Question: Which iMovie .plist do you delete?

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Level 4

2,640 points

Question: Which iMovie .plist do you delete?

I'm confused sometimes as to which .plists to delete when iMovie is having problems. I've been noticing as I help people out on the iMovie Discussion group there are a lot of different preferences folders lying around on the Macintosh. For instance:

Example 1: This one is kind of funny because it's two Library folders inside of the Home folder of the user. The path would be like this using the Unix file paths: /Users/Home folder/Library/Library/Preferences. To be honest I didn't find any iMovie .plists in this folder but I did find iPhoto and iDVD.

Example 2: This one is the regular Library that used to be visible in OSes prior to Lion 10.7 but is now hidden away. This is typically where everyone on the iMovie Discussion Group is told to go to delete the com.apple.iMovieApp.plist for problems relating to iMovie '11.

Example 3: This one is in the top level Library folder and it also has a com.apple.iMovieApp.plist contained in it.

Question: Given that there is more than one of these .plist files in more than one spot, should people be deleting more than one .plist file if they are having difficulty with iMovie launching, crashing or unable to operate properly?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Aug 25, 2011 10:19 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Bengt Wärleby

Level 6

19,458 points

Aug 25, 2011 11:19 AM in response to elikness

Hi

You start with opening the HOME FOLDER ! - As in Example 2

• Delete iMovie pref. file

iMovie pref. file resides.

Mac Hard Disk (start-up HD)/Users/"Your account"/Library/Preferences

and is named. (one or more of these)
com.apple.iMovie.plist
com.apple.iMovie3.plist
com.apple.iMovie7.plist
com.apple.iMovie8.plist
com.apple.iMovie9.plist

and find
com.apple.iApps.plist

While iMovie is NOT RUNNING - move this/these file/s out on to desk-top.
Now restart iMovie.

Yours Bengt W

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Answer 2

calbe

Level 1

110 points

Aug 25, 2011 11:19 AM in response to elikness

Hi elikness,

iMovie should be reading plists from only one directory, the local user library. ~/library/preferences/

Ex1: /Users/Home folder/Library/Library/Preferences/ could have been a result of poor troubleshooting. If you are to move the library folder, it is better to rename it via ROOT and test and then rename it back via ROOT again.

Ex2: is correct ~/library/preferences/

Ex3: I don't have any imovie plists in /Mac HD/library/preferences/. This will have no effect when pulling it.

I hope this helps clarify.

Let me know you if I can provide further assistance.

Calbe

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Answer 3

elikness Author

Level 4

2,640 points

Aug 25, 2011 12:03 PM in response to Bengt Wärleby

Thankyou Bengt, I will stick with this method for all trouble-shooting.

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Answer 4

elikness Author

Level 4

2,640 points

Aug 25, 2011 12:07 PM in response to calbe

Thankyou Calbe,

This seems like the full official method of trouble-shooting and mirrors exactly what Bengt Warleby was saying so, all the better. Example 1 is definitely odd, and could be as you say an utter mistake, where that directory branch got duplicated somehow. I don't know exactly if that's the case but I have used Migration Assistant to setup the Mac I have now. Maybe I'll do the 'create a new user account' trick and see if I can find that odd double-library directory.

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