iMovie not recognizing my camera... any more!

Hi all, this is my first post here, so I hope it's not rude to make it about asking for help.

I have a Sony HDR-UX1 camcorder and got my macbook pro 13 inch, which I love, and knew I would well before I bought it. And the great thing was that iMovie supported this camera type, which was a big concern for me since it was AVCHD. I edited with iMovie for a long while, and recently started playing around with Final Cut Express, but then this quirky thing happened.

At some point in time, my macbook lagged before it recognized my camcorder. And this at first was only a few minutes, but soon it became hours, at which point it was too much of a pain to deal with.

So I started hunting around the internet, and even called apple care, and found this bit of advice which anyone who has a similar problem may find helpful

1. Open disk utility (If you can't find it, just search disk utility in the minibar search bar and it'll be the top hit).
2. Select Macintosh HD
3. Select repair disk permissions, and let it do it's job.

If that doesn't work,

4. You may need to clear the caches on your computer.
-To do this, I found this free program that works pretty nicely.
Download Cache Out X for Mac - Clears out cache entries. MacUpdate Mac Software Downloads
5. Download and run, and it'll have a little movie telling you how to use it. Clear your caches and try again. If you cleared everything, you may need to install updates after.

IF THAT DOESN'T WORK, AND IT DIDN'T FOR ME

6. I needed to clear my .plist's
-After a good while searching, I just searched .plist in my minibar search, and low and behold, I found em!
7. Select "Show All"
8. Filter out which .plist's you want to get rid of. In my case it was pretty easy, since they all pertained to iMovie, so in the little bar at the bottom of the finder window, it gave me folder->folder links, showing that all the .plist's I had selected were located in my iMovie Events folder.
9. Send em to the trash, and empty your trash!

After this, my iMovie once again recognized my camera, though it took a bit before it realized it was there, so I'm not sure if this is a permanent or proper fix, but it worked for me. I'll keep this thread updated with any new developments, and if anyone has something to add, that may help me or anyone in a similar position out, post it! I am no expert, not even close, so if you know a better fix, let me know!

Cheers
~Skateyasha at http://www.youtube.com/skateyasha

further problems

Alright, so, I can definitively say my method is inefficient and doesn't work very well, considering after clearing out my .plist's the one time, it recognized my camera, but then iMovie also restored all my .plist's which regenerated the problem.

At the moment I'm having trouble getting my macbook pro to recognize my camera, yet again.

Anyone have any advice?

Cheers
~SY

Seems like you've done everything right, and full kudos to you for 'doing your homework', but two things I notice:
1. Did you reboot after deleting the .plist files?
2. The Final Cut Express factor. It's mentioned in your original post, but only in passing. Do you think the problems started after you experimented with FCE? If yes, then try removing FCE altogether from your Mac (use an app cleaner utility to do it), and then retry the connection with your camera.

A quick search found these: iMovie ?08: Camcorder Support and iMovie '09: Camcorder Support Are they what you've quoted from in your original post?

Last thing. repair permissions, preferably using OnyX Titanium Software for your MacOS version.

PS. it's a good idea to post your Mac and MacOS specs in your profile. It helps us to help you better.

hughvane said:

Seems like you've done everything right, and full kudos to you for 'doing your homework', but two things I notice:
1. Did you reboot after deleting the .plist files?

Click to expand...

I don't believe I did. I can definitely try this!

2. The Final Cut Express factor. It's mentioned in your original post, but only in passing. Do you think the problems started after you experimented with FCE? If yes, then try removing FCE altogether from your Mac (use an app cleaner utility to do it), and then retry the connection with your camera.

Click to expand...

I don't think it's FCE... But I can definitely try it if rebooting doesn't work.

Also, yeah, the recognized camcorder lists are what I'm quoting, and it's on there (Sony HDR-UX1).

Last thing. repair permissions, preferably using OnyX Titanium Software for your MacOS version.

Click to expand...

Thanks! And I've edited my profile. I'm busy atm, and don't have my cam, but I'll post when I next try to upload something.