Q: iPhoto 9.6 Yosemite asks to do upgrade and then permissions repair

Thanks Scaarlet.  I only have 583 gigs available on my local hard drive, and my library is 550 gigs, and so copying it to my desktop might not work.  Maybe I can use TM to go back to before I tried to upgrade and then copy the library to my new external drive though. That's an idea.

Wow, it's gotten worse.

I tried to rebuild the library again using the iphoto Library Manager and after it was done my 538 gig library was only a few hundred megabytes. Alarmed that I truly had lost a lifetime of photos I opened TM (on a TC) to go back in time.  I tried to go back to before I upgraded to 9.6 but the restore button in TM would not "light up" so I could click it, though it did for a couple of days ago so I did that to at least get back to where it was before using the iphoto Library Manager.  It took almost the whole day to restore but it did not finish. After copying almost 500 gigs back onto the external disk that held the iphoto library, it said it could not complete the operation.  Now when I get info on the drive, there is nothing there.

***???????

I feel for you, it got worse for me too before it got better unfortunately.

I had never used TM before, but I went through finder, clicked on TM, then went through till I found my iPhoto library, ( I think through users?) then clicked copy then paste onto the desktop. The first attempt for me didn't work either, I was trying to use the computer and do the copy in the background but it froze everything up, so I left it overnight, it took ages, was still going in the morning.

I didn't do it to EHD, but if I had, I probably would of done it to a different one to the one I am using. It did take a long time to transfer. As long as you still have copies on your TM, you will be able to copy that over and try again.

Ring Apple, it's my only suggestion.

I had never used TM before, but I went through finder, clicked on TM, then went through till I found my iPhoto library, ( I think through users?) then clicked copy then paste onto the desktop. The first attempt for me didn't work either, I was trying to use the computer and do the copy in the background but it froze everything up, so I left it overnight, it took ages, was still going in the morning.

How to restore an iPhoto Library from Time Machine:

iPhoto '11: Restoring from Time Machine with iPhoto '11 (9.2 or later) and OS X Lion 10.7.2 (or later) - Apple Support

Read through the chain and I am having similar issues.  First off I can and have fixed by restoring copies of my 200 gb file.  And it is a good thing I keep many copies.

I keep my iphoto library on a server (running 10.10 server).  The drive is external, SATA port connected (though also tested with FW800, same result).  It is Mac OS extended journaled.  The file and whole drive is permission-ed to give read/write access to 3 users.  It ran for years with no issue before Yosemite.  My iMacs and Mac Minis and laptop could connect to the server and have full access to shared iPhoto library.

I now keep having the problem where one external Mac tries to open the iPhoto library and gets the upgrade message referenced by others.  I try to answer no but it seems that a permissioning error keeps coming up.  After the message on Mac A, for example, Mac B is told it does not have write permission to access the file.  Sometimes the server machine itself can still open the iPhoto library, but other times it loses the abiolity to access either.  Once you start the upgrade process, you are eventually left with a library without all the photos (it appears blank) but you can recover your photos (without the events).

I tried rebuilding from my copy, just in case there was a precursor to the problem that I was not seeing, but same result.

I have concluded one of two things is happening:  (1) iPhoto for Yosemite has an issue that affects external or file server connected libraries.  It feels like the system loses connection while file is open.  I have no evidence this is happening, except the errors I have are similar to what happens when iPhoto crashes while a large library is open.  OR (2) something from my iPhone photostreams is mucking up my library.  Maybe it tries to access while a user tries to open the library?  I am just guessing.

I can say for certain that this problem is recurring (I have been through it half a dozen times now, and needed to restore each time).  It also seems to be not unique to me, as I see many other users in this thread with similar issues.  It does seem their external drive is part of problem.  Mine is both external and on a file server.  BTW, sever access is SMB.

BTW, sever access is SMB.

And that's the problem.

See this article

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168

and note Note the comment:

“Additionally, storing the iPhoto library on a network rather than locally on your computer can also lead to poor performance or data loss.”

Simply, an iPhoto Library is not suitable for networked access.

Thanks for the response.  I looked at the article and it is about Fat 32 formatted drive.  More specifically, the reason I set up a Mac file server in the first place was to run iPhoto on the network.  The guidance from Apple in 2010 or so was do not use a NAS drive but that iPhoto ran well on a shared Mac, as long as the drive was formatted Mac OS X.  It may be that something changed in their guidance, but until Yosemite, the server based iPhoto ran just fine.

I am not sure of another way to let my whole family have read/write access to my iPhoto library (share it) other than on the server.

