How To Fix iMovie 7.1 If It Doesn’t Launch
Yesterday I wanted to edit a video with iMovie to prepare it for online publishing. But I couldn’t launch it — its icon on the Dock bounced for a few seconds, but that’s all it did. No message, nothing. But I noticed that it didn’t take much time until I could hear the fans of my MacBook Pro (which is not possible under normal conditions since their very quiet).
In the activity monitor I discovered a running process called iMovie — therefore my conclusion was that iMovie has a problem loading anything while launching. Deleting the preferences file under the following path didn’t bring iMovie back to life:
User → Library → Preferences → com.apple.iMovie7.plist
What does iMovie probably load as well? Yes, you’re right. The whole bunch of Quicktime plugins on your system. So I went into
Macintosh HD → Library → Quicktime
…and found an old DivX plugin there: DivX 5.component.
After moving this file to the trash, everything worked fine — it may be a different one on your system, but this is where you have to search for potentially outdated Quicktime components which could prevent iMovie from launching properly.
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Hey thanks alot ive been trying for days to figure it out. Works like a champ.
yipee!! thanks – your solution worked fantastic… the best of all the ideas going around!
This is what fixed it on my computer. Thanks.
THANK YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!!
Worked like a charm! I wish Apple had this on their site because it is the best advice!
Well I saw a lot of post here talking about the iLife products and why they crash and how somebody can fix it, but I can find any answer that really help to solve the problem.
I have the same problem and I took my MacBook to the Mac store and they don’t know either how can fix this big problem.
This is the point… I don’t know if you guys, the software developers or Technical Support people, have something like this… Do you spend money all the time in your house or in your life in something that doesn’t work for you… i just wondering…
Do you go to a restaurant and order some food and you find a hair in your meal….do you pay for that? or Do you go to Walmart and buy a… (i don’t know) maybe a lamp and as soon as you come back to home and try to install the lamp and doesn’t work, do you keep it and don’t request for a refund?
Why if you have a big budget to develop or make a Modern Software, this doesn’t work in a lot, hundred or maybe thousand of thousand Mac computers around the world… That is ridiculous and why can’t find where the problem is and your technicians in your Stores doesn’t have the latest information to save time to the costumers…
I hope you can find out how we can still trust in your products before 2009, today is November 15, 2008 and a lot people spend to much time in front of they computers to repair the problem and save your files…
But, I guess this going to be one more of the post in here and you can’t move a finger to provide a good support to us without cost more money for the users…
P.D. if some body found some way to fix this… I still need it because I wanna save my videos and use my computer some day.
hey this didnt work for me,i had this thing called divx component too but a different number it still didnt open imovie!i have like tons of files there that need to be published and i cant understand imovie HD at all!please help!
this doesn’t work for me, I don’t have any DivX files in that folder, and im scared to delete anything else.