My iMovie 10.01 won't import. Any tips?

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.

Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar.

Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try the action that you're having trouble with again. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).

When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.

Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Are you trying to import directly from a camera? If so, what kind?

Please post a screenshot that shows what you mean. Be careful not to include any private information.

Start a reply to this message. Click the camera icon in the toolbar of the editing window and select the image file to upload it. You can also include text in the reply.

Does the same thing happen when the SD card is not attached?

What version of OS X are you running?

Please read this whole message before doing anything.

This procedure is a test, not a solution. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.

Step 1

The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account.

Enable guest logins* and log in as Guest. Don't use the Safari-only “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac.”

While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your personal files or settings. Applications will behave as if you were running them for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.

Test while logged in as Guest. Same problem?

After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.

*Note: If you’ve activated “Find My Mac” or FileVault, then you can’t enable the Guest account. The “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac” is not the same. Create a new account in which to test, and delete it, including its home folder, after testing.

Step 2

The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.

Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you boot, and again when you log in.

Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.

Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal boot may also be somewhat slow.

The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.

Test while in safe mode. Same problem?

After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of steps 1 and 2.

Here's a summary of what you need to do: Copy a line of text from this web page into the window of another application. Wait about a minute. Then paste some other text, which will have been copied automatically, back into a reply on this page. The sequence is: copy, paste, wait, paste again. Details follow.

You may have started the computer in "safe" mode. Preferably, these steps should be taken in “normal” mode. If the system is now in safe mode and works well enough in normal mode to run the test, restart as usual. If you can only run the test in safe mode, proceed anyway.

If you have more than one user, and the affected user is not an administrator, then please run the script twice: once while logged in as the affected user, and once as an administrator. The results may be different. The administrator is the user that is created automatically on a new computer when you start it for the first time. If you can't log in as an administrator, just run the script as the affected user. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this paragraph doesn’t apply.

The script is a single long line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, though you may not see all of it in your browser, and you can then copy it.

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

When you launch Terminal, a text window will open with a line already in it, ending either in a dollar sign ($) or a percent sign (%). If you get the percent sign, enter “sh” and press return. You should then get a new line ending in a dollar sign.

Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:

