Moved iPhoto Library and Aperture can't find referenced Masters

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31 points

Moved iPhoto Library and Aperture can't find referenced Masters

I use iPhoto to hold my Masters and Referenced them through Aperture. The external drive the photos were on was getting full, so I did a clone of the drive to a larger firewire drive.

I told iPhoto where the copied library was and it works fine.
But Aperture thinks the referenced files are off line. It does not recognize that I moved the library even though I set the new volume's name to the same one as the old one.

How do I get Aperture to see the new iPhoto Library?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Sep 23, 2007 6:32 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 23, 2007 9:23 PM in response to Paul Laskin

You'll need to fire up the Referenced File Manager. This article discusses it:

http://www.bagelturf.com/aparticles/ref/refman/index.html

You select the files you want it to reconnect and then tell it where one of the files has gone. It then connects up everything else automatically.

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Answer 2

Paul Laskin Author

Level 1

31 points

Sep 24, 2007 2:16 PM in response to Steve Weller

I tried relocating the Masters with the +Referenced File Manager+ but that did not work. The problem is, the +Reconnect Options+ window does not show the full folder structure of the volume that now holds the images.

The iPhoto library was cloned onto a new drive. iPhoto sees the drive without any issues. Aperture's +Managed Reference Files+ top window shows the old volume as off line and lists the path where the image(s) can be found.
The lower window shows the new volume and even a folder that says iPhoto Library but not all of the other subfolders such as 'Originals'. That folder is where many of the masters sit.

Opening up a Terminal session, I can navigate to the images on the new volume. The 'Originals' folder is there. Permissions, file and folder attributes are the same on both volumes.

Any idea why Aperture won't show all available folders?

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Answer 3

Sep 25, 2007 7:36 AM in response to Paul Laskin

You may need to look at this article. See the end where I talk about the diskUUID:

http://www.bagelturf.com/files/97660a1a1ba5b7f45c1d43b34dbce327-812.html

I think the problem is that the drive ID of the files does not match that stored in the library. You may need to patch the library to fix this. TextWrangler will allow you to experiment and then if the modification works, apply it globally, so it is a handy tool.

You've stumbled across a problem with referencing images in-place: Aperture has no way of recreating that placement if anything changes. I recommend inporting into the library and then relocating, but that is incompatible with iPhoto.

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Answer 4

Paul Laskin Author

Level 1

31 points

Sep 25, 2007 8:12 AM in response to Steve Weller

You are probably right that the drive ID is the issue.

I did finally get the Manage Referenced Files (MRF) tool to work. The file list on the lower window didn't match the directory structure I see in the Finder. In MRF's lower window I found the images under a directory called Library. Under the Finder, ../iPhoto Library/Library... does not exist. Instead two directories labeled Originals and Modified are present. These do not show up in the MRF file list.

Navigating to ...Library and then a film roll, MRF was able to find the images and re-associate them. This felt very klunky. It would be nice if MRF had a way of searching for files.

I'm going to look at the Library file itself w/ TextWrangler to see what the diskUUID is set to. Next time I may just hack the Library directly (after backing it up of course).

Thanks for the suggestion!

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Answer 5

ebert999

Level 1

0 points

Sep 26, 2007 5:48 AM in response to Paul Laskin

I have a related problem.

I have accidentally wiped some of the Master Files from my Hard-drive.
Aperture , of course started saying " master not found ".
I thought I had backed up the Masters in my vault so I restored the Aperture Library from the said vault and looked for the original files. They were not to be found.
I now have numerous thumbnails with a large question mark instead of a picture and a worse problem than before.
Is there anyway , bearing in mind I think the masters have been trashed that I can recover from this disaster ?
Can I recreate a master from the versions that I have in Aperture ?

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Answer 6

Paul Laskin Author

Level 1

31 points

Sep 26, 2007 6:19 AM in response to ebert999

If the Masters were referenced and those files have disappeared then you are out of luck. You can retrieve a jpeg version from the Library though. Depending upon what settings your preview size was set at will determine the quality of the image... I think!

If your library file is stored under the Pictures directory, then ctrl-click on the file and select +Show Package Contents+

That should reveal .approject files. These are your project files. Select the project file you are trying to recover, +Show Package Contents+ and you will see a folder that has a suffix of . apimportgroup.

Open that folder to reveal folders with the file name of every image. Navigate through that folder to the Preview folder. In there will be the preview image.

Couple of caveats - you won't get your RAW images back only jpegs.
If I had to do this for more then a handful of files, I'd try building an automator script to copy the jpegs.

Good luck!

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