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Possible fix for a corrupt iMovie file Apps
After about 10 hours of editing and repeated saving of an iMovie (version 4.01) of the kids' soccer highlights, I returned the next day to find that when launched, iMovie gave a message that the file could not be opened. Panicked (since I had not backed it up to an external drive), I tried all my tricks (no luck), then called Apple tech support. 30 minutes of testing later, they had no solution either other than advice that "there are other things you can do, but Apple does not recommend them, so we can't tell you...".

Since I thought I was out of luck and about to start over, I opened the file in the movie folder using BBEDIT (the file is named for the title of the movie) and it was just a simple text file with a directory of what clips, transitions, etc. were in the project. I noticed some non-ASCII characters in the file, so on a whim, did a "zap gremlins" in BBEDIT. Saved the file and when I launched it in iMovie, it read perfectly and my project was restored!

Whew! - Thought if others hit this problem, this might be something to try.
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Possible fix for a corrupt iMovie file
Authored by: gsgm on Jun 01, '04 02:17:38PM

While your hint is helpful in things to try when problems arise, it is important for iMovie users to realize that the project file is simply (as you indicated) a text file with pointers to all of the clips, effects, etc that you used in your project.

You may also have a need to recover some original (before editing) files and you will find those also in the project folder.



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