imovie crashes on mojave importing video

Question

imovie crashes on mojave importing video

I have a 27" imac 3.3 processor with 16 gig of ram. I have used this machine for over 3 years editing our church video services for youtube. Almost same size every week and nothing changed. Since upgrading to 10.14 Moj. every time I try to import the file into imovie it gets to the end of the import and crashes. It gives me a message saying I have run out of system memory. Never had a problem at all with the same machine and same file on High Sierra or before. If you play with it and do a power management reset and every other thing you can think of you might get it done but it is hit or miss and mostly miss. I make sure all apps are shut down which I never had to do before even to the point of going into activity monitor and shutting down things there. I have a second imac and am having simuler problems with it on a trial basis as I normally do not use it for video editing. But wanted to try to see if it was just the one machine or something else. I have talked to apple support and they did mostly things that I have already tried and no resolution has been found. Anyone else having a problem or hopefully a fix for this?

IMAC (RETINA 5K, 27-INCH, LATE 2015), macOS Mojave (10.14)

Posted on Oct 15, 2018 12:25 PM

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Answer 1

Rich839

Level 8

47,316 points

Oct 17, 2018 8:56 AM in response to missionarymac

"Cancelling Background tasks" usually will take less than a minute, but could take a little longer. It should not last for hours.

To rule out a hardware problem, you might try using the Apple Diagnostics app on your Mac. That requires booting up while holding down the D key. Here's a link that explains it:

How to use Apple Diagnostics on your Mac - Apple Support

-- Rich

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Answer 2

Rich839

Level 8

47,316 points

Oct 15, 2018 1:54 PM in response to missionarymac

Hi,

As a workaround, you can try importing your video to your desktop using the Image Capture app on your Mac, and then dragging the video from there into iMovie.

As the error message indicates, make sure that you have sufficient system memory.

Also, try opening iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and selecting to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects.

If still no luck you can try redownloading Mojave and redownloading iMovie.

-- Rich

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Answer 3

Oct 15, 2018 10:28 PM in response to Rich839

Rich, thank you for your feedback. Unfortunately I still have no resolution. I tried your work around and had the same results. I always copy the file to the desktop before importing it into imovie as has been my practice for years now. It simply will not complete an import of the file without crashing right at the end of the import. I really wish I had not upgraded the OS as this was never an issue before. When the import starts there is about 12 gig of ram free and just before it crashes it is down to a gig or less and crashes showing about 28 mb's. Again this has happened on the last three files so it is not isolated to one particular file and they are the same size and kind as we have been doing for several years without a problem. I did do a redownload of the OS last week but there was no change. I assume to redownload imovie I would have to delete it and then go back to the app store? I am going to do a memory upgrade today and that might help but I still cannot figure out why this has just happened since the OS upgrade. Also I am having a drastic increase of the spinning beach balls which was not a problem before and the mail app almost will never close without force quitting it. This is my work system so it is a big problem for me and I need to figure out a solution to get back to doing what I need to do instead of trying to fix issues. Thanks again for your assistance and to anyone else who might have a solution.

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Answer 4

Rich839

Level 8

47,316 points

Oct 16, 2018 12:34 AM in response to missionarymac

How much free storage memory do you have? 10% of your total drive storage capability is a good rule of thumb. 20GB to 25GB also has been recommended on this forum as a secure minimum. If you are getting down to a gig or less, that definitely could cause your movie to crash right at the end. In fact, it would almost guarantee it. Try moving 20GB of data to an external drive and then sharing out again. See if that solves it.

-- Rich

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Answer 5

Rich839

Level 8

47,316 points

Oct 16, 2018 10:18 AM in response to missionarymac

Try starting up in Safe Mode (see Help menu) and, after everything finishes loading, immediately shut down and restart in normal mode. Sometimes that will clear up conflicts that might be causing your issues.

--Rich

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Answer 6

Oct 16, 2018 12:18 PM in response to Rich839

Rich,

Again I thank you for your suggestions and assistance. I have tried the safe mode and it did nothing to help at all. Here is what I did do today which was expensive and maybe not needed but I had to do something. I upgraded the ram to 32 gig from the 16 gig. As I have said I never had an issue with the 16 gig until this 10.14 os. I still had so some issues after the upgrade and but there was some improvement. I then uninstalled imovie and then downloaded it from the app store again. I was then able to do an import of the typical file but it was very slow and there was one point that I had the crash and the system memory out error notice again. But there was at lease some ususable function again although still far from what it should be. So I still need some good resolution on this.

Today's expense of $250 for memory was disappointing although I am sure it will help he system run smoother once we get all this problems ironed out. I also now have apple mail hanging on shut down and you have to force quit it nearly every time. And back to imovie. When you try to close it now this comes up. "Quit Movie". long progress line that stays read the whole length of it and then below it there is: "Cancelling background tasks". It will stay like that for hours and never finish? I finally have to force quit it as well. So there is today's saga of this situation. Thanks again.

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Answer 7

Oct 17, 2018 1:50 PM in response to missionarymac

I had a similar problem on my 21" iMac and found out it was a virus. I ran AVG free on it and it found it. I did some work where the person emailed me some pics and a virus was on one of the pics and wreaked havoc on my computer causing very similar issues. Once AVG found the virus and removed it things got back to normal. I now also have Malwarebytes on my iMacs too.

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Answer 8

Rich839

Level 8

47,316 points

Oct 18, 2018 8:42 AM in response to missionarymac

Assuming you have tried everything discussed, the only other things I can think of are::

1. Open iMovie in a newly created library.

2. Open iMovie in a newly created user account (the Guest account on your Mac will work).

3. Restore High Sierra from your Time Machine backup, if you have one. (Back up your files, first.)

4. All else failing, take your computer in to the genius bar at your local Apple Store and see if the problem can be isolated.

-- Rich

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Answer 9

Oct 18, 2018 9:48 PM in response to Rich839

Rich, Your last post brought about the resolution. Even though I had uninstalled and reinstalled imovie it retained the old events and library. I had deleted all the media but the library was still there. I had seen that it several times had to repair the library. With your post suggestion I found out how to delete the old library after adding a new library. That did the trick! No more spinning beach balls of death. No lock ups, no running out of memory and no lock ups. It runs smoothly now and I have edited a couple of videos without any problem. The only last hitch is still the "cancelling background tasks" thing. It still (not every time but when it does never quits. I finally have to force quit the app to stop it. If there is a solution for that all would be back to normal again. But we are a long way ahead of where it was and my system is useable again!!!!!

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Answer 10

Jabato

Level 1

4 points

Oct 28, 2018 9:10 AM in response to missionarymac

An Apple increased its revenues by USD250, and you lost several hours of your life. I cannot get iMovie 11 to work (which was far better in my view) after upgrading to Mojave. It makes me so angry to waste time every time we are forced to upgrade the iOS on Apple's devices. God I hate them!

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