iMovie stuck on first frame and won’t play the rest.

When I play the iMovie, the narration is smooth and I can see all the slides I put in for this 8-minute movie, but it won’t progress beyond the first slide.

Any ideas on how I can fix it?- all the photos are from my own photo collection.

iPhone 8 Plus, iOS 16

Posted on Feb 16, 2025 12:22 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 26, 2025 8:40 AM

Hi,

The freezing with an iMovie photo project is a known bug that has been reported numerous times here. It seems to be related to iOS 18.3..


In any case, a successful workaround used by others it is to place a video of any size anywhere in the timeline. That seems to unlock the freeze.


-- Rich

3 replies
Sort By: 
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 26, 2025 8:40 AM in response to AuriellaHughes

Hi,

The freezing with an iMovie photo project is a known bug that has been reported numerous times here. It seems to be related to iOS 18.3..


In any case, a successful workaround used by others it is to place a video of any size anywhere in the timeline. That seems to unlock the freeze.


-- Rich

Reply

Feb 16, 2025 3:57 PM in response to AuriellaHughes

Same thing happening here. My collegue told me about this bug, so I asked him to send me his project. The audio plays, and I see the preview when I move the playhead. But when I hit play it stays stuck on the last viewed frame. It is fine when I export the project as a file. I tried a new project, tried to reinstall iMovie, same issue happens.

Reply

iMovie stuck on first frame and won’t play the rest.

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.