the output file was way too large.
Platform was MacMini (2.4 GHz) with 10.6.7

Answer 1

Hi
My first thoughts
• free space on Start-up hard disk to low
• free space on target/external hard disk not enough
• corrupted pref filer in iMovie and iDVD
• use of strange material eg .avi, .mp3 etc in project
• hard disk/s need permission repair
• going wrong way from iMovie to iDVD (Share to Media Browser - close iMovie - open iDVD and import from Media Browser within iDVD).
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)
• 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 helpfull 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