iMovie '11 fails to export movies

When you Share > Export Movie... you are asked where to export to and I presume that you are specifying your external HD which should show in the available list of export places.

It's very strange that an export icon is not placed beside your project in iMovie after conclusion.

How are your external disks connected - firewire is generally preferred.

The only thing I could suggest is a short trial, export to your Desktop and then if successfull, move it to your external drive.

Z.

I recently encountered a similar problem - related to the 'not enough heap space" thread I've seen.

Using iMovie I prepared a brief (30 sec) clip taken with my Canon PowerShot SD450 camera. I had to use iMovie to rotate the clip because of the way I was holding the camera.

It works fine and the clip views great on my MacBook Pro.

I want to place it on my iPad (1) and, following the help from iMovie, I tried to export it to iTunes. I click on the iPad option which selects 3 formats and it appears as if it's going to export reporting about 2 minutes to do so. However, the exercise terminates with a message indicating that the action cannot be completed because there is not enough room on the destination disk??? What?

Well, I've got a 500gB drive and an 80gB partition for parallels and the system reports an available 360gB or so.

So I don't think space is the problem.

As a recently converted Windows user - I reluctantly report that I think we gotta bug here...

Please help...

What you are saying above is quite different to your first post i.e. sharing - exporting as opposed to just moving project and event files.

Anyway researching "heap zone" this following thread may be of use to you:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1819307?answerId=8619334022#8619334022

Try using the search box above and you will find more.

Firewire external drives formatted mac OS extended (journaled) allow you to use iMovie while all your event and, if necessary, project files are located on the external drive.

It's the most efficient use of internal HD space.

Z.

I have the same problem, except that it's happening on the same drive; i.e. iMovie 11 seems to finalize export but no file is to be found anywhere. Has anyone faced something similar?

If you want to find the finalised movie files, do this:

When the project is finished finalising, you will see in iMovie some little icons to the right of the project name to indicate the various sizes that have been rendered.

Now to find these, go to your Movies folder:

(Click on the Finder face in your dock then your User name then the Movies folder.)

Next click on 'iMovie Projects' then select and right click on the name of your finalised project.

From the right click menu select 'Show Package Contents' then finally click on the 'Movies' folder.

You should now see all of the exported movies.

Regards, Z.

I had the same issue but zyfert's response worked perfectly!! Awesome.

I discovered your discussions earlier today when I had trouble uploading a video onto YouTube. Your suggestion was excellent, it worked. I know this response is in the wrong category but I couldn't find the original one for YouTube. So thank you for your suggestion. I know where to look when I have a problem.

Darden,

this isn't a disk issue. I'm saving projects straight to my laptop and experiencing exactly the same problem as you. The whole exporting process seems to work fine, except that the file is nowhere to be found where it should be saved. It's especially annoying since exporting lenghty projects takes hours. This has happened repeatedly with iMovie '11, and yet all my software is up to date, running Mountain Lion.

Your original post is over a year old, and I'm surprised that Apple hasn't fixed this problem yet!!! I will try Zyfert's workaround next, but still this is frustrating.

I just want to say that I have looked all over for an answer to the problem of not being able to find the missing file after it has been exported and zyfert's response is the first answer I've seen that actually helped me. I don't know what is causing iMovie to do this (I've never had this trouble before) but I have tried exporting this movie 4 times (countless hours as it is a LONG movie) and all this time the file was in the Package Contents folder and named "720p.mov".

Thanks to darden for posing the question well so it attracted attention in the forum and thanks to zyfert for helping me out. Now I can make my deadline!

Good to have been of help.

May I make an observation.

I would assume that if you cannot find your file after exporting then you would have used either Share > Media Browser or Finalise Project.

I say this because if you used Share > Export Movie or Share > QuickTime, the first thing that happens is that you are asked if you want to rename your movie and then where you want to save it.

You can select to save it anywhere you like, such as your desktop etc.

Something to remember in future.

Best, Zyfert

It seems that we're dealing with separate issues here. I've been using Share > Export using QuickTime option all along. Even after choosing where the movie file should be saved on my drive, the file is nowhere to be found when the exporting process is complete after several hours. And I'm not even getting an error message.

However, when I try Export Movie (not using QuickTime) I do get an error message, -49. According to another forum somewhere, this error has to do with Time Machine getting in the way. I've tried turning off Time Machine, and indeed it works perfectly! A simple step to take, but one that I wouldn't have though of.

So people, if you can't find the movie file you've just exported, it could just be Time Machine getting in the way! I hope Apple creates a fix for this.

Actually, I have tried exporting via Share > Export Movie AND Share > QuickTime and had this problem with the missing (seemingly non-existent) file with both options. I have never had this problem in the past. This is the first time it has come up, even though I've always used the Share > Export Movie command. I knew it had to be creating a file, however, because it was using up hard disk space. It was just a matter of finding it. And I have you to thank for that lol

Frenzo's solution worked for me - went to System Preferences and turned off Time Machine. THANK YOU !!!!!!

MY DETAILS:

In case it matters to anyone having this problem later…

I had the same problem as the op… Share -> Export using Quicktime… Save to Desktop. It said "Exporting Project…" for the usual long time but the file is never created.

Machine Specs:

iMovie '11 on Lion 10.7.5 installed on a MacBook Pro with no external drives connected and plenty of free space.

Source Video:

QuickTime Movie in XDCAM codec from JVC HM-150U

Shot in SD 720x480 16:9 60i

4ea ~4GB clips at 30,308 kbps approx 16min each from a ~1hr event

Codecs listed in Info is DV/DVCPRO - NTSC

Export Settings:

H.264 30fps, 2222 kbits/sec, 960x540 (Current), Single Pass, Deinterlace, saved to Desktop

My Testing Attempts:

It said "Exporting…" until the usual Progress Bar ended. The file was nowhere to be found. I checked iMovie project folder (Movies -> iMovie Projects -> xx.rcproject) and did a full disk Spotlight search with the very unique name - nothing.

I did a project Duplicate, deleted 3 of the 4 clips in the project, then cropped the remaining one down to 30 seconds. It processed fine. Undo crop and re-crop to 5 min and it still worked. 8 minutes - good. But 10 minutes? No. The whole 16 minute clip? No.

My Findings:

At the end of each run, when the Progress Bar ends with "less than one minute…" then stops, there is second fast Progress Bar that appears also saying "Exporting Project…" As soon as this appears, an icon appears in Finder in the proper folder with the full name of the exported movie but the icon is not a thumbnail but a generic movie icon. When the second Progress Bar finishes, the movie icon is replaced with a thumbnail taken from the movie, and all is now good in the world.

What I believe is happening is that during exporting, iMovie is building a hidden, temp file somewhere in HD -> Users -> Username (I watched the folder size grow as it processed). When exporting is complete and the file is ready, it copies the temp file to the proper destination folder then deletes the temp file. This process would explain the second short Progress Bar. If the project is small enough (under 8 minutes in my case) this transfer happened so fast that it apparently didn't need the second Progress Bar - the clip just appeared.

I also opened Activity Monitor and watched the Disk Activity - Data graph. It performed Read at a fairly high rate, and had occasional Write spikes at a lower rate every 15 sec or so. Makes sense - it's reading a file at 35,000 kbps and compressing it down to 2,222 kbps, so the CPU reads a bunch, crunches it, then spits a smaller bit back out to disk.

THANK YOU FRENZO !!!!!!!

-ScubaJon