Thanks for the help. I recently received a free upgrade to iMovie 10 (I think that's what it's called) and now I can no longer view any of my existing projects or events that I had saved on an external hard drive that's connected via Thunderbolt. Is there anything that you can advise me to do before I condemn the new iMovie any more than I already have!??? Thanks again!
Chris
MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion
I wish I could help. I found the same thing when I "upgraded" to the new version. When I launched iMovie 10, I allowed it to update my movie library and in the process it seems to have copied everything to my Mac's hard drive. I had all my events stored on an external drive and I don't want those files on my internal drive.
Here's the best part: In case you have't figured it out yet, iMovie 10 will reset ALL of your iMovie '11 preferences, so when you decide to go back to using the old version (as I have) you'll have to go through every page of prefs and "fix" them.
I may eventually try using the new version, but only after they've replaced most or all of the functionality of iMovie '11. This is almost exactly how things played out when Apple replaced iMovie HD back in 2009. It's like they have no beta testers at all.
Any updates? This just happened to me as well.
I never received an update and even tried to call Apple Support in November. At that time they didn't know how to make that happen and said they'd look into it. I never heard anything else from them about it. I was hoping they'd fix this by now. My frustration with Apple is growing!!!
iMovie 10 works totally different that iMovie 11 (version 9). It works with Libraries rather than Projects and Events. In order to get your Projects and Events to show in iMovie 10 you MUST "Update" them.
The question I have is: How to (or can you) "Update" Projects and Events on an external drive?
iMovie 10 should update projects and events from all drives, internal or external provided the projects and events folders on external drives are at the root level.
Geoff.
Thank you, worked great. Now I just need to figure out how to control the projects and events. So different than iMovie v9.
I agree, iMovie "should" update from all drives, but what can be done if it doesn't? When I go to File > Update Projects and Events, I get an error message: iMovie could not find any projects or events to update."
When I go to File > Open Library and select the library on the external drive, I get an error message: "_sync_" couldn't be removed
If I drag the iMovie library from the external drive finder window and drop it on the iMovie icon in the dock, I get an error message: The document iMovie Library 1.imovielibrary could not be opened.
Tom
'_sync_' is a file in the library which it wants to delete but can't. I suspect that iMovie may not have write permission to your external drive.
To check these right-click > Get Info on the drive icon in the Finder. Format is shown under 'General'. It should be 'Mac OS Extended'
If Ignore ownership is not ticked what Privilege is set for your username?
Geoff.
Example:
The items in the Info pane for my external drive are just as you have illustrated above. FWIW, it's a 2TB drive with about 270GB of space available.
I discovered today that I can't run Disk Utility on the drive, nor can I do something as simple as create a new folder.
When I hit First Aid I get an error message that says "First Aid has failed ......" and it shows this when I expand the Details: Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required. Unable to unmount volume for repair. Operation failed ....."
When I try to create a new folder or drag a folder from the desktop to the drive, the error message says: The operation can't be completed. An unexpected error occurred (error code -50).
I can, however, drag a folder from the external drive to the desktop, and it's contents appear to be intact.
I'm leaning toward buying a new drive, formatting it, and copying all of the "problem" drive's content to the new one. I thought this was an issue with iMovie 10.1 and El Capitan, but now I'm not so sure that's correct.
Tom
Evidently your drive is corrupted. It may be the drive hardware is failing or it may simply be software corruption. How old is it? iMovie is most likely OK.
I guess your first priority is to make sure you have a backup of everything important on the drive since it looks as if you will have to reformat it which will destroy all contents. Buying a new drive and backing up to that is a good idea. If you old drive is OK after reformatting it you could use it a backup volume.
Geoff
Yes, I think you are right ... it's the drive, not iMovie or El Capitan. I use an iMac with the attached drive almost exclusively for video work, and I noticed the first trouble right after upgrading about a month ago. The drive is only about 18 month old.
Thanks for your help.
Tom
That's not very old. Unless you have subjected it to shock it should last at least 3 years.
Geoff.
Well, I've had it for about 18 months. It's a Hitachi marked with what I assume is the manufacture date of Dec 2010, so it must have sat around in a warehouse for quite a while. I don't think it's a refurb; I'm sure I bought it new and unused. I've never abused it, but who know what might have happened between manufacture and my purchase??
Its quite likely that you will find it is perfectly OK after re-formatting.
Well, FWIW, I bought a new HGST 4TB drive and (after some initial trouble formatting it) have USB-connected it to the OS X 10.11.1 iMac via a NewerTech Voyager Q dock. I will copy the contents of the old drive (with the iMovie library, events, etc.) to the new 4TB and see whether or not iMovie will find the library file and allow me to do the update. Will report the results.
iMovie projects on external hard drive not visible
