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Steady Stream of "Searching for movie data in the file..." Error Messages

My iMovie has been crippled by error messages that pop up whenever I try to accomplish anything in iMovie. I always see "Searching for movie data in the file 'healyintro.mov'" for a few minutes, then "The movie file 'healyintro.mov' cannot be found. Without this file, the movie cannot play properly." I cannot actually use iMovie because of these errors.

I've tried everything from reinstalling iMovie to removing application support files to removing my iMovie Events and iMovie Projects folders to creating a .mov file, calling it healyintro.mov and seeing if that'll shut iMovie up – nothing works.

Once in a while, iMovie will ask for a different movie file, with the same problem.

Any ideas?

iMac 26" and Late 2009 MBP, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Mar 8, 2010 8:19 AM

Reply
24 replies

May 11, 2010 6:38 PM in response to nckswtc1

I am having the same problem. I have iMovie 8.0.6, and Mac OS 10.6.3 installed. When I open iMovie, the program shows a text box "Searching for Movie data in XYZ.MOV", cannot find it, then is display "The movie file "XYZ.MOV" cannot be found. Without this file, the movie cannot play properly.", and it repeats this sequence again and again. The problem is that the file XYZ.MOV has deleted long ago, I cannot find it. Also, I have no idea which Project file is asking for XYZ.MOV, and deleting all the project files I have to get rid of this nuisance warning is a massive deletion. There is an infinite loop here that is destroying my workflow. Any suggestions on how to fix this will be appreciated.

Aug 15, 2010 12:55 PM in response to nckswtc1

I have exactly the same problem. However, I discovered (quite by accident) that if you let the system keep looking, it will eventually stop and allow you to do stuff.

Depending on the number of files it searches, it takes a while. If you close iMovie, though, it restarts this search all over! So, don't close it till you are done.

Meanwhile, we need some help!

Marty

Sep 22, 2010 9:50 PM in response to nckswtc1

I am having the same issue. I don't know what the previous poster means by allowing the system to continue, since I'm prompted with a "Cancel" / "Search" dialog after each missing clip. Slight digression: "Search" is not even the correct term here according to UI guidelines ("Choose" or "Locate" might be better choices given the file picker dialog that results).

I'm actually using Aperture to relocate my video masters on removable media, which is a very nice feature of Aperture, but completely breaks iMovie unless it's connected. Seems like a pretty major oversight.... can we just have it fail more gracefully here and allow us to work with new stuff without getting hung up on missing movie clips from the past?

Sep 28, 2010 12:25 PM in response to mmccurdy

Hello
I have also the same issue.
Imovie is looking for some missing files for MANY hours. After that its possible to use iMovie. But if I quit iM, the next time I start it, it will look again for the files.
I tried to rebuild iPhoto library , import dummy files renamed after the missing movies : it doesn't work.
The only solution i have for now is to use iMovie on a new account, where i copied the movie clips i need to work on... very annoying.
I really hope Apple will fix this problem in ilife 11...

iMac 24" 2009
MacOS 10.6.4
iMovie 9

Oct 30, 2010 9:39 PM in response to nckswtc1

Same for me! Since the last time I opened iMovie 8.0.6, I imported 14 DVDs of family photos and videos into Aperture 3.0.3 as referenced files. Now iMovie is tied up...guess I'll check back in the morning.

This doesn't make much sense...iMovie should know that these files are referenced, and after seeing the volume is not online (DVD not inserted) it should just skip them.

There's no work-around? Or a preference to change so it doesn't do this? Do I even want iMovie to repeat what's in Aperture?

Steady Stream of "Searching for movie data in the file..." Error Messages

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