# imovie hangs when camcorder is connected



## clason (Nov 22, 2002)

Hi all - 

I've recently upgraded to OSX 10.2.1, and imovie 2.1.2. Unfortunately, now an odd and disturbing thing happens. I can start imovie fine, but the moment that I turn on my camcorder (a Canon ZR20), iMovie says "Camera Connected" and displays the spinning rainbow wheel of death forever. 

Based on other advice I've read in this and other forums, I've trashed the imovie preferences, I've de-installed Toast and Quicktime, and I've tried various locations for saving my iMovie files, all to no avail. Everything worked fine before I upgraded to Jaguar. 

Does anyone have any advice?


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## michaelsanford (Nov 22, 2002)

This might be obvious, but have you tried starting your camera before starting iMovie?


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## clason (Nov 22, 2002)

Yup, I've tried that. iMovie starts up OK, with the blue screen showing Camera connected, but as soon as I try to do anything (pressing a console button, pulling down a menu, etc.) iMovie hangs again and I get the rainbow cursor. Any other ideas?


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## michaelsanford (Nov 22, 2002)

Ok a few more questions then:

- Is your camera connected directly to your computer via FireWire, or do you have a DAC in between?

- Do you have any other peripherals connected (especially other FireWire devices)? If so, disconnect _everything_ but your keyboard and mouse and try your camera again.

- Any third-party plug-ins, or any plug-ins at all to iMovie?

- Have you tried reinstalling iMovie completely (your computer should have come with a CD, and you can update it with Software Update).

- Lastly, how coem you uninstalled QuickTime? I'm pretty sure iMovie uses all sorts of stuff from QuickTime to encode movie files (but I'm by no means sure)...

This is all a ploy to get you to buy Final Cut Pro  It rocks the screen, but it also rocks the wallet


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## ByerlyRips (Nov 23, 2002)

Try turning off all sleep options in system prefs (including spin down hard disks). iMovie has known problems with sleep being turned on (at least in the past it did).

What Mac model do you have?


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