After install of iLife 11 encountered Connection Failed error

I just installed iLife '11 and the first time iMovie works right.
I turned off my Mac. When I went back from work I tried again iMovie (I was curious to see the new features) but this time iMovie show up a box that says "Updating iPhoto Video Events" and a few seconds after "connection failed, the server XX_win may not exist or it is unavailable at this time"
Please note that the server XX_win was a Notebook (with Windows) I had.
How I solve these problems ?

Works for me - thanks a lot !!!

Unfortunately the error is back and now I get the same error also if I open iPhoto or iWeb
any solution ?

gabriele

By deleting the com.apple.iapps.plist file, I can get iMovie to start without locking up. If I start iPhoto while iMovie is running, then the system locks back up into a "error connecting to server loop".

I have also tried deleting com.apple.imovie.plist and com.apple.iphoto.plist at the same time as com.apple.iapps.plist, but no joy.

The server it is trying to connect to was a NAS drive that has been not in use for almost three years, and was never used with the machine on which I am trying to run iMovie.

Deleting the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iApps.plist did not help with iWeb and the "Connection Failed" error. However, deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iWeb.plist did work.

I tried deleting the com.apple.iapps.plist and it works for a couple of time.
After that, no way to work with iMovie.
iMovie freeze while "updating iPhoto events" and then the Network error appear...
What a mess.

I too encountered this problem and tried the advice from these threads.
After many many hours of mucking around I believe I understand the cause of the problem.

I had a NAS which crashed a month ago, and is now off-line. When I tried to run iMovie 09 I got the dreaded connection server problem because the server was missing, however, after acknowledging the error many, many..many times iMovie 09 would get over it and eventually work.
However....I downloaded the latest version iMovie 11 from the AppStore a couple of days ago and it's less forgiving.....it gets into the endless loop.

I've established that the cause of the problem is actually iPhoto.
In iPhoto you have the checkbox option of iPhoto->Preferences...->Advanced->Importing: Copy items to the iPhoto Library
I had this unchecked when I "imported" my photos from the NAS. As a result, iPhoto didn't copy the imported photos, rather it has a reference to them on the NAS. Without the NAS being on-line iPhoto now has broken links.
When iMovie "searches" the iPhoto library for video files it can't deal with these missing links.

iPhoto is happy to load and work, but when you try to access these photos which were on the NAS it gets the same error...for good reason.

But, iMovie 11 is now unusable until the offending (linked by reference to the missing server) are resolved.

Here is the quick fix for iMovie that worked for me.

1. Quit iMovie and iPhoto
2. Start iPhoto whilst holding down the option key. This will allow you to choose a new iPhoto library
3. Create a brand new iPhoto library
4. run iMovie and it should now work.

Once finished with iMovie you can start iPhoto using again with the option key down and select the original iPhoto library to get access back to your photos.

This is obviously a pain...but it at least lets you use iMovie until apple sorts out the problem.

I'm yet to work out how to validate the iPhoto library to remove the bad links to the photo on the NAS to fix the problem properly.

I hope this helps to get you going again....

Very interesting and detailed post.

I came to a similar.
Please check my post: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=12962807#12962807

What I really don't know is how to clean my iPhoto Library from broken link.
I'm considering to wipe out my iPhoto Library and make a new one, but if you find a way, please tell me.

I too would love to know how to scrub my iPhoto library to remove broken links.

Although using the above method allows me to start iMovie, it means I don't have access to any video stored in my iPhoto library 😟

finally, I decided to create a new Library and import again my photo !!!!
It's a mess, but I cant wait anymore a solution.....

g.

Success!

I used a third-party application called "iPhoto Library Manager" to rebuild by iPhoto library. It imports all of the photos, but ignores any photos on an unavailable network drive.

It took hours, but now both iPhoto and iMovie now work fine.

THANK YOU!!

I just wanted to thank your for your post. We had removed a server that iMovie was referring to for media files. Your list described the exact problem and solution.