After updating to 10.2.5, iMovie crashes upon startup as it tries to update the existing projects in the Movie library.

Sterling, Thanks for the follow up. In regards to the first two support articles you cite, I did all of that already (as I said in my original post). As for the third support article you suggest (Use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac), how will hardware diagnostic be used "to verify if this could be software related" as the article covers running diagnostics on hardware. The diagnostic process was formerly known as the "Apple Hardware Test" used to check a Mac for hardware issues. Or am I missing something? To be clear, iMovie worked fine prior to the 10.2.5 iMovie update. I've been running Big Sur 11.4 for 6 months or so. The same OS version that ran all previous versions of iMovie fine all the time prior to the 10.2.5 update. And iMovie has never worked after the 10.2.5 update.

Why not look at the crash report instead of running hardware diagnostics? It covers (in great detail) the state of system resources that iMovie was executing at the time of the crash. I'm referring to report that's generated after a crash that says "Click Report to see more detailed information and send a report to Apple". I have sent numerous reports to Apple when it crashes. Additionally, I also captured the crash report's output and saved as a text file. I also saved the shell output that runs when I chose the "Reopen" option after a crash. Looking at those two logs seems to be a much quicker and focused way to determine that the issue is software related, wouldn't it?

Or are you suggesting that I run hardware diagnostics just to rule out hardware being the problem (then we assume it's software)? I'll run the diagnostics if that's what Apple support protocol dictates. But what's the next step in determining that this is a software problem, after the hardware diagnostics come back clean? I need my iMovie library back so I could get back to work. I have customers waiting on me. I'm spending a lot of time going back and forth (trying things and ruling out hardware) when an iMovie developer could probably identify the problem in a few minutes after looking at the two specific logs.

I don't mean to be "that guy" toward you but the whole reason I spent $4,900 dollars on a fully configured MBP was for non-linear video editing. And I specifically chose iMovie over three other solutions thinking that I would get better support should I ever run into an issue like this, as it would be Apple software running on Apple hardware. And I spent an additional $379 for AppleCare+ for premium support should something like this happen. So with tax I spent $5,660.66 on a MBP to run iMovie and get great support. Is there a higher level of support I could've purchased to get a quicker time to problem identification for issues like this? If so, I'm willing to purchase the higher level of service.

Thanks again for the reply.

Rich - You Sir are a genius!!! Thanks for the help. I was not familiar with Apple's concept of a Package. I didn't realize they could be expanded. I was treating the Package as if it were a single compiled database proprietary to iMovie.

Anyhow, I did as you said and the project "Headed to see The Rolling Stones" was indeed the culprit. The strange part is all 35 media contained within that project play fine (both inside of iMovie and outside as individually). I even was able to bring them into a scratch library I made just to test them out one at a time. All 35 media files are standard stuff like jpg, tiff, mp4, mov & gif. Other than the tiff's everything was natively shot on an iPhone. Only two of the pictures came from a Sony camera, but they've been in my photos library for years. I brought up Inspector for the pics and looked through EXIF metadata to see if there was a funky codec, gamma, etc and it's all standard stuff.

Here's an ls -ltr output and all the permissions look fine. You can see by the data and time stamps, these media files haven't changed since 2016.

I have a case open with Apple Support. I've made it up to a SR support analyst who's working with iMovie developers in the background. So, I hope to get the crash logs over to them to identify the root cause.

BTW (and ironically) The Rolling Stones tickets went on sale yesterday. I got floor tickets in "the pit" right in front of the stage!

Thanks again Rich.

Thanks for the suggestion Rich. I was thinking along those same lines. Like corruption with an individual project or the underlying media changed file permissions or location. So I screen recorded iMovie starting up to capture the project name it crashes on and some some other info (time from launch to crash, step number, etc). See screenshot below. How do I access a single project within the library if the iMovie library won't load? My iMovie library is a single file named "iMovie Library.imovielibrary" that's 270 GB. When I launch iMovie and after it "validates" the iMovie library as part of the loading process, there's always 243 steps. Notice the suspect project (Headed to see The Rolling Stones) has a different step number when it appears and crashes (xxx out of 243).

Isn't the iMovie library essentially a single database that's compiled and proprietary to iMovie? I can't get my library to load within iMovie to even access a project. I don't know of any other way to access individual projects to try what you suggest (copy it over to a new library and try there). Is there a way to access individual projects and its media outside of iMovie application (i.e. blind directory)? Thanks again for the help and suggestion Rich.

Sterling all diagnostics came back clean. NO HARDWARE issues. So can we consider this a software issue yet? How do we go about getting the crash dumps to the iMovie developers to see why this is happening after updating to 10.2.5?