iMovie '11 is not always saving changes

I just do the basic color editing and titles. That is it! And now imovie 11 can't save my work! 😠

iLife is strong reason why I chose OSX/Mac over Windows!

I have checked my permissions a billion times. My user name profile is owner, and has permission "read/write" (including sub folders). I repaired and rechecked... nothing! This imovie is crazy!!!

One day is working fine... and all of the sudden, it doesn't feel like saving??!! I have over 90GB of free space, so thats not problem either. Has anyone else found a real fix for this problem???

Even my i5 MacPro 3,1 8GB Ram had a problem once that it was "low in memory". How if I had 3GB free memory, and no other programs opened at the time??? Where did the rest of the 4-5GB Ram go to???

By the way, running fully updated Lion (biggest regret of my OSX life).

Has this happened after you upgraded to Lion 10.7? Or has it happened all along?

not immediately after. But really about a week or 2 ago did that error start popping up... 😕

I haven't installed anything new this past month. No changes what so ever. Just one day out of the blue... iMovie just started showing that error (no space/ permission error).

On the other hand, I created a new project and that work flawlessly. It saves the changes on new projects, but for the other 51 projects it won't work!! not one of them can I make changes! 😠 51 PROJECTS!!!

I also tried creating new folders for the Projects and Events to move into... that didn't work either.

Please, help!!! I was working on a family home video, and now that project is on hold... well, till apple or some one comes up with a fix to this obvious bug.

Have you deleted iMovie Preference file yet? com.apple.iMovieApp.plist

yes i deleted the plist file. Still nothing changes. 😟

I really don't know what to do next. I have to finish this project for my mother that lives in the states.

What gets me frustrated the most, is that I didn't do any changes what so ever to this machine, but it still acts crazy!!! The folders/subfolders have the correct permissions... still acting stubborn... this is NONSENSE!!!

Please any other ideas are welcome.

I feel for ya. Here's a solution: download the trial for imovie pro (final cut pro x) and import all the imovie files, which will convert them to fcp files. Next download Adobe premiere pro, and it will allow you to import fcp files. Finish your projects with that bad boy and you'll see what you've been missing. It's much better than fcp x. Apple is going downhill nowadays.

I've tried fcpx and liked it, but ￥26,000 doesn't seem right for an iMovie Pro upgrade. Sure the export came out beautiful and very small size. But it doesn't feel like a "PRO" editor software... just an EXPENSIVE iMovie.

Also tried the trial version of the ￥6,900 for Adobe Premiere 10, which seems more reasonable... but it was soooo hard to get use to. And the layout is terrible, messy, confusing. The exports were huge size and a little more pixelize than I thought for a paid program, not to mentioned you need a tutorial to learn how to export properly. Literally I went to Google and Youtube to learn how to get good export with as small size as possible. Still don't get that program.

Better yet, if apple could just update and fix iMovie for its customers, that would be great.

Question: Has everybody in this forum found the fix or a workaround to this problem? Or did everyone just moved on to FCPX & APE 10?

FCP X isn't pro software. The compressor program is very slow and processor intensive. And Motion cannot hold a candle to after effects. I was reccomending Premiere Pro, not Elements 10. I tried Premiere a few years back and despised it. I agree with you on that. But, the latest version is pure ecstacy.

There is no workaround other than downloading FCP X. iMovie isn't going to get fixed. They have known about these issues since iMovie 2009 and didn't bother. Like I said before, it's looking a bit like they did it on purpose to sell their iMovie Pro (FCP X).

Well, it's not a fix... but a long work around.

- Make sure everything, I mean literally everything; every event, project and clips are saved !!! (can't stress that enought)

- in iMovie 11 I deleted everything, and emptied the trash. (you may even want to delete the imovie.plist if you want to start fresh)

- I double checked my permissions in my Movies folder

- Started iMovie and from my back up, manually copied all the events/projects in the "events" & "project" folders in the Movies folder (or where ever you are storing your iMovie Files)

- Everything is working fine again!!! 😉

*I guess the reason this "work around" worked, is because as I stated before...only "new projects" that I started, was I able to adjust and iMovie auto saved with out giving me the No Disk space/Permissions' error.

It was a long work around, but I guess it did save me $$$ that would have cost if I bought FCPX/ APE10

If somebody else has a better work around or fix... please post it up.

As I always say, thanks for posting this back to the group. Definitely, definitely was maybe an iMovie permission problem, but who knows what triggered it? Maybe it's the way iMovie keeps its own internal database of all the projects/events in both Libraries. Anways I guarantee this is going to help somebody else who runs into this issue. Occasionally I've read postings on the iMovie Discussion group where pulling out projects/events from the Movies folder and then starting iMovie, forcing it to maybe 're-index' both Libraries inside of iMovie will clear out something. Then upon moving folders back into the Movies folder, starting iMovie it has to re-account for the 'new' folders it sees and 're-index' them somehow (?) Dunno, just a guess at this point, but others have done similar things to get iMovie working again. Good troubleshooting, and cheers to you for not giving up.

Wow, that sounds like a very likely possibility. Good theory.

&

Thanks for the kind words, but here is hoping that apple finds the problem and fixes it with a small update in the near future.

I am having the same problems as everyone else. It seemed to have started when I changed to “Lion”. I spend about an hour reading all the threads and amazed that it started 13 months ago and has 14,000 views all directed at the SAME problem. I to have tried deleting the plist, ran Onix, duplicated projects, checked and rechecked permissions and I am not sure of anything yet. I’m kind of reluctant to put much of my time or effort into “Imovie” just yet. I lost 8 hours and had to re-do my project. I thought “Imovie 9.0.4” had the fix but was deflated when I viewed my release which was 9.0.4. I’m frustrated but fortunately I’m a relatively “new” MAC user coming from 15 years of MS Windows so I’m pretty use to software crashes. Reminds me of the MS “blue screen errors” gosh those were the good ole days.

I'm having the same issues too! All my permissions are correct, I'm able to Read & Write. Is this just yet another large bug in iMovie '11?

Pardon my ignorance but where do I find "User" in order to change those parameters? Thanks