paytonmoss

Q: Why does my iMovie keep crashing after I open it?

When I open it, it'll show one of the last projects I work on, but when I create a new project or edit the old one, it just crashes. It keeps doing this over and over again.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Oct 28, 2015 6:32 PM

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Q: Why does my iMovie keep crashing after I open it?

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  • by norm123,

    norm123 norm123 Oct 30, 2015 6:54 AM in response to paytonmoss
    Community Specialists
    Oct 30, 2015 6:54 AM in response to paytonmoss

    Hey paytonmoss,

    I understand that your are having issues with iMovie crashing when you start a new project or opening a previous version. I can understand any frustration that might bring but lets see if we can figure out what is going. 

    The first thing I want to point out is that you are going to be doing troubleshooting to find the fix as opposed to fix right away.

    What you want to start with is making sure that your movie projects are backed up to an external drive. You can do that manually by dragging and dropping to the external drive or if you use Time Machine, you are good to go. 

    Once you have a back up in place, you will want to test out iMovie in another user. This will test to see if the issue is something that is system wide or user specific. Once you have figured that out then you might need to delete iMovie and download it again from the Mac App Store. 

    Take a look at the articles below for more troubleshooting ideas and the steps on deleting apps and downloading them again. 

    Mac OS X: How to troubleshoot a software issue
    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201516


    OS X El Capitan: Install, update, and uninstall apps
    https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21867​


    Download your past purchases
    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201272​


    Let me know if this helps or if you need further assistance with this.

    Take it easy 

  • by paytonmoss,

    paytonmoss paytonmoss Nov 5, 2015 5:46 PM in response to norm123
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2015 5:46 PM in response to norm123

    I just wanted to note that if I delete the iMovie app, I don't think it would be possible to redownload it, because I have the 09 version and it cost 14.99 for the new one.

  • by Nubz N.,

    Nubz N. Nubz N. Nov 6, 2015 12:13 PM in response to paytonmoss
    Community Hosts
    Nov 6, 2015 12:13 PM in response to paytonmoss

    Hello paytonmoss,

    I would check to see if you have the install disks for iLife '09 which would have your version of iMovie.  If you do, then you can delete iMovie without issue and then reinstall it from the install disk.

    Updating to the latest version is an option but do understand that if you are happy with iMovie '09 and don't want to pay for an upgrade.

    I would still try the troubleshooting software article that I previously mentioned before going through to deleting iMovie. 

    Let me know what you fine out

    Take care