iMovie keeps freezing. Please, help.

Hi.

My indie movie is on iMovie. I imported in as large, rather than full HD since I have a Mac Mini. It is an hour and 25 minutes, and I used an external hard drive to store my footages. And I didn't install any additional softwares on my Mac.

However! Now that I open iMovie, it freezes after it loads up all of my editing. It loads up the footages, the sound effects, the music, and so on. When it's done loading up, I try modify anything (meaning if I even click on something) in the time-line... it freezes and stays that way until I need to force quit it.

With all my editing done, all I need is to work on the adding a few sound effects, music, and two voice overs ... but it has halted since iMovie has done this to me.

PLEASE. HELP ME. What is wrong? How can I fix it?

the same thing has happened to me. i have spent days searching for answers but have found nothing. i am so upset about what is happening because of all the time and effort put into my movie. there has got to be some kind of soloution.

Hi Re: iMovie keeps freezing. Pleas,

Welcome to the forums.

Please can you provide more details on the exact version of iMovie you are using, OSX version and any details about your Mac.

Thanks
Rounik

Imovie 09. Osx.

OSX 10.4.x?
OSX 10.5.8?
OSX 10.6.2?

Mac?

Firstly check how much space you have got on your project besides you external hard drive. When working in iMovie make sure all other applications are closed.
Also have you checked for any updates in iMovie?

was a solution ever found to this? it is currently happening to me and i cannot find an answer anywhere!

only current project stalls. have created larger projects before with no issues. i have plenty of hard drive space. project stalls even when moved to external drive. can edit and create other projects in imovie. have verified disk and permissions in applications.

using iMovie '09 8.0.6 (821) on a Max OSX 10.5.8, 2.1 GHz Intel

This new version of iMovie is know to play havoc at times. Which does not help your cause. So i hope this can help.
Check for any update. Go into Apple update site and check if anything has been missed.
Go to Quicktime and see if you iMovie file is in there and you can play snippets.
Open iMovie and open a new project and call it "TEST" and try and transfer footage into iMovie.
You say current project stalls. Were? the whole lot or just certain parts.
Also is you import button for camera mode off
Are all other applications off.
Besides opening iMovie. Open your hard drive and click unto you movie file and see if it opens in iMovie.

Help! It is happening to me as well. Trying to edit and then it completely freezes. Camera mode is off as well as other applications.

Help!!!

Thank you for any input on this.

O.K. Lets see if we can sort this out.
Once you have downloaded your footage were is the project saved?
Is the project downloaded into your main drive or do you have a external drive.
Is it tape or SDHC Card
How far into your project of editing are you before it freezes.
Also are you up to date with iMovie updates.
I think when one has a problem the more information available would help.
Those the beachball appears when freezing?

Same OS, same version of IMovie. Mine stalls when I open this particular project. The first time it stalled, it stalled when I tried to move the start time of the clip.

So I did this wrong, sorry folks - or perhaps it is because I am posting from my Windows box. ,-)

I thought I replied to a post with machine stats etc, but my post is placed elsewhere--soo:

iMovie 2009, Mac OSX 10.6.8 - SnowLeopard, 2.26GJZ Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB 1067 Mhz DDR3 memory. No significant performance issues outside of iMovie, and no issues in iMovie outside of this project, which is larger than the other ones.

It crashed the first time when I tried to move the start time of the clip, in clip trimmer. Now it just crashes on open. There is no excessive paging, the computer is only 2 years old and I am fairly sure the HDD is good.

What are my options here? iMovie 11? Final Cut? Other software? Can iMovie 09 be fixed? Did any of you find a solution?

1 - Save: HDD
2 - Drive: Local
3 - Drive: Neither, is local HDD
4 - Time: 10 minutes, however now it (IMovie) freezes on open
5 - Updates: Yes, and yes for OS too.
6 - Info: Agree
7 - Beach Ball: Yes, then no. (Meaning it did, now it doesn't.

Hi Nina,

I'm slightly puzzled here.

Have you run Software Update recently and installed the most recent update for iMovie 09?

Can I double-check what version of OS X you are running?

Thanks!
R

Did anyone figure this out? I am having the exact same problem. I'm on an iMac with 4 GB of RAM. I have about 42 GB of hard drive space left on my computer. I'm in iMovie 11, and have a 66-minute movie almost done. Other projects work fine, but this one freezes when I try to edit in any way. I can play the movie from the beginning, but if I try to move the playhead anywhere else, it's the spinning beach ball and force quit.

Any ideas would be most appreciated!

Find the clip were the beach ball start. Then find the clip in your browser and see if the clip will play on its own.
I do not use iMovie 11. But go on your Apple support web page and put your question there.
You could have a corrupt file. Also make sure your trash is empty.
You have plenty of space. All my video work is always on an external drive.

Thanks, daybreak. I solved the problem by downloading a 30-day trial of Final Cut Pro X. It is able to open the project and edit it, and the editing is much faster than iMovie.