iMovie Issues - Hanging on quit and hanging on Conversion

Try restarting and opening iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and selecting to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. See if the conversion process now works without hanging up. If you can, try launching the conversion process by selecting your Library in the My Media sidebar and doing File/Check Media for Compatibility.

If the conversion still hangs up on a particular .avi file, possibly that file is corrupted in some way. You can try removing the file by selecting your Library in the My Media sidebar and doing a search for the file by typing in its name into the little search box marked by Q located immediately above the My Media browser display screen. (Or maybe you know where the file is located.)

If you can find the file, do a File/Reveal in Finder on it and drag it onto your desktop from the Original Media Folder that pops up. That will remove the file from the iMovie library and any projects that might be referencing it. Now try the media conversion process and see if it works. If it doesn't work, put the file back where you found it.

As a further note, it just may be that you have to wait a little longer for the conversion to take place. Also, "cancelling background tasks" can sometimes take a couple of minutes.

-- Rich

I have a brand new mac mini with the same versions of imovie and osx. OSX is hanging during file rendering. It has done it during 1080p and 720p rendering attempts. I have disabled screen saver, but basically the screen goes blank after some time of inactivity during rendering, and the mouse and keyboard won't wake it back up. I let it run over night even though imovie estimated 24 minutes to complete. The mini was hot in the morning, so I know the CPU was busy doing something all night. Forcing a restart by holding the power button down is the only way to get back into the system. The applications all recover, and the temporary render files can be seen.

iMovie will convert the files and store the incompatible originals in a folder in your Movies folder, titled iMovie Incompatible Media. Unless you have a problem with insufficient space you don't need to remove the files. If iMovie still says it wants to convert the same list of files try restarting your computer and opening iMovie again. Otherwise, just say to skip the conversion.

-- Rich

Try the other procedure I mentioned.

— Rich