iMovie 11 is locking up completely (Never ending SBOD) whenever I launch it, making it completely unusable. Anyway to "reset" it?

Question

iMovie 11 is locking up completely (Never ending SBOD) whenever I launch it, making it completely unusable. Anyway to "reset" it?

I just purchased a new 27" iMac. I successfully imported a huge (27k) photo library into iPhoto. When I launched iMovie, it asked (if I remember correctly) whether it was ok to index whatever videos were in iPhoto. I said sure, iMovie then spend some time indexing (or generating thumbnails, or whatever) the movies. However, after that, iMovie locked up. When I Option+Command+Esc 'ed, it showed iMovie was unresponsive, so I forced quit. Now, every time I try and start iMovie, it is locked, and I immediately get the SBOD. Any ideas on how to remedy this?

iMovie '11, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on May 20, 2011 7:26 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Lennart Thelander

Level 8

38,221 points

May 20, 2011 7:51 AM in response to alexanderfromnewyork

With iMovie not running, go to your home folder ("the house"), open Library, Open Preferences, drag com.apple.iMovieApp.plist to the desktop.

Try iMovie again.

If it works, delete the com.apple.iMovieApp.plist file on the desktop.

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Answer 2

May 20, 2011 9:18 AM in response to Lennart Thelander

Thanks Lennart. I put the plist on the desktop with iMovie off, relaunched iMovie, and it went through some sort of scan of iPhoto again. However, after that, it just stuck there, and when I clicked in iMovie, I got the SBOD again and in the force quit box I see in red, iMovie (not responding) - so same problem. Any further ideas?

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Answer 3

May 20, 2011 9:22 AM in response to alexanderfromnewyork

How long time have you waited before you force quit? I imagine indexing 27000 pictures will take quite some time. I would wait at least an hour or maybe more.

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Answer 4

May 20, 2011 9:25 AM in response to Lennart Thelander

Aha. OK. I assumed that if the "not responding" message came up, then it meant that there was some sort of never ending loop or fatal error. Also, I didn't see any kind of progress bar - but I can certainly let it tun in the background and see what happens - I'll do that now. Thank you!

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Answer 5

May 20, 2011 9:39 AM in response to alexanderfromnewyork

"not responding" means just that: The application will not respond to any user activity such as clicks or key strokes. It may be that the application is just busy for a while or (as sometimes is the case) locked in an infinite loop.

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Answer 6

May 20, 2011 9:39 AM in response to Lennart Thelander

Hi Lennart - Good news - everything loaded up (and in well under an hour!) and everything seems good. In the end, the only thing I would fault Apple for, would be not giving me a progress bar to let me know that processes were going on under the radar!

Many thanks!

Alexander

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Answer 7

May 20, 2011 9:48 AM in response to alexanderfromnewyork

Good. 🙂

Yes, it's Apple's fault. They should provide some feedback about the progress.

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Answer 8

tedicola

Level 1

0 points

May 20, 2011 4:32 PM in response to alexanderfromnewyork

I am having the same problem I have about 50 imported to iphoto that when prompted to create thumbnails in imovie it just clocked for hours. When I went to my preferences looking for the com.apple.imovieapp.plist string you said to drag to desktop. It as not there. what should I do?

Thanks in advance for any help!

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Answer 9

May 21, 2011 3:32 AM in response to tedicola

tedicola wrote:

When I went to my preferences looking for the com.apple.imovieapp.plist string you said to drag to desktop. It as not there. what should I do?

The file "com.apple.iMovieApp.plist" is the preference file for iMovie '11. The file for iMovie '09 is "com.apple.iMovie8.plist". Earlier versions will have a similar name - all will show iMovie, with some having a version number, but others having no version number. It's safe to delete any .plist files for any version of iMovie. Always close iMovie first, then delete the .plist file. When next opened, iMovie will create a fresh file with the default settings, which you can change in iMovie's menu item iMovie>Preferences if desired.

All user preferences files are located in your User (Home) folder Library>Preferences. Deleting the file will not harm your Events or Projects, but may fix iMovie's abnormal behaviour. The file can become corrupted in some circumstances, such as when iMovie quits unexpectedly or is Force Quit.

John

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