lizethcd
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Q: Restore Photos Library from TimeMachine

Hi there. I could use a little help. I backed up my Photos Library to time machine and then re-installed Yosemite. After re-installing Yosemite, I restored my Photos Library. However, Photos is unable to open the library and gives an error "The library could not be opened. Photos attempted to repair the library "Photos Library" but is unable to open it."

Looking at the console I see this error message: "Error checking database version, Database folder doesn't exist, Recovery folder does exist but is not usable.  Library Type Unsupported"

 

I opened the Photos Library file and cannot see the Database folder.

I attempted to have Photos repair the library but it errors out and doesn't complete. Any suggestions? I appreciate the help in advance.

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on May 24, 2015 9:59 PM

by lizethcd,Solvedanswer
lizethcd lizethcd
Level 1 (0 points)
A:

I figured it out. My photos library was pretty new, as I had recently migrated over from iPhotos. As such, I had both a iPhoto library and a Photos library. I had to restore both in order for my Photos library to work.

Posted on May 26, 2015 8:26 PM

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lizethcd

Q: Restore Photos Library from TimeMachine

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie May 25, 2015 2:25 AM in response to lizethcd
    Level 10 (108,148 points)
    iCloud
    May 25, 2015 2:25 AM in response to lizethcd
    After re-installing Yosemite, I restored my Photos Library.

    How did you restore the library?  Did you enter Time Machine and selected the Photos Library from the Star Wars display to restore it?

  • by lizethcd,

    lizethcd lizethcd May 25, 2015 8:09 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 25, 2015 8:09 AM in response to léonie

    Yes, I entered time machine and restored the library that way. Ive restored the library from different days and I get the same results. Any ideas?

  • by lizethcd,Solvedanswer

    lizethcd lizethcd May 26, 2015 8:26 PM in response to lizethcd
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 26, 2015 8:26 PM in response to lizethcd

    I figured it out. My photos library was pretty new, as I had recently migrated over from iPhotos. As such, I had both a iPhoto library and a Photos library. I had to restore both in order for my Photos library to work.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN May 26, 2015 8:35 PM in response to lizethcd
    Level 10 (85,256 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 26, 2015 8:35 PM in response to lizethcd

    Interesting - probably a function of the Hard Links although not really predictable  - one would hope that ta restore was a restore

     

     

    LN

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie May 26, 2015 11:33 PM in response to lizethcd
    Level 10 (108,148 points)
    iCloud
    May 26, 2015 11:33 PM in response to lizethcd

    Did you send a bug report to Apple? That is a disaster.  You should be able to use and to restore a Photos library, even without the iPhoto Library.  Did Time Machine  ever make a full backup of the Photos library? Did you run a Time Machine backup when the Photos.app was closed, or was Photos always open when Time Machine was running?


    LarryHN, this error message "Error checking database version, Database folder doesn't exist, Recovery folder does exist but is not usable.  Library Type Unsupported"  does  not look like a hard link problem; I thought, the hard links are only created for the original image files to share the media. It looks more like the old iPhoto/Aperture problem, that Time Machine occasionally did not create any complete backup of the library. But I have no idea, how the restored iPhoto Library did help in that case.