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iDVD opens but does nothing

Some iDVD users are finding that when they open the program it will not function at all.

CNET staff
2 min read

Monday, June 23

Some iDVD users are finding that when they open the program it will not function at all. The program seems to open fine and the Apple menubar indicates the program is running, but none of the menus work and the program cannot be used or quit. The only way to exit is to force-quit the program.

As described by Apple Discussions poster tanjathedvdfan: "iDVD is open but not on the screen. It pops up only shortly when I press the outside buttons of the mouse, I can not work with the program at all and cannot close it either."

This issue seems to have started for some users after application of the iDVD 7.0.2 update, and has occurred for others on new Mac OS X installations, under which iDVD had not been previously opened.

The problem does not appear to be caused by corrupt .plist files associated with iDVD, as removing the preferences files results in iDVD prompting the user with the startup window and advancing beyond that causes the same problem.

Console output from iDVD may be of use in further identifying this issue (if you have a console log containing the failure, send it our way), but for now the following fixes should get affected users up and running again.

Fixes

Repair permissions Use Disk Utility to run a permissions repair on the hard drive. If a permissions repair doesn't work then follow the remaining steps to reinstall iDVD.

Delete and reinstall iDVD Manually remove the iDVD application from your Applications folder. Unfortunately there is no way to install just iDVD with the iLife installer, but reinstalling the whole suite should restore the iDVD version.

Update iDVD Run a post-installation permission fix, and then preferrably download the standalone iDVD 7.0.2 update and update manually (available here: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/idvd702.html). Optionally you might update while booted into safe mode (by holding shift at startup). This will ensure the system is running as "bare" as possible so installations have less of a chance of getting interrupted.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

Resources

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