After some troubleshooting, I concluded that the issue with these projects was not inside the projects themselves, but in the events that have been used in these projects and to be more precise, with the thumbnails of these events.
It looks like something went wrong during or before the iMovie crash and affected the events video thumbnails.
The solution in my case:
I forced iMovie to re-create the thumbnails of these events, by deleting
the thumbs folder inside iMovie events folder in Finder.
Here is some further info, regarding the issue and how I ended up with recreating the thumbs:
The iMovie owner, had a special structure in separating his iMovie projects in folders by project topic. I found out that it was only some 8-10 projects under a specific folder that were unable to open-load inside iMovie. Some of them, they were able to open, but all they were showing in the viewer was just a gray screen.
Also, its worth noting that all the other iMovie projects in the library were working fine.
I also noticed that when right-clicking on the problematic projects inside the project library, I was not getting the extended contextual menu that presents commands like duplicate, export etc, but only 2 commands: to create new project or new folder.
Trashing iMovie preferences file had absolutely no effect, nor renaming the project files either. Searching on Google for similar issues, I couldn't find anything similar. Running onyx's cleaning features, repairing permissions, checking hard-drive system for corruption - all these were also in the mix - but with no result.
Finally, I had an idea:
I sent a project file (containing no events/video) to my own mac and tried to open it. It opened just fine, with the exception that it couldn't find the source files.
That lead me to think that the project files were fine and that I rather have to check for the events.
The owner had a similar folder structure for his events as well. So, all the events used in the above projects, were inside their single folder in iMovie Events folder. As first move, I moved that folder outside of iMovie events folder and opened iMovie.
At this time, all projects were able to open. Also, the extended context menu appeared back. I was close to my final conclusion but yet I wasn't sure what was wrong. The videos, the caches, the thumbs? So, putting back in the events folder, one by one files and folders, I got my answer.
The thumbs were corrupted.
Just to make sure everything will be fine, I finally let only the actual events video files inside that folder, opened iMovie and let it re-generate/optimize the events videos of that folder.
It took about 4 hours for iMovie to complete this, but after that all projects are working fine.
I think the following is what actually happens when using AirDrop to transfer an iMovie project from one iOS device to another:
- The project is transferred from the sending device into an "iTunes" holding area on the receiving device. (I'm putting "iTunes" in quotes here, because iTunes the desktop app isn't actually involved in this AirDrop process).
- The receiving device then copies the project from there into the main iMovie area.
The issue described in the question occurs when there is enough space to complete step (1), but not step (2).
The "iTunes" holding area can be managed, once you understand this and know what to look for.
On the main iMovie screen (which allows selection between Video / Projects / Theatre), there is an arrow-into-box icon. This is at top left (iPad) or bottom left (iPhone):
Press the arrow-into-box icon and then select the iTunes tab. This lists the items available in the "iTunes" holding area I described above.
Projects that failed to complete an AirDrop transfer due to a failure at step 2 are listed here. This is the cause of the repeated lack of space.
Tapping on an item imports it into iMovie (as in step 2 above), if there is enough space.
Tapping the bin icon allows items to be deleted. Deleting unwanted items should help to free up enough space to resolve the issue.
Best Answer
I think you should consider your possibilities.
The iOS iMovie version is greatly limited in capacity, not to mention disk space, compared to its sister application.
You can share 'projects' via iMovie theater, however I use that term loosely. Going back to practicality, if you share a complete project and sync it to your mobile device and lets say this mobile device only has 16GB HDD and you only have a 5GB iCloud storage locker than you will quickly run out of room in easily half of 1 project. With that being said, going back to the mobile devices capabilities, it doesn't have all the features your desktop version has so some things get lost in translation, you may lose a transition you set prior, etc. However, it is a resource to share projects nonetheless. Additionally, the main draw back of iMovie Theater is that it doesn't share the PROJECT thats why I was using that term 'loosely', it shares the entire project movie with it's components (i.e., background music etc) that you have created thus far or the selection of the project you dictate. Theoretically, you can download the iMovie project from the theatre to your device and create a new project on your iPhone where you can add clips and edit there. But you won't be able to edit the properties in the previous project.
What I recommend you doing if your going full scale with this, two of the better options I would recommend is :
But to answer your question specifically and without bias, then NO, in regards to iMovie Mac and iMovie iOS you can not sync projects where full functionality is retained.