MacOS Sequoia OS 15.5's error with exporting movies from Apple iMove stucking at a middle and temporary workaround

Error with iMovie export step from Sequoia 15.5

I have been working on creating and publishing some technical tutorial videos for my Youtube and other things. When I work on those videos, I always use Apple iMovie. I was considering to change to something more advanced like Apple Final Cut Pro, but most of my tasks involve simple recording audios and screens and taking screenshot, so I am mostly comfortable with the free Apple iMovie.

I had no problem for quite some time. But after upgrading to the latest MacOS version Sequioa 15.5 and also to the latest iMovie, I keep getting stuck at exporting my video.

Keep getting stuck at a step

Oddly, when this happens, even terminating the process does not work.

Terminating the process

And quitting Apple iMovie does not work. Only way to exit out from Apple iMovie is by force quitting.

Only force quitting works

Currently, my Apple MacBook Pro has the following spec:

• Apple M2 process
• Memory 16GB
• 217.21 GB available of 494.38 GB

My current spec

So, would be the situation might be different if my MacOS is the latest Apple M4? I am not sure.

I tried few things such as reducing the size of the video by lowering resolution and also quality to check if making the file size smaller would be make any difference. However, this did not fix anything.

I tested anywhere from 200 MB to 1.7 GBs, so the size was clearly not the issue.

Reducing the file size does not have any effect

I searched in the web for any clue. I came across an article like this, which suggests to clear up the cached preferences by holding down “Control” and “Option” buttons while restarting iMovie. Unfortunately, this did not fix any issue for me.

[embed]iMovie not exporting on Sequoia 4.46 GB is an incredibly large file to be uploading! What export settings are you using? You should be using Low…discussions.apple.com

[embed]

I did file a ticket to Apple support for the iMovie. So, hopefully, Apple will come up with some update. However, after some investigations by trying out different methods, I sort of found a clue when this happens.

So, my videos have the parts where it is consisted of “audio clips,” “video clips,” and “screenshot pictures.”

I have audio clips, video clips, and screenshot pictures in my iMovie project

Interestingly enough, if i separate out the parts for the one that just has “audios” and “videos” and one that has “audios” and “pictures,” export those parts separately as videos, then combine those export videos to make one common video as the final video, iMovie worked fine.

Export as separate component videos then combine together

To summarize, here is what worked for me.

1. Separate the videos into parts into ones that just have “audios” and “videos” then ones that just have “audios” and “pictures.”
2. Export each parts into separate videos
3. Create a new project and import those videos. Export into a final video.

Hopefully, Apple will realize that this is a problem and release a patch soon.