OK, so Apple messed this one up. In Final Cut, when a clip is missing FCS has a sufficiently sophisticated method of finding the files. iMovie? Not so much. In fact, it doesn’t even ask for help!
Background: I don’t like using iPhoto Library for my video files so I moved them out of iPhoto (using Finder, not iMovie) and into a separate iMovie Events folder. iMovie found these files no problem and can even help me maintain them (moves, adds, changes). BUT, it wouldn’t scan this folder for missing clips!
What to do?
On the Apple forum, there is a LONG thread about this problem:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9171954
It points out two things:
- The Project file in the iMovie project, contains the path to the links to the media. Fix the path and the iMovie project will be fine.
- It also notes that the iMovie Events folder is actually called iMovie Events.localized so if you are using this folder, include the “.localized”
That didn’t work for me. When I made those two changes, my iMovie project wouldn’t open. Things were getting worse!
This link provides the missing link (couldn’t resist!):
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9387051#9387051
It points to another link, that describes the Project file as a binary file and it must remain binary for iMovie to work . THANK YOU, CHRIS!
http://www.chrissearle.org/blog/technical/relinking_resources_imovie_09
Finally, for extra credit, I found this link, that helped me believe, I was on the right track:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050430105126392
There is a utility that changes property list files (iMovie Project file) from binary to XML and back again.
So what does all this mean?
If you decide to move your iMovie clips outside of iMovie’s way of doing things:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iMovie/8.0/en/19548.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iMovie/8.0/en/19555.html
Then you must do three things:
1) Change the path in the Project file to point to the proper location
2) Ensure the Project file remains binary
3) Include “.localized” on the iMovie Events folder
If you’re clever enough to understand how to do this from the links above and the three clues, great! If not, I put a lengthy tutorial together so I would remember how to do it. Have fun.
Update:
Based on the OS X Hint above about creating a function called pledit that would convert to XML then back to binary with a edit sandwiched in the middle, I decided to do just that. It works great! Be sure to use the -w flag so that the Terminal waits until the file is written before continuing.
Last thing… I also added Open Terminal Here from Marc Liyanage’s excellent site to my Finder toolbar.
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After updating ilife 08 -> 09 all of my video clips where missing (yellow triangles). Apple couldn’t help me. But I was able to repair it with your great pdf instruction. Thank you very much!!! I guess the iphoto 09 media center uses a different system to arrange media files as in iphoto 08. Don’t import your videos into iphoto!!! With a new release (ilife 10), you’ll have problems
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This technique worked very well on unlinked video clips as well as some Apple iLife sound effects that had changed from “*.gif” to “*.caf”
Hello-
I too had the yellow triangles after moving my source footage. Following the great tutorial worked perfectly… until…
Let me explain what I’m doing. Whenever I do my editing, I use a portable drive with all my source clips. I’ll work on a project, always pointing to the portable drive, and eventually publish it. Then, to free up space on the portable drive, but still keep copies of my source footage, I move the source clips to a Drobo. This of course produces the yellow triangles in my project files, but they can easily be removed by moving the source clips from the Drobo back to the portable drive. When iMovie opens, everything is back to normal. This works perfectly well when you keep the exact same folder/file names as when you created the project. However, in a few cases, I didn’t do this, which is what brought me to this site and this tutorial.
In these cases, I copied the source clips used in the project back to the portable drive, used the technique described in the tutorial, and as promised, all the yellow triangles disappeared. Then, I deleted the source files from the portable drive, and next time I opened iMovie, in addition to the expected yellow triangles, the thumbnails in the project were all gray. When you scrub over them, you see the video, but as soon as you move the cursor off, they go back to gray. So, it seems that simply changing the project file to point to a different file location isn’t all that needs to be updated, at least in the case of a project that has already been published.
Here’s why this is weird: in another project that I had published, but didn’t use the tutorial to change the project file, I also deleted the source clips from the portable drive (to which the project points), and the project thumbnails are fine, though the yellow triangles reappear, as expected.
In looking around the Apple forums, people suggested closing iMovie, moving the source footage back onto the portable drive, deleting the thumbnail and the Cache.plist files, re-opening iMovie and letting it rebuild the thumbnails. I did this, but with the same result: gray previews.
Does anyone have any idea why this is happening, or how to prevent/fix it?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Dave
Dave,
Did you upgrade to the latest version of iMovie (last weeks mild change for iFrame)?
I have tested this process with the new version…
Let’s start there.
Thanks,
Lief
Hi Lief-
Yes, this is on the most current versions of Snow Leopard and iMovie 09. I posted my issue to the Apple Forums today, but so far there are no responses.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2207546&tstart=15
I can sum up my problem this way:
* Projects point to a portable drive for their source footage
* Projects have been rendered and published
* Source footage deleted from portable drive
* If the project was manually fixed to update source clip locations, gray thumbnails appear throughout the project
* If the project was not manually fixed, project thumbnails look fine
* Both situations produce yellow triangles, which are expected
Thanks for thinking about this,
Dave
Mmmmm. I can do some testing over the weekend and see if something changed in the latest version…
It would be a bummer if this were “fixed” in the latest version!
Maybe there’s an easier way to think about it. We know it’s possible to regenerate the thumbnails for EVENTS, but can you do so for PROJECTS?
Another method to fix the source that seems to work for me every time.
Sorry but i thought that using iMovie to fix it would be easier. (Using OS X and iMovie ’09)
I open the Project in iMovie find the new location in the Event Library. I drag the clip over the top of the broken clip in the Project and it asks me if i want to replace it. I say yes and done.