Until recently, the connections were always AFP.  Apple revised the way they default connect from AFP to SMB.  I just switched (I had actually been using 10.6 on my server machine, which is AFP only).  It is possible that my issues stem from going AFP to SMB, or from 10.6 to 10.10.  But one would think the more modern systems (10.10 & SMB) could handle.

Correct, the article addresses FAT formatted drives. but the noted comment is explicit and unambiguous. I don't particularly recall what Apple wrote in 2010 but that particular version was revised more than a year ago, and earlier version was around before that.

I am not sure of another way to let my whole family have read/write access to my iPhoto library (share it) other than on the server.

The way that Apple recommends is putting it on an external HD formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled), set to ignore ownership and permissions and without network access - i.e. a wired USB/Firewire/Thunderbolt connection. iPhoto is a personal database, not a media server, never has been.

I think the change I just made, checking the ignore permissions box, may help.  I was unaware of the need to do that.  I still believe there is more to this story, but will see how I do with the ignore permissions checked.

Just tried again.  Got the error message on client A "Your photo library is either in use by another application or has become unreadable- quit".  Then opened iPhoto on Client B and there were no photos showing in library (but structure of albums were there - just all empty).  I quit and re-opened - second time on Client B everything was normal.

I have no idea what is going on or if it is really network or SMB or something-else based.  But it is a real recurring problem.

One more tidbit of ??? useful information.  Something strange is going on with my server.  After accessing the iPhoto library, I tried to copy it to another drive and i get the message "iPhoto Lib can't be opened right now because it is being used by another task, such as moving or copying an item or emptying the trash.    Try again when the current task is complete."  I needed to reboot server to make this message go away.  Somehow I am still in a situation where server and client B will open the iPhoto library fine but client A comes back with message "Your photo library is either in use by another application or has become unreadable- quit".  There is some kind of locking going on when I access from Client A but not from Client B.  I have no clue.

My issue look like very small compare to yours. I did same update to 9.6 (910.29) and I had same messages.

I do have the iPhoto Library in a Western Digital 320 GB external hard drive, formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with almost 39,270 pictures (273 GB). I am using a Mac Pro with OS X Yosemite 10.10.1

My issue is that I lost all my albums, and also all my faces (except one picture per face) (I did identification of thousands of faces within many pictures), many days of work.

Do you have any idea on how to recuperate my faces or my albums (I do have a Time Machine backup if need it). I think when I said yes regarding the permission repair, iphoto removed all albums and faces.

Events are working fine, and still there. iCloud albums are also there.

In your case what I would try is to use an external hard drive as I do, but maybe not make sense if you do have enough space in your mac.

To create the external iPhoto hard drive I followed instructions if some people I found searching google directly, explaining that was better to use a USB External Hard Drive than the Time Capsule for example. i have been working with this library about 6 months, everything working fine except one time I lost all the videos of one day (no idea why), the event still there with nothing in it.

Best regards,

Jose

FWIW, I'm having the same issue with an EHD [Mac OS Extended (Journaled)] which I've been using without any problem on this machine (mbp) for 2 years.  I just upgraded to Yosemite and had to upgrade my iPhoto library  It didn't work the first time but I think that was on me (but now I'm starting to wonder ....).  The second time - after asking permission to make repairs to which I said yes - the install went fine and everything was there - photos, events, folders etc.  It worked great for two days.  Today I got the message that it couldn't find my library.  Then it told me it had to upgrade my photos (again) and when I said yes, I got the spinning beach ball.  Coincidentally, I began getting messages that I hadn't ejected that disc properly - even though I hadn't ejected it at all.  I then tested the hardware by using both USB ports and it still couldn't find my library.  I did the option -> command while launching iPhoto and gave it permission to "repair."  When it was done "repairing" it was as though a new iPhoto had been installed complete with the "To get started with iPhoto ..." screen.  None of my stuff was there.  I'm in the process of doing a TM restore to the EHD (would rather do it to the HD but don't have enough space) but it's taking a long time.  Seems like there's a problem.

Coincidentally, I began getting messages that I hadn't ejected that disc properly - even though I hadn't ejected it at all.

That can happen, when a drive is starting to fail. Be sure to have a working backup of all important data on that drive.

Excellent instructions scaarlet121!  I followed them and my library has been restored (for now anyway).  The only addition I would make is that when I pressed "option" to open iPhoto, it didn't list the folder on my desktop where I directed the library so I had to "choose library" or some such option.  Otherwise, perfect.  Fortunately, I had emptied the iPhoto trash when I upgraded since there were thousands of photos in there I didn't need to be restoring.