iMovie searching for files for project...

[Guest]

Whenever I fire up iMovie 09 on Lion, it spins, and then tells me it can't find a video file for a project that does not exist. That is, it says 'File xxx.mov from project 'Movie 1 cannot be found - without this file the movie cannot be played.' The project is one I deleted a long time ago, and does not appear in the project list. How can I force iMovie to forget about this?Thanks! PS the specific error is 'Searching for movie data in file "New Project 1 - Large.m4v". The only button is "Stop". so I press that, then a new dialogue box saying 'The movie file 'New Project Large.m4v" cannot be found. Without this file, the movie cannot play properly." It has cancel and search buttons. Obviously, searching doesn't help - it was deleted a long time ago. Cancelling makes it go away until iMovie is launched again.

[Guest]

Have you tried deleting the iMovie preferences file. That's located in: MacHD>Users>HomeFolder>Library/Preferences/com.apple.iMovie08.plist Deleting this preference file may force iMovie to re-examine which project folders and event folders are currently under its control.

[Guest]

Thanks - I deleted all the iMovie preference files - it reindexed and came up with the same errors.

[Guest]

Looks like I fixed it - I created a project with the same name, and made sure it created files with the same names it has been looking for. Looks good so far - thanks for the help!  --- OOps - looks like I spoke too soon - it's back again....

[Guest]

Whitecity, Does this "New Project 1.rcproject" exist anywhere else?1. Check ~/movies/imovie projects/2. Check external volumes/imovie projects/3. Try Spotlight searching it. Calbe

[Guest]

Nope - can't find it.

[Guest]

OK - it's something to do with iMovie events folder - when I move all the iMovie folders out of the directory they are supposed to be in it works fine - of course all my video is missing - when I move the events folder back I get the message.

[Guest]

Whitecity, This is awesome.So moving forward from here, you can narrow down which event is causing the behavior but systematically trial and error. Once you determined the exact event folder, there are subfolders underneath:/iMovie Movie Cache//iMovie Stabilization//iMovie Thumbnails/ Try removing these to see if iMovie rebuilds them. Calbe

[Guest]

Good call - got it! Thanks!

[mschwepler]

Hi,

I would LOVE any help you can give me with the problem I am having with iMovie 09. I deleted some video files in my finder which I now know was a HUGE mistake. I was getting rid of video I no longer wanted. My iMovie is now flipping out. Every time I open it, it say it is searching for movie date in a file it can't find. It is a file that I no longer want and threw away but iMovie will not open or show me any of my existing videos that I did not delete that I do want or do anything else. I tried restoring all my videos from my external hard drive but that didn't help either. I would like to get iMovie back on track because I have a year's worth of video on it. PLEASE HELP.