clear; shopt -s extglob; Fb='%s\n\t(%s)\n'; Fm='\n%s:\n\n%s\n'; Fs='\n%s: %s\n'; Fu='User %s%%\t\tSystem %s%%'; PB="/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c Print"; A () { [[ "$a" -eq 0 ]]; }; R () { [[ "$r" -eq 0 ]]; }; Pm () { [[ "$o" ]] && o=$(sed 's/^/ /' <<< "$o") && printf "$Fm" "$1" "$o"; }; Pc () { o=$(egrep -v '^[[:blank:]]*($|#)' "$2"); Pm "$1"; }; Pp () { o=$($PB "$2" | awk -F'= ' \/$3'/{print $2}'); Pm "$1"; }; Ps () { o="${o##+( )}"; [[ "$o" -ne 0 ]] && printf "$Fs" "$1" "$o"; }; id | grep -qw '80(admin)'; a=$?; A && sudo true; r=$?; t=`date +%s`; clear; { A || echo $'No admin access\n'; A && ! R && echo $'No root access\n'; system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType | sed '8!d;s/^ *//'; o=$(system_profiler SPDiagnosticsDataType | sed '5,6!d'); fgrep -q P <<< "$o" && o=; Pm "POST"; o=$(nvram boot-args | awk '{$1=""; print}'); Ps "boot-args"; o=$(ls /L*/L*/Dia*/*.panic | wc -l); Ps "Panics"; o=$(ls /L*/L*/Dia*/*.c* | tail); Pm "System crash logs"; o=$(ls L*/L*/Dia* | tail); Pm "User crash logs"; o=$(syslog -F bsd -k Sender kernel -k Message CReq 'GPU |hfs: Ru|I/O e|n Cause: -|NVDA\(|pagin|SATA W|timed? ?o' | tail -n25 | awk '/:/{$4=""; $5=""; print}'); Pm "Kernel messages"; o=$(df -m / | awk 'NR==2 {print $4}'); [[ $o -lt 5120 ]] && Ps "Free space (MiB)"; o=$(($(vm_stat | awk '/Pageo/{sub("\\.",""); print $2}')/256)); o=$((o>=1024?o:0)); Ps "Pageouts (MiB)"; s=( $(sar -u 1 10 | sed '$!d') ); [[ ${s[4]} -lt 90 ]] && o=$(printf "$Fu" ${s[1]} ${s[3]}) || o=; Pm "Total CPU usage" && o=$(ps acrx -o comm,ruid,%cpu | sed '2!d'); Pm "Max %CPU by process (name, UID, %)"; o=$(kextstat -kl | grep -v com\\.apple | cut -c53- | cut -d\< -f1); Pm "Loaded extrinsic kernel extensions"; R && o=$(sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.(apple|openssh|vix\.cron)|org\.(amav|apac|calendarse|cups|dove|isc|ntp|post[fg]|x)/{print $3}'); Pm "Loaded extrinsic daemons"; o=$(launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple|org\.(x|openbsd)|\.[0-9]+$/{print $3}'); Pm "Loaded extrinsic user agents"; for d in {/,}L*/{La,Priv,Sta}*; do o=$(ls -A "$d" | egrep -v '\.DS_Store|^com\.apple'); Pm "$d"; done; o=$(find -L /S*/L*/E* {/,}L*/{A*d,Compon,Ex,In,Keyb,Mail,P*P,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Spo}* -type d -name Contents -prune | while read d; do ID=$($PB\ :CFBundleIdentifier "$d/Info.plist") || ID="No bundle ID"; egrep -qv "^com\.apple\.[^x]|Accusys|ArcMSR|ATTO|HDPro|HighPoint|driver\.stex|hp-fax|\.hpio|JMicron|microsoft\.MDI|print|SoftRAID" <<< $ID && printf "$Fb" "${d%/Contents}" "$ID"; done); Pm "Extrinsic loadable bundles"; o=$(find /u*/{,*/}lib -type f -exec sh -c 'file -b "$1" | grep -qw shared && ! codesign -v "$1"' {} {} \; -print); Pm "Unsigned shared libraries"; o=$(launchctl getenv DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES); Pm "Inserted libraries"; R && o=$(sudo profiles -P | grep :); Pm "Profiles"; o=$(find {,/u*/lo*}/e*/periodic -type f -mtime -10d); Pm "Modified periodic scripts"; for f in fstab sysctl.conf crontab launchd.conf; do Pc $f /etc/$f; done; Pc "hosts" <(sed '1,10d' /etc/hosts); Pc "User launchd" ~/.launchd; R && Pc "Root crontab" <(sudo crontab -l); Pc "User crontab" <(crontab -l); R && o=$(sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook); Pm "Login hook"; Pp "Global login items" /L*/P*/loginw* Path; Pp "User login items" L*/P*/*loginit* Name; Pp "Safari extensions" L*/Saf*/*/E*.plist Bundle | sed 's/\..*$//;s/-[1-9]$//'; o=$(find ~ $TMPDIR.. \( -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 \) | wc -l); Ps "Restricted user files"; cd; o=$(system_profiler SPFontsDataType | egrep "Valid: N|Duplicate: Y" | wc -l); Ps "Font problems"; o=$(find L* -type f ! -size 0 -name *.plist ! -exec sh -c 'plutil -s "$1" >&-' {} {} \; -print); Pm "Bad plists"; o=$((`date +%s`-t)); Ps "Elapsed time (s)"; } 2>/dev/null | pbcopy; exit 2>&-

If you're logged in as an administrator, you'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You will not see the usual dots in place of typed characters. Make sure caps lock is off. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you make three failed attempts to enter the password, the script will run anyway, but it will produce less information. In most cases, the difference is not important, so don't worry about it.

The script may take up to a few minutes to run, depending on how many files you have and the speed of the computer. There is no indication of progress until it's done. Wait for the line "[Process completed]" to appear in the Terminal window.

You can then quit Terminal. The output of the script will have been copied to the Clipboard automatically. All you have to do is paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V again. If any personal information, such as your name or email address, appears in the output, anonymize it before posting. Usually that won't be necessary. Please don't copy anything from the Terminal window.

When you post the output, you might see in your browser the message, "You have included content in your post that is not permitted." That's because the forum software falsely identifies something in the post as a violation of the terms of use. If that happens, please post the output on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

Note: This is a public forum, and others may give you advice based on the output of the script. They speak only for themselves, and I don't necessarily agree with them.

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For the benefit of others who might have the same problem, maybe you would care to say how you solved it.