iMovie Error -108: Project could not be prepared for publishing

I've recently run into this problem too. I have a i7, 4Gb ram MacBook Air with a 256Gb disc. I've done a few 2-3 minute videos with not too much trouble but my current HD project runs to 9 minutes. I get the -108 error sometimes at the start and sometimes at the end - which is annoying as it can take 30 minutes before it shows up!

The only way I've been able to render the project at 720/1080 is, prior to rendering, to reboot the MBA and quit all the applications I can. I see that you have already done that. I would say, however, that 2Gb ram is a bit marginal for HD movies, even fairly short ones. Unfortunately with the MBA there's not a lot you can do about that.

I too would be very interested to know of any other solutions. I'm considering getting FCPX and a Thunderbolt external drive.

The "reboot" solution is not reliable - works sometimes but mostly it doesn't. So I've been doing a little experimenting and this is what I've come up with.

First, the problem (at least in my case) seems to be with the H.264 render. So what I do is go to "Share> Export using QuickTime...". On "Export:" I select "Movie to QuickTime Movie" and click on "Options..."

In the window that comes up, under Video I click "Settings..." and another window pops up. Under "Compression Type:" you can select whatever suits your purpose (except H.264 of course!). I use uncompressed "HDV 720p25" as a first stage. Click OK through the windows back to "Save" and click on that. This produces a high quality but very large file (3 minutes gives >1Gb)

For the next stage I use Handbrake to re-encode the file produced above. This produces a very good quality file and very much reduced file size suitable for uploading to Vimeo in H.264.

Strangely this takes less time in total than attempting to render the file directly to H.264 in iMovie. For a 3 minute video it took about 5 minutes to render the HDV file and only a couple of minutes for the Handbrake encoding. When iMovie did manage to render it took 20+ minutes to prepare the .mov file.

@Cojir0

Are your event clips in h.264? If so, you can solve this by Right clicking on your Event Name and choose "Optimize Media". You can choose Full for 1080P or Large for 960P according to your preference.

After you have optimized your Event, you should be able to Share with no problem.

Great info AppleMan1958.

Can it be so that this error -108 are connected to the use of progressive material in 50 or 60 fps (ev. 24fps) ?

To me it's very mysterious.

Yours Bengt W

Bengt, I don't think it is connected to 50P or 60P, but that could be.

I think it is caused by trying to do complex edits to h.264, which is a group of pictures compression. iMovie must not only do all the editing, it must convert the h.264 partial frames to full frames on the fly. When you convert the h.264 to Apple Intermediate Codec in advance, you take this load off the processor at render time.

You are welcome!

Yes AppleMan1958 - You are most probably right - I was just reaching out for a "straw" still Your suggestions are far far more better.

Thanx.

Yours Bengt W

Same problem since yesterday night. No solution worked till now. Tried to avoid text on transations but I always get -108 error.

Seems to be a memory management problem: also other iMovie projects are not exported anymore.

Very strange. Seems Windows not OS X.

Have you solved pal?

Thanks in advance for attention.

That's right. I've the same problem despite the 125Gb of free space on C: and 4Gb RAM. I thought that my misery was finished when I changed to Apple/ OS X but it's just the same. Money and hours of work lost for nothing.

And the worst part is that it takes about 3 hours processing before the error appear.

HI all, I am experiencing similar problems but I've upped my RAm from 4 to 16 bought a memory cleaner,..and on my late 2011 mac book bro 2.8Ghz i7 I can't save my files to quicktime.. what do I do,... all the video is optimized and I keep getting this message: The project could not be prepared for publishing because an error occurred. (MemFullErr / iMemFullErr: Not enough room in heap zone / )

Thank you so much in advance

please sir explane how to do this because im trying your idea yet it dont seem to work? i have a project that ive finished editing it is a very long movie 51min with music and voice overs, it took me a long time to make so now im stuck as every time i try to finalise project it starts then maybe 5/6 hours later i get the 108 error msg?? so i tried to follow your instructions but when i try to optimise media both options are gray and not avalible to select? if i go 1 step back to the project libary i tried to right click my movie and select optimise media yet they both still gray, if i go to edit my project and select a clip in my movie then i can optimize that like you say but as i got a very lot of clips in my movie this would take ages? i hope ive made sense here? any ideas where im going wrong?

sorry for all the questions?? but all mt clips are filmed in the same 1080p with the same camera yet as im going through all the clips optamizing them i noticed that some clips it will only let me select 960 large and other clips lets me select both options? strange as all the clips are filmed in the same res?? im now sitting here trying to optimize each and every little clip that is in my 51min long movie,, ouch this is LONG...

If you right click on the Event name, you should be able to optimize all the clips at once, but it may take a while.

You may also want to try dividing your movie into two parts, and sharing each separately. To do this, go to the Project Library View. Select your movie and click FILE/DUPLICATE PROJECT. Do this twice. Name the first one "Your Project Name - Part 1". Name the second one "Your Project Name - Part 2". If you did this right, you should now have three projects. Your original 51 minute project and also part 1 and part 2.

Open Part 1 for editing, and delete everything in the second half of the movie. Then see if you can share it.

Then open Part 2 for editing, and delete everything in the first half of the movie. Then Share.