iPhoto wont let me place an order for a photobook

I had the exact problem this morning and solved it by re-doing all pages where the photo bleeds to the edge.

First, check that you have no pages with a gray background. Gray is not an available background option (though it looks like it is). Gray is only a placeholder for a full-page photo. I learned this the hard way last fall when I chose gray for the background for white text on several pages of a hard-back book, ordered it, and those pages were printed blank white! Apple reprinted my book at no charge and then fixed the problem in iPhoto '08 by adding this error message you're receiving.

Second, change all your full-page photos to a single photo on a colored-page background (I chose white), then change them all back to full-page photos. That's what worked for me this morning. (In my struggle to get rid of the error message, I found that my layout choice and my background choice didn't necessarily agree with each other but straightening this out did not make the error message go away.)

Third, Apple recommends that you Preview your book before placing the order. There are two rather obscure ways to Preview it (I'm not talking about the "story board" that runs above the work area) but I can only remember one way to get to it. Press Command P as if you're going to Print the book to your own printer. In the popup menu, choose Preview. Apple claimed that the blank pages of my hardback book would have shown up in this Preview had I known to do it before placing my order.

Hope this helps.

I am having the same problem!!! I wanted to order the book tonight to use the coupon. I do not have any empty frames, as it is telling me. I have spent HOURS on my book and I know that I do not have any empty frames. My book is 100 pages, in the travