TheWildRover

Q: Images in Photos disappearing but still in Library structure

I've just loaded up Photos this evening, only to see a load of greyed out Albums.

 

On checking, I cannot find any of the photos that were in those Albums at all, they have completely disappeared from the database. However, if I root around in the Library file (using 'Show Package Contents), I can find all the missing files in there (even a search for the file names finds nothing).

 

I have tried a few attempts at repairing the Library, to no avail, rebooting the Mac, and remounting the external drive. I also noted the Library size changed from 422GB (as viewed in Finder), which it has been for weeks, to 380GB, and now it's back at 422GB.

 

I can drag the images out of the Library (making a copy, rather than moving them), and I can reimport them, although it does warn they already exist! I can import anyway, and add them back to the Albums.

 

It seems to be specific to some camera models, and is relatively random throughout the collection. Specifically I have lost images from an iPhone 3GS, and some Fuji images that I'd converted from Raw to JPG.

 

Anyway ideas, I can root around to try and find the originals again, but that's quite tedious. If I'm looking at starting again here, I'll be dumping the whole shebang and going back to Lightroom.

 

Cheers.

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Mar 8, 2016 10:32 AM

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Q: Images in Photos disappearing but still in Library structure

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Mar 8, 2016 10:42 AM in response to TheWildRover
    Level 10 (105,680 points)
    iLife
    Mar 8, 2016 10:42 AM in response to TheWildRover

    What happened, before your albums vanished? Did Photos crash?  Did you move the Photos Library? 

    Could there be any permissions problem caused by opening the library from a different user account?

     

    Where is your Photos Library stored?  Are you using iCloud with the library?

  • by TheWildRover,

    TheWildRover TheWildRover Mar 8, 2016 12:37 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mar 8, 2016 12:37 PM in response to léonie

    Hi,

    The Albums are still there, just empty. The photos are not showing up anywhere in the database. I did have a crash a few days ago, but they were more frequent a while ago, it was fine immediately after the crash.

     

    The Library is stored on an external FW800 drive, dedicated to just storing the Photos Library, and it has lived on there since I started using Photos last year. I haven't accessed it from a different user account recently, although I did use Migration Assistant to reconstruct a new user account some months ago. This problem has only occurred today on the instant I started up Photos.

     

    I also started the Photos Library from scratch, and did not migrate it from iPhotos or Aperture.

     

    It contains about 45,000 images, some Raw, some JPEG.

     

    My Mac is a Late 2013 iMac 27" with 16GB of RAM, running OSX 10.11.3.

  • by TheWildRover,

    TheWildRover TheWildRover Mar 8, 2016 12:38 PM in response to TheWildRover
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mar 8, 2016 12:38 PM in response to TheWildRover

    Oops, sorry, forgot to mention that I'm not using iCloud storage either, it's local storage, with a handful of shared folders on Home Sharing.

  • by TheWildRover,

    TheWildRover TheWildRover Apr 7, 2016 9:28 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 7, 2016 9:28 AM in response to léonie

    Sorry, forgot to respond to my own post here. I am 99% sure I found the cause of this problem now, I had inadvertently run CleanMyMac on the Photos Library, which at the time didn't seem to do much.

     

    However, I checked the logs after the files had gone missing, and all the missing files were listed in the CleanMyMac logs. Lesson learned there, I have now deleted CMM, not wanting to trust in that anymore. So apologies to Photos.

     

    And, again however, this has also made me consider the fragility of the closed database system that Photos uses. It became a bit of a nightmare to try and recover the missing data, even with backups (I never really relish deleting and restoring a 420GB database).

     

    I have for now reverted back to using Lightroom, which I do already own a licence for., and have to rethink my workflow for making use of my Apple TV for displaying my photos. I feel I do now have a more robust storage system for my photos.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Apr 7, 2016 9:53 AM in response to TheWildRover
    Level 10 (105,680 points)
    iLife
    Apr 7, 2016 9:53 AM in response to TheWildRover

    Thanks for the warning. Clean my Mac is indeed dangerous for libraries because it is directly manipulating the files in the library package, without using the Photos interface. It is deleting the high resolution original image files and replacing them by the previews of the edited versions, and sometimes linking them incorrectly. The only way to recover from that mess is to restore the libtrary from the last backup. Otherwise the high resolution originals will be lost.

    Good luck with Lightroom.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Apr 7, 2016 9:59 AM in response to léonie
    Level 10 (84,185 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Apr 7, 2016 9:59 AM in response to léonie

    Two things

     

    1 - restore your backup

     

    2 - Get RID of CleanMyMac - it is total CRAP Malwear is not needed, does nothing you can not easily and safely do yourself  and regularly destroys iPhoto and Photos libraries - it is as bad or worst than MacKeeper -  Do not install MacKeeper   -  both damage data and can evern damage the system to the point it can not even boot up

     

     

    LN

  • by TheWildRover,

    TheWildRover TheWildRover Apr 7, 2016 12:32 PM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 7, 2016 12:32 PM in response to LarryHN

    Thanks LN, as you can see I did already manage a restore from a backup, and I already have deleted CleanMy Mac.

     

    FWIW, I would say you have a rather extreme view of CleanMyMac. IMHO, it's not as bad as MacKeeper, which was/is a well known piece of malware. CMM is a well developed app, but the author simply seems to have lost his way a bit, and had bloated the feature set beyond what is required by most. It has worked well enough for me with some of it's more basic functions, such as cleaning caches, or uninstalling apps.

