iMovie '11 the audio stopped working and pictures freezing over several clips

Question

iMovie '11 the audio stopped working and pictures freezing over several clips

The audio portion of several, not all, movie clips have stopped working when placed in the project area. They are part of a movie with pictures and movie clips. I'm using a Project Theme of “filmstrip”. I deleted the clip from the project and re-added, still not working. Restarted iMovie, no change. Other details I would note are that the movie clips are actually downloaded from my camera into iPhoto. For several hours of editing this movie everything was working. Also, the clips play correctly in the events area just not in the project area. I started another project thinking that might fix this issue. The clips all worked initially but after several hours of editing, some stopped working there as well. Also, there is an issue of transitions freezing where a photo picture will stick on the screen while the cursor is blissfully moving along a video clip or two.

Tried to find similar problem in the community. I found that I should delete a cache.plist file for iMovie but I could not find such a file. Suspect my Mac OS X version 10.6.8 or iMovie ’11 version 9.0.4 (1634) is newer so …

Finally, called Apple Support, described all the above. There has been a problem with the audio in iMovie but it should have been fixed by software updates. What Apple recommended was to:

(Before Quiting iMovie record your Preferences for iMovie – my add.)
Quit iMovie
Using Finder menu GO select Home
Scroll to and open Library; then scroll to and open Caches; then scroll to and delete file com.apple.iMovieApp
Close Caches
Still in Library; Find and scroll to Preferences; open and scroll to and delete file com.apple.iMovieApp.plist
Close Finder and restart iMovie
- It will open very slowly like it is for the very first time.
- You will have to reenter your preferences, from step 1. above, and other setups and visual setups for editing.
- To find my projects I had to click on the “HD” in the Projects area.
All of this takes some time to perform but I found that it fixed my problem of random audio on clips not working and video freezing. Thank you Apple Support!!

If the problem recurs, I’m going to just delete the Cashes file as I think the other is a bit of overkill and makes the start up a lot more effort.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), IPhoto and IMove are '11

Posted on Dec 17, 2012 10:51 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 21, 2012 5:06 PM in response to Williamfromroswell

It is now 12/21/2012 fours days since I proudly wrote the above. The problem was "fixed" for about two days on one movie so at least that was completed. I started a new movie and all was well until I added music to the photos and detached audio from a clip and added it to other photos. Now I am back to square one with this problem. The above steps 1-7 do not have any affect now on fixing this latest movie. So I'm totally frustrated and because the movie in the project mode seems to respond almost randomly I'm going to call Apple Support again and see what they recommend, now.

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Answer 2

Jan 22, 2013 8:41 AM in response to Williamfromroswell

1/22/2013 I now think the above "fixes" did not hurt anything but they also did not fix the real problem. I also had help with another discussion "Re: When editing Imovie it keeps freezing the other parts of movie project so have to turn off and on to get clips working again any one help" which involved rebuilding the iPhoto files that iMovie is using. Again that worked once and then back to the same problem.

I found the following topic (not exactly the way I would describe my problem) which had a suggestion to "Optimize" the clips in iMovie. Here is my response to that idea because it worked!!!

"imoviebill,

You are my new hero! I've had this type of issue with the audio and clips hanging for some time. All manner of advice and fixes. Some would work once but then back to the same issues. Very frustrating.

I looked at my video clips in iPhoto and they are in fact h.264. So in iMovie I selected the 34 clips in my current "movie from ****" and did the Optimization. Seems to take awhile so left it overnight. Today, my movie works as it should! You cannot image my relief!

I suspect that when I initially imported the clips that it may have asked (in iPhoto or iMovie) if I wanted to "optimize" and I did not because I did not know what that would do for me. So it is a self-inflicted wound." This is in discussion question: Re: iMovie '11 audio either doesn't sync with a clip or doesn't play at all.

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Answer 3

Jan 22, 2013 11:50 AM in response to Williamfromroswell

I'm back to major frustration as the next time I played the movie, it did the same thing. Sorry for the post.

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Answer 4

CBJ44

Level 1

0 points

Jan 29, 2013 10:06 AM in response to Williamfromroswell

I did what Apple Support recommended on your 12-17-12 post. It didn't work for me. It's weird. All the other projects in my project library have audio - I just don't have audio on the project I am working on. I was working with iMovie '08 and updated to '11 yesterday and today I don't have audio on the one project I was hoping to finsih today! I also lost 'talking audio clips' throughout all my projects.

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Answer 5

Mar 26, 2013 11:38 AM in response to Williamfromroswell

I had the same problem just now.

There is an iMovie bug alright but dont go fishing around in cache or ringing support.

If like me, you moved an audio file, then this will happen.

You CAN NOT move an audio file once you've added it to iMovie. iMovie is not clever enough to know it's location has changed (fair enough) and not clever enough to tell you that either (not fair enough).

It will screw your entire strip. What you have to do is find the audio clip(s) you moved and replace it ... or... delete it and add it again from its new location.

If you're not sure what audio file is the problem, and you dont fancy a hard search and replace job, I just played the clip though and as soon as it found a genuinley referenced autio file I knew the previous one was junk and I re-referenced it again. Or in English - I replaced it

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