Yellow triangle and exclamation mark - Audio?

Hi MacProGirl2012,

The yellow triangle with the exclamation mark indidates that the project can not locate the audio file recorded to the project ( your voiceover) .

Have by any chance you moved the project file from the location that originally was saved? for example your Movies folder > iMovie Projects?

if you save your projects in the Movies folder ( or check at the location you normally do) : in the iMovie Projects folder you'll find your project, ctrl-click , right click on the name of the Project and select Show Package Contents.

Can you see your Voiceover.caf file in there pls?

if so you could try a few things :

close this finder window you just opened and in iMovie :

1: Go to Share menu and select Export Movie it will ask you if you'd like to reconnect files ( if I remember correctly) accept this and when the files are connected cancel export.

2: From File menu selecting Finalize Project will result the same pop up to relink / reconnect , cancel before process finishes.

Also you could run  >Software Updates to check if you have the latest version of iMovie , or if it has been downloded from the Mac App Store check at the top of the Mac App Store > the Updates tab > if any updates are available

Hope this helps

Just found the answer to this dilemna, put your audio files back where they were when you created the audio track (desktop, folder they were in, etc.) I had moved some audio files out of my audio folder for the project I was working on and put them on the desktop. When I closed imovie and then reopened it I hd yellow triangles for those music files and the audio would not work for those files! I put them back in the original folder (or location they were originally in when I first dragged them into my project), and then closed and reopened my project, the audio files were all fine then. Moving the files from their original location seems to make them not available for your project anymore. Good luck

The same thing just happened to me too. My project lost my voiceover when I was duplicating it.

Here is what I did to fix it:

I did what immo explained, which was to show the package contents of my iMovie project that is missing my voiceover. In the package contents you will see audio files, which are labeled Voiceover Recoding #.caf.

When you go to iMovie and look at your voiceover it will have a number in the purple bar. It will say voiceover #. Mine was voiceover 97. In the project's package contents 97 is missing.

I thought for a minute and remembered that before I duplicated the project I also edited that voiceover. So, I ventured to the trash can. I saw a freaking HUGE amount of iMovie temporary files in there. I did a trash can searched for "97" and bam. There's the little B right there.

If you find yours in the trash, first quit iMovie, then drag the file back to your package contents folder. Then re-launch iMovie. You will now see your voiceover load. If you did what I did and duplicated your project several times you will have to do this for each duplication.

I hope this helps.

I had the same problem. I would like to take a moment and thank immo & softball10. You both are awesome and a Project-Saver

I had a video project that I had to revisit, and do a revision for, that I haven't looked at in about 2yrs. lol. Well, I was greeted by the yellow triangle on all of the audio files. I used a lot of audio samples throughout the 20 min piece. The idea that I would have to re-sync (retime, recut, etc) all of my audio was not a happy thought. Luckily, I searched for this problem. Because of immo and softball10 I was able to fix the problem with minimal effort.

Since the last time that I worked on this project I realized that I had done some Hard drive cleaning, moved and consolidated my music library. I had moved my iTunes library to an external HDD, and some straggler files were consolidated into my, now relocated, library.

I followed immo's suggestion to go through the Exporting process and iMovie was not only smart enough to warn me that Audio was missing---and the path it was missing from---but it actually was able to find the audio files on my external HDD, and all I had to do was confirm that the file was the same.

Problem Almost solved.

I noticed a warning that two audio files could not be found, and it showed me the path that they were missing from. I knew that these files were some straggler files that were now in my relocated iTunes library. So I followed Softball10's instructions and recreated the missing directory. I started by taking a snapshot of the screen---So I had the path down exactly. Then I recreated the missing directory iMove was expecting, and copied the audio files to them. I restarted iMovie and…No problems. ALL audio played! 😀

Sorry, please disregard THIS reply. I can't figure out how to delete it.

Message was edited by: Rich5370

I have the same problem and I tired your suggestion, but it didn't change anything. I have 4 missing voicovers total, 1 of which has the yellow warning triangle, and ther other three don't have any markings but still won't play. It's for a school project due in a few days and I'm not sure what to do.

I seen that you were responding to IMMO. Have you read my account of this problem? I followed their advice and even described how I approached it in the response above. Basically I had the same issue. Somehow some files got moved, renamed, or both. Try exporting the project. You should get some pop-up windows with information about what iMovie can't find. Either write this down, or take ScreenShots. Go to these folders and make sure the file is there. If not, copy it there. If the directory isn't there, then recreate it exactly as you seen in the pop-up window. If the file is there and it seems that there should be no reason for this, then the file might be corrupt. Don't forget that after any changes you do, you need to quit iMovie and then reopen the app. You might even need to log out and back in. Hope this helps.

I'm having a similar issue re audio files not linking, but a different scenario. I have a project with an imported audio file. Although the yellow triangle warning is present with the audio file, it continues to play with no problem... I want to create a different version of this project, so I duplicated it... everything sounds fine in the duplicated project. Then I make an edit, in this case, replacing an existing photo with a new one, and the audio goes silent. It's still there, the waveform can be seen as before, but it won't play. Undoing the edit does not restore the audio.

I tried doing the export trick described here, but to no avail, exporting takes me immediately to the window asking me for format and location.... The audio file itself is in the same place it was when I created the original project . .

Short of reimporting the audio, any thoughts appreciated . . .

What I did, I right-clicked the sound file in the timeline and somewhere at the bottom it was sth like reconnect media. The yellow triangle disappeared.

Thank you so much! I have no idea how those voiceover files ended up in the trash, but your directions made it easy for me to recover them and save my project. Again...thank you!!!