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Q: iMovie not responding

iMovie (10.0.3) stopped working suddenly. It won't open and crashes.

 

 

 

iMovie '11, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on May 10, 2014 7:45 AM

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Q: iMovie not responding

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  • by wanderlusia,

    wanderlusia wanderlusia Oct 20, 2014 8:22 AM in response to csannex
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 20, 2014 8:22 AM in response to csannex

    Thank you! I was having the exact same issue. When I cleared the iMovie preferences as you said it finally opened. I am also not sure what I did to make it go haywire, but thanks to you it's operational!

  • by fbrrecording,

    fbrrecording fbrrecording Oct 20, 2014 10:04 PM in response to wanderlusia
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 20, 2014 10:04 PM in response to wanderlusia

    I was having a similar problem, but when I deleted the prefs file something happened.  My current working project appears to be corrupt, as I cannot edit it.  I did a duplicate of the project prior to starting to work on it.  That one opens but is indicating that the clips are missing, even though they are visible in the Event Library and on the Hard drive.

     

    The reason for deleting my prefs, was because I movie froze as I was putting in the last edit before my credits of a 22min film I've been working on for 3 weeks!  I had to force quit, after that iMovie would open but just freeze.

     

    System info:

     

    Mid 2012 MBP i7 w/ 8g ram, 750g internal, 1TB seagate USB 3 (iMovie drive)

     

    In desperation now I've deleted the cache and the plist again, as well as the thumbnails.  I've zapped the p-ram, I've tried booting to a backup OSX from August, I ran a Carbon Copy Clone of the iMovie drive to an identical drive last night.  It too is showing the same issues. 

     

    I guess iMovie is just clearly not designed for this caliber of work.  My system is built specifically to run Pro Tools which it does without a problem recording 16 tracks of 24bit/48khz audio simultaneously, as well as later mixing.  There is no reason that I can see that I shouldn't be able to get this to work.

     

    I have a deadline of Oct 29th for this film, and now I'm dead in the water!  I still have editing and Voice overs to do.

  • by csannex,

    csannex csannex Oct 21, 2014 8:41 AM in response to wanderlusia
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 21, 2014 8:41 AM in response to wanderlusia

    Glad it worked

  • by csannex,

    csannex csannex Oct 21, 2014 9:19 AM in response to fbrrecording
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 21, 2014 9:19 AM in response to fbrrecording

    That's terrible about the timing for iMovie to quit working. In my case I was shocked to find iMovie unresponsive out of the box on my brand new macbook pro.

     

    In case this is helpful...I noticed two things you mentioned that were different from my situation. First, it sounds like you are deleting the plist file(s) directly. That did not work for me. I had to use the key commands and let iMovie delete the preferences that way. Second, in my situation, iMovie was not actually opening. You mentioned that for you it opened and then froze. In the case I'm describing iMovie does not launch at all. The most you will see is the spinning beach ball (no iMovie window ever appears). If you are seeing different symptoms the solution could be different too. I wish I had an answer for your scenario. I'm surprised it didn't work to reinstall iMovie (or try iMovie on another system) and open the backup file of your movie. Maybe even creating a new user on your system and seeing if you can open/import the backup file from that account? I don't mean permanently operating this way, but rather to see if it will get you out of your bind. If iMovie is actually corrupting movie files (I'm not experiencing this yet) then that is definitely cause for thinking twice about using it. I wish you luck with your project!

  • by ErsherMAndeX,

    ErsherMAndeX ErsherMAndeX Oct 22, 2014 8:28 PM in response to csannex
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 22, 2014 8:28 PM in response to csannex

    Same problem, your solution totally worked. Hold down Option+Command and click iMovie, then clear preferences. Thank you very much as now I can finish my project that's due tomorrow! :^)

  • by kiotsukete,

    kiotsukete kiotsukete Nov 25, 2014 9:07 PM in response to ErsherMAndeX
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Nov 25, 2014 9:07 PM in response to ErsherMAndeX

    csannex's solution is the only one on here that worked.

