Q: Aperature crashes/force quit every time I open it

What version of Aperture did you install?

Hw much RAM on board and how full is the hard drive or SSD?

-Allen

Can you post the first 50 lines of the crash log?

Unless you get better advice today, try this tonight.

Plug your computer in.  Go to " ▹ System Preferences ▹ Energy Saver ▹ Power Adapter" and move the slider "Computer Sleep" to "Never".

Close all programs.

Start Aperture.  It will likely "stop responding" -- this is what the spinning pinwheel means, and it is not necessarily equal to a hang and is not equal to a crash.  Leave the computer in this state overnight.

In the morning wake the display from its sleep, and report what you find.  If Aperture has successfully launched, close it without making any changes at all.  It may take several hours to close.  Let it.

Notes:

• 4 GB RAM is too little to run Aperture well.  You should upgrade to at least 8 GB RAM
• What version is you MBP?  " ▹ About this Mac ▹ More Info", second line, right under "Macbook Pro".
• You should never force quit Aperture.  (IME, it almost always -- close to 100% of the time -- returns to proper operation at some point after it starts "not responding".  Force-quitting always makes things worse.)  Any time you force quit, you should run "Repair Database" prior to using the Library again.

(Added following paragraph:)

If you have _never_ been able to launch Aperture, and therefore do not have any data in a Library that you care about, just delete the file "Aperture.app" from your "Applications" Finder folder, delete the folder "Aperture" from "~/Library/Application Support/", empty the System Trash, reboot just to be thorough, and then re-install from the App Store.

Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger - as noted.

I'm not sure if there is a crash log, per say. The issue is that every time I open the application, my mouse button immediately starts "rainbow wheeling" without stopping. So, I have to right click the application on the task bar and select "force quit."

That is not a crash - when Aperture crashes, it terminates and you will see apanel with an error message and error log. The rainbow whell is showing a "hang" - Aperture is busy with a task that cannot be interrupted and will not respond before the task has been finished.

Did you have success, when following Kirby's advice?

CherCherie wrote:

 

Aperature crashes/force quit every time I open it since the first time I installed it - Can anyone assist with troubleshooting this?

My Aperture/Photoshop workflow paged out on my MBP even with 8 GB RAM. Personally I recommend simply upgrading to 16 GB RAM immediately. The limited RAM may or may not be the direct cause of your SBBOD but it is very likey that your MBP is paging out, and paging out is very slow which often does cause problematic operation.

If you want to evaluate whether or not you currently have adequate RAM on board:

Look at the Page Outs number under System Memory on the Activity Monitor app before starting a typical Aperture work session and write the number down. Recheck the Page Outs count after working and write the number down again. If the page outs change (manual calculation of ending page outs number minus starting page outs number) is not zero your workflow is RAM-starved.

Ignore the pie charts and other info in Activity Monitor because they are often misleading regarding RAM usage. For RAM analysis, manually count page outs.

If your test showed that page outs increased during operation you can

• add RAM, very strongly recommended

• and/or simply try to run Aperture by itself after restarting, a workaround

• Restart before Aperture work sessions to clear possible memory leaks

Personally IMO maxxing out RAM to 16 GB from OWC or Crucial is a no-brainer at today's prices. More and more, app and OS designers are (rightfully) designing to take advantage of lots of RAM.

At 60% full your HDD is not overfilled but HDDs slow as they fill so IMO you should replace it with a larger drive SSD/HDD when it gets ~70% full. Also you may want to consider moving to a Referenced-Masters workflow with the Masters on external drives to keep your internal drive from overfilling.

HTH

-Allen

Hi Allen,

For me, Page Outs no longer show in Maverick's Activity Monitor.  Here is what I see on the Memory tab of Activity Monitor:

How does one use Maverick's Activity Monitor to evaluate RAM?

Thanks.

(OP:  this has no bearing on the fact that you will need more RAM to be happy running Aperture.)

--Kirby.

Kirby-

I am unfamiliar with the new Mavericks Activity Monitor RAM presentation. Thanks for presenting the changes to me so promptly.

Cherie-

It looks like you need to ignore my methodology for manually evaluating RAM usage. Sorry.

-Allen