iMovie glitches and black screen iCloud error help!!

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Level 1

17 points

iMovie glitches and black screen iCloud error help!!

I have recreated an hour long video two times now due to errors. On my previous iPad ( IPad mini 2 ), imovie stopped opening up so I had to delete six months worth of editing for a non-profit video. So I bought a new iPad ( IPad 6 IOS 12.3.1 ) and it worked fine with iMovie. But then came a green screen update that I was happy for, only to notice that iMovie started acting funny.

1. First the sound clips moved to a different location, so I had to move them back in place ( not the real issue ) .Then came the black screen a few weeks later. When I press the edit button it would lag, and go from a black screen to a gray screen while loading, then back to a black screen after it finished loading ( real issue ).

2. When I pressed the edit button to edit the project’s clips, I noticed some of them were greyed out and never played. Other clips nearby that weren’t greyed out also didn’t play, even when there was a thumbnail.

3. After exiting the project, I noticed that changing the name of the project, then clicking the preview screen gave a pop up that said “ Downloading Videos, some of the videos in this project are being downloaded from iCloud”. I later heard online that it’s because the optimized iCloud option was on instead of “Keep Originals”. Before pressing the “Keep Originals”, I turned off my WiFi and looked through my photos to see which were missing exactly, and there were none, all played properly and in high resolution. I then turned back on my wifi and pressed the “Keep Originals” option. To this day my videos are still on my iPad in full resolution and playing fine.

4. Other smaller projects would also start freaking out, but would normally go back to normal. This one main project in particular is the worst however and is the subject of this post.......... Because this main project originally be about two hours long, I had split the making of the video into sections for the smaller projects, so that I could combine all the sections into one big video at the end. So some of the same clips used in the main project that’s freaking out, is ALSO used in the smaller projects that aren’t freaking out for the most part. BTW, the non-recorded clips used in the main and smaller projects aren’t in a format other than MP4 and MOV. Most are high definition.

5. I tried to export my video as a last option, but no matter which size I choose, the export fails. I even tried the “Put a photo at the beginning of the video” trick I saw on YouTube, but it also didn’t work. When I added the photo at the the beginning of the project it was actually invisible for a while, then it finally went to normal.

6. I also have some 80 GB’s of space left on my iPad by the way, so space isn’t the problem.

A few things showed me that clearly the problem wasn’t because the videos weren’t on my ipad because:

1. Some of the clips in the main project ( the problematic project ) would alternate from being grayed out, to not being grayed out and playing fine. If the clips were grayed out because they were missing off my iPad, why do they alternate from playing fine to not even when I sign out of iCloud on my device? Also the large recorded clip on my iPad originally for the main project that I had split into sections and used for the smaller projects, were greyed out on the main project only, but not on the smaller ones.

2. All of the clips used in the main project and smaller projects were on my iPad before and after I took off the optimized version.

3. Even after I placed on the “Keep Originals” option, days later, the same blacked out screen and grey clips problem remained.

4. Weeks later I signed out of iCloud from my device, and IMMEDIATELY the movie started working properly ( YAYYY😁 ), but then a few days later it went back to the black screen problem saying the same old “ Downloading Videos, some of the videos in this project are being downloaded from iCloud” even though I was still signed off!!!!! 😭🤯. To this day it’s still saying it’s downloading from iCloud even though iCloud isn’t on, the clips are on my device, and weeks before iCloud was turned on the “Keep Originals” option was on!!! When I do turn on iCloud and stay on iMovie for hours for these supposed clips to download, it never actually downloads......

Is this some glitch due to the update 2.2.7 version, ICloud, or something else? Because if there’s no hope for getting this video to work, I rather throw away this project away for good than try to create an hour long non-profit video for kids in need for another year or so, only for it to fail once again, and use up my free time EVERY weekend and weekday for some extra year or so🥵. Or, If this because of some update, but there isn’t one coming any time soon, it would be great to know now, because I could export the smaller projects elsewhere for the time being and work on the project for some other year...........

