Using Final Cut Pro, text editors to rescue corrupt iMovie 3.0.x projects
Using Final Cut Pro, text editors to rescue corrupt iMovie 3.0.x projects
We have been covering iMovie 3.0.x project corruption for a few days now, and there appear to be two viable solutions for recovering otherwise unusable movie files.
If you are having problems with the a .mov file always generating the ?40 message when you attempt to open it, try opening it with Final Cut Pro to finish the job.
Meanwhile, Patrick Hackshaw suggests that to fix a corrupted file, you can open it in a text editor (such as BBedit ) and look for data that doesn't make sense. Hackshaw found this in his corrupted file:- Frames: 13 In:-31 Out:-18
He writes "Negative locations are impossible in iMovie, so I suspected that was the problem. After looking over the other data, I was able to determine which numbers should ave been written for In and Out. subtract In from Out. Your result should be the same as the number of frames; for example: Frames: 14 In:128 Out:142. If the result is different, you've found the problem. Change the In and/or Out numbers and save the file. There may also be empty file references (nothing on the line that starts with File):
- Music: 20.Raj/Julia in car/1 - Audio
- File:
- Selected: 0
- AudioInfo: 3135 12.245579 0
- Frames: 367 In:27 Out:253
- FileType: 00000000 ()
- Volume/Fade: 33 1 1
- FadeIn: 36 FadeOut:136
- Type: 2
The solution is to delete the entire file reference; in this case 9 lines of text.
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