iMovie shuts down...

Question

iMovie shuts down...

Hi
I'm starting to get really, really angry now, because everything seems to go wrong on my computer these days, just look at my other posts in other folders...

The problem now is that iMovie has problems opening a project. The project was made in an earlier version of iMovie, and I had the same problem there. I tried to open the project, but iMovie wasn't able to open it, and closed automatically without any error messages at all. This happened over and over again. I bought iLife 05 a few days ago, and opened it now for the first time. It was ok, until I tried to open this old project. The same thing happened, iMovie closed. The stupid problem now, is that iMovie automatically opens the last project you worked with, so now iMovie closes every time i try to open it, and I'm not able to choose "new project" or anything...

Please help me with this, because everything having to do with Macintosh these days just p.... me off... sorry!

Thanks!
Lars

Posted on Sep 10, 2005 7:18 AM

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Answer 1

SDIllini

Level 6

16,675 points

Sep 10, 2005 7:53 AM in response to Lars Petter Øgaard

Hello Lars:

I can't be sure, but you
i may
have a corrupt imovie file.

b Fixing a Corrupted Project File

http://www.danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/usage/5013.shtml

Sue

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Answer 2

Sep 10, 2005 9:04 AM in response to Lars Petter Øgaard

...iMovie automatically opens the last project you worked with, so now iMovie closes every time i try to open it

There's two ways to bypass automatically opening the most recent project: 1) double-click on some OTHER iMovie project to launch iMovie; or 2) trash the iMovie HD preferences file, which clears iMovie's recall of that project. (The file is "com.apple.iMovie.plist", in your User/Library/Preferences folder.)

It sounds like the old project is corrupt. The corruption could have many causes. Since the corruption probably predates iMovie HD we can't expect iMovie HD to open it.

It may be possible to rescue that old project, however. You could try importing the project.mov -- it's inside the original project folder -- to a NEW iMovie HD project. If that old project.mov plays okay, iMovie HD should be able to import it as a single clip to a new project.

But it sounds like there may be a fundamental problem with your Mac. If in fact "everything seems to go wrong" that problem needs to be addressed before iMovie or anything else can run reliably.

First make sure your Mac is getting the routine maintenance it needs. Lennart has posted some useful links here:
Lennart Thelander, "Frequent Crashing on iMovieHD (multiple machines)" #1, 03:02am Aug 25, 2005 CDT

You should test the RAM to make sure it's okay.

And finally, if things just "never work" you may want to consider reformatting the drive of your Mac and re-installing everything. All the problems may go away. If you've already "tried everything" then you might want to do that now.

Karl

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