     

    However, it is no different to any other similar utility app out there. With such utility apps it's always best to be wise of their capabilities before attempting to use them - and of course understand why you're using them. As I said, I did run it inadvertently on Photos.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Apr 7, 2016 12:55 PM in response to TheWildRover
    Level 10 (84,185 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Apr 7, 2016 12:55 PM in response to TheWildRover

    What ever - to me any program that claims to improve things but instead destroys users libraries deserves all possible scorn   -  Photos are important to people and unfortunately the many of same people who will blindly purchase "clean up software" thinking they are doing the right thing also are the people with no backups or backups a year or more out of date

     

    So given that CMM often destroys peoples photos I do not consider my opinion extreme - so we differ in our opinions of software that does not do what iti s advertised to do but instead damages systems and loses photos

     

    And my personal recommendation to to steer clear of CMM , MacKeeper and any other program claiming to "fix" your Mac - I first learned this too many years ago with Spring Cleaning - an early oversold program that totally screwed up my system

     

    And in addition to my old experience (even back then I was fairly experienced) your recent experience to me proves my point - you are a knowledgeable user with good backups - and you screwed your library using CMM - think of how often inexperienced users do

     

    LN

  • by TheWildRover,

    TheWildRover TheWildRover Apr 7, 2016 1:29 PM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 7, 2016 1:29 PM in response to LarryHN

    Without really wanting to get into an argument about this, we are not entirely of different opinions as such, but I disagree with, but do understand, your rather aggressive evaluation.

     

    There are times when it is desirable, or even essential to run such software. But, as I have already said, you need to understand why you're running it, and what it's going to do to your system. There are a good few which are well respected, that carry out system cleaning tasks that are of benefit - but, only when used in the right way, on a backed up system, and only for fixing a faulty system (where you have little to lose by trying different cleaning tasks in a fault finding process).

     

    I would still recommend that apps like Onyx, Cocktail and ELCC have a place in anyone's system - although I admit that (as far as I know) these developers do make it clear that these tools should only be used for fault fixing, and not for general maintenance. Mind you, in the case of those three apps, they are nothing more than a fancy GUI for any task you can carry out using Finder or Terminal. As a rule I only use these for cleaning caches, which is something anyone can easily do by dragging stuff to the trash in Finder.

     

    I would agree that some tasks should be left alone, and perhaps shouldn't be included in the set of features supplied by these apps (such as messing with an apps database files, deleting localisation files, or deleting Universal code).

     

    Even with good experience, and knowledge, it's easy enough to make a mistake sometimes, as I did this time.

     

    Perhaps you need to forgive my more passive nature, but I will always try to see things from more than one side, rather than have an extreme unbalanced view from one angle. As far as CMM goes, I think it's more on the lines of misguided good intentions.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Apr 7, 2016 1:56 PM in response to TheWildRover
    Level 10 (84,185 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Apr 7, 2016 1:56 PM in response to TheWildRover

    again I could care less about the developers intentions good or bad - when their results are bad and yet  they make totally false statements like this

     

    Smart cleaners are safe cleaners.

    Our number one priority is keeping your Mac safe. We’ve been building our safe cleanup algorithm for over 6 years now. It’s called the Safety Database and is a list of rules, items, and exceptions that CleanMyMac 3 refers to every time it scans your Mac. With CleanMyMac 3, you can be absolutely sure that you’re only cleaning up the right files.

    (copies and pasted form their web site) they are falsely misleading users which leads to disasters for inexperienced users - as you found the statement that "You can be absolutely sure that you're only cleaning up the right files" is patently incorrect and misleading

     

    bottom line is that the developers of CCM make false statement about the safety of the software and CCM causes many problems and I still strongly recommend against its use by anyone who cares about their data and Photos

     

    I'm not arguing - simply stating my opinion based of lots of experience and lots of disastrous experience by users  (including you) posting here

     

    LN

     

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Apr 7, 2016 3:07 PM in response to TheWildRover
    Level 10 (140,908 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Apr 7, 2016 3:07 PM in response to TheWildRover

    Actually I thought Larry's description of CleanMyMac was somewhat on the benign side.  It and similar types of apps are a danger to users and should be avoided like the plague. In deference to the family nature of these forums I'll leave it at that.  The only thing they do well is separate your from your money.

    OTsig.png

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Apr 7, 2016 4:55 PM in response to Old Toad
    Level 10 (84,185 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Apr 7, 2016 4:55 PM in response to Old Toad

    Well thst is kind of passive, un-opinionated person I am 

     

    LN

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Apr 7, 2016 11:23 PM in response to LarryHN
    Level 10 (105,680 points)
    iLife
    Apr 7, 2016 11:23 PM in response to LarryHN

    And this quote is from the Photos Page of Clean My Mac 3:

    http://macpaw.com/cleanmymac/photo-cleanup

     

    How does the Photos Junk
    module help me?

    Photos Junk cleans up your entire Photos library. It’s 100% safe to use because it doesn’t remove any of your important photos. Photos Junk searches your Photos library to locate unneeded copies of images kept by Photos after you rotate, crop, resize, or otherwise edit your photos.

     

    Clean My Mac is calling the precious originals "Unneeded copies". It is removing the original files, keeping only  the edited versions which are having less quality than your originals, and if you have created several edited versions of the same original you will get incorrect links. These photos will be lost forever. All working copies will be removed, that are necessary to speed up Photos, so any cleaning spree will require Photos to start over and to recreate the preview and thumbnails for browsing. Your Mac will be slowed down because of the heavy background processing needed to recreate the files.  And I could not figure out, what this application is doing to an iCloud Photo Library. When I tested it on an iCloud Photo Library, I saw only empty thumbnails.