Why Can't I Remove the Transitions?

<<Have you also tried deleting iMovie's preference file. then restarting iMovie? >>

No, I've not tried deleting the preference file. I will do so now.

Diana

I just checked another iMovie project, and I was able to remove those transitions normally. So, I must have somehow locked the transitions in place in my other project. Interestingly, I can edit those transitions (making a fadeout longer, for example), but I can't delete them!

How do I unlock the transitions?

Diana

Good idea but it didn't work. The transitions won't budge. I've never encountered this before!

Here's a new twist to add to the puzzle: One of the transitions that I'm trying to eliminate shows up in the trash bin. But it's still in the movie!

Quitting and re-opening doesn't work. I've tried it a few times.

Every single transition in the whole 53 minute project seems to be locked in place.

Also - I'm wondering if the problem that popped up in the first place is related to the "locked" transitions. I needed to eliminate one fadeout and one dissolve because there's an odd little repeat of the last piece of audio during the dissolve or during the fadeout. In other words, as the transition begins, you hear the same words twice, which is quite jarring. For the first one, I can slide another piece of background audio under the fadeout to cover up the repeating audio piece but later in the movie, I don't have anything to cover up the repeat audio during the dissolve, so I really need to get rid of that dissolve.

What's going on, man? : )

I stumbled on a work-around fix, sort of. I highlighted the video clip, cut it -- causing the transitions to be eliminated, and then pasted the clip back in. I thought maybe once those particular transitions went away, the rest of the transitions in the project would somehow be freed up, but no luck. Even a new transition is locked in place. Weird...

Hope there's a solution... not being able to eliminate transitions without cutting and pasting the clip eliminates a lot of flexibility.

And I'd really like to solve the other issue, too -- where a piece of audio repeats during the transition. Again, I can mask it by sliding something else underneath, but it shouldn't be happening at all.

Appreciate your input.

I'm using the basic transitions-- cross dissolve, fadein, fadeout. As I mentioned above, this problem of not being able to delete the transitions except by cutting the clip (and the pasting it back in) occurred just yesterday. Up that point, over the past few weeks of working on this project, I was able to add and delete transitions easily, no problem. But yesterday, when I opened the project, I found that all of the transitions seemed to be locked in. Not one of them would budge when I hit "delete."

I checked other iMovie projects and the transitions in those projects were still acting normally -- i.e. I was able to add or delete them as desired.

So... this sudden rigidity in my current project is perplexing.

Don't tell me I've stumped the experts?!

Klaus, Lennart, and Rich,

I appreciate the suggestions (and helpful, clear instructions). I removed the file, repaired permissions, and restarted the computer, but no luck. The transitions in the project won't budge! How weird is that?

Fortunately, there is a workaround (though it's awkward). Let me know if anything else comes to mind that I can try.

Thank you for your help. --

Diana

P.S. I hadn't repaired permissions in a LONG while so it was good to be reminded that I should.

Trash the whole project and begin again. Sheesh. I can't do that - it's 53 minutes long and represents a lot of work. But, maybe what I can do is copy large chunks of the project into a new project file, taking care not to copy any of the "stuck" transitions. Sound doable?

Diana

But first: Where do I find iMovie's preference file? I just checked the iMovie applications folder but there wasn't much in it.

Diana