  • by DTakes23,

    DTakes23 DTakes23 Nov 25, 2014 9:42 PM in response to sterling r
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 25, 2014 9:42 PM in response to sterling r

    This is happening to me as well. I just updated iMovie to the new version today and it keeps crashing. The screen freezes and goes berserk each time I try to even play a project I'm working on.

  • by SJP,

    SJP SJP Nov 28, 2014 8:33 PM in response to csannex
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 28, 2014 8:33 PM in response to csannex

    Wow, Thx csannex !!! this is the solution for me! Saved by the bell...

  • by n_london81,

    n_london81 n_london81 Feb 18, 2015 6:36 AM in response to csannex
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 18, 2015 6:36 AM in response to csannex

    csannex you are a lifesaver. This worked for me as well. Only thing that would - it was deletion of preferences.

     

    Thank you!

  • by ScottySacam,

    ScottySacam ScottySacam Apr 2, 2015 7:50 AM in response to sterling r
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 2, 2015 7:50 AM in response to sterling r

    How do I fix iMovie if it's turns out like thisScreen Shot 2015-04-02 at 9.44.18 AM.png

  • by cardinal_rose,

    cardinal_rose cardinal_rose Jul 3, 2015 9:25 PM in response to ScottySacam
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 3, 2015 9:25 PM in response to ScottySacam

    I was using iMovie on my iPad to create a short film for my dad's birthday. It was crashing repeatedly, on every clip I was inserting, but I just delt with it & complained to Apple in a review.

    Two days later it began to freeze for a minute and then crash.

    Today it won't open at all. I am still in mid-progress of editing my film and haven't exported any of it in stages.

    How do I fix this? It says my software & app is up to date.

  • by Bengt Wärleby,

    Bengt Wärleby Bengt Wärleby Jul 3, 2015 9:38 PM in response to cardinal_rose
    Level 6 (19,450 points)
    Jul 3, 2015 9:38 PM in response to cardinal_rose

    Hi -

     

    PLEASE - Start a new Topic - not going piggy-back on others - as You'll get far less responses and it's t tiny winy bit impolite.

     

    If You read this thread - You'll find what I can supply and what the most cunning (vice, knowledgable) people tried to help out with. So if You start a new Topic and here describe what of al suggestions You'll already tried - we might with joined efforts pin point where Your problem originates from.

     

    Wanting to be of more help - but in need of much more information from You to be able to do so.

     

    Yours Bengt W

  • by Mathfails,

    Mathfails Mathfails Jul 25, 2015 9:59 AM in response to serenadelr
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 25, 2015 9:59 AM in response to serenadelr

    @ Serebdelr, best solution thus far

     

    works.

  • by graphic4,

    graphic4 graphic4 Jul 27, 2015 11:17 AM in response to Bengt Wärleby
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 27, 2015 11:17 AM in response to Bengt Wärleby

    Hi everybody!

    My iMovie stop responding after

    I was editing a video, first I got the warning, you limit space is full.

    than I click something that I do not remember what it say but it was that do not allow continue. After 8 hours of researching I stop here in this discussion board.

    I fix my problem like this I hope you guys can fix it too.

    I free my hard disk space, delete my picture files all of them, remember to delete the trash can from the program and empty recycle bin too, they are two separate things.

    Then open you imovie program info from the applications left mouse click

    there click the prevent app nap option. I think I must to disable the permission when I was editing my clip. This fix my problem you all. Stay calm and do not give up, fix it.

  • by SpiralJohn,

    SpiralJohn SpiralJohn Oct 30, 2015 11:56 PM in response to serenadelr
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 30, 2015 11:56 PM in response to serenadelr

    I tried this but the result was duplications of the I Movie icon in the dock. When I clicked on them they "danced" for awhile (an advance on the "dead" original) but did not open to my work on I Movie.

    The situation now is 3 additional i.movie icons showing on the dock (4 including the original, which, as said, is "dead"  and requires use of the "Force Quit" in order to close down. )

    In addition the Terminal icon is now on the dock as a result of clicking on IMovie icon, which showed as an Unix Executable File in the MacOS folder

    I Movie is 10.0.3 and I´m working on OSX 10.9.5.

    Heaps of editions in process and would greatly appreciate assistance to reopen this application.

    Thanks for your attention to what seems a chronic problem with this version of iMovie.

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