Thanks for reading my message and giving support.

iPad, 12

Posted on Jul 13, 2019 11:35 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Jojo— Author

Level 1

17 points

Aug 3, 2019 3:40 PM in response to Jojo—

Hey guys, I’ve been communicating with Apple team to try and fix this problem with my iPad. But here’s a temporary trick i discovered to fix the “Downloading videos, some of the videos in this project must be downloaded from iCloud” error ALONG WITH the black or greyed out screen, export failing, greyed out clips, and the project video not playing:

You’ll know if you have the same problem as me because:

1. In settings your photos are set to “Keep Originals” and not the Optimized version, and yet the same “Downloading videos” message pops up, or the same problem ( greyed out/blacked out preview screen or greyed out clips ) remains.

2. The videos that are greyed out in your imovie project are on your device in the original definition, even when the WiFi is off, or even when you’re signed out of iCloud on your device.

3. You get a message that says “Downloading videos, some of the videos in this project must be downloaded from iCloud videos with a progress indicator are currently downloading” yet even when you give it hours to download, nothing actually downloads. Or there isn’t an actual progress indicator ( cloud shaped thingy ) on the right upper hand corner of the greyed out clips.

4. Some clips alternate from being fine, to being greyed out.

5. When you create a new project with the same greyed out clips, they work perfectly fine.

6. You have enough space on your iPad.

7. Some of the greyed out clips aren’t even in iCloud.

8. Trying to save the project as the last option fails, because you get an error that says “export failed”.

I found out this trick after I noticed that changing the name of my project made me receive a message that said “Downloading videos, some of the videos in this project must be downloaded from iCloud”. Then pressing the button that gives many options like to export, save video etc, gave the same message. Then pressing edit to go in the project gave a next message that said: “Downloading videos, some of the videos in this project must be downloaded from iCloud videos with a progress indicator are currently downloading”. So I tried the same thing but with the WiFi off..

Here’s the trick:

*Make sure you’re not in imovie yet and that imovie isn’t in the background before you do step #1‼️

1. Turn off the WiFi before you enter imovie, and keep it off after you enter it.

2. Change the name of the project

3. Then press the play button on the playback window. When you do this, you should get a message that says “Cannot Download Videos, some of the videos in this project must be downloaded from iCloud, please connect to the internet to download them.”

4. Then press the share button that gives you the options to export and save the video etc......that’s between the YouTube like button and the Trash button ( box shape with upward arrow ) You should get the same message.

5. Finally press the edit button to go into the project.

( It should NOT bring up another message, if it does, restart your iPad and repeat steps 1 to 5) It will take a bit longer than average for the project to open and you’ll see it loading. You’ll then see your clips work perfectly. You can also save the video perfectly fine. ( Normally I wasn’t able to save as it would say “export failed”. But with this trick it worked ) If you need to upload the video to YouTube, you’ll have to save the video while offline first then when it’s finished cut on the WiFi to export it.

*If you noticed some clips are no longer greyed out, but not all the clips...or if no clips reverted back to normal at all, then repeat the steps 1 to 5 again. It should finally work now. If it doesn’t, you may have another issue to resolve.

*If the project is taking really long to load: If the project takes some 2mins or so, close I movie and make sure it’s not running in the background. Then come back to imovie and it should still show the project loading, but it should then work. If not, then restart your iPad and repeat steps 1 to 5.

Note: The other projects may start to also freak out, but just repeat the same steps to those as well. There seems to be a relationship between the projects, when one freaks out, the other doesn’t.....

If it worked then yayyyyyy🥳😁😁, if not, you might have another issue with imovie☹️.

Once you get the project to work, if you need to come back to the project some other day or later, make sure the WiFi is still off before you go into imovie again, and press the playback window of the project to see if it’s still playing fine FIRST before you do the trick again, because sometimes the project continues to work fine after doing the initial trick and doesn’t require you to do the trick again.

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iMovie glitches and black screen iCloud error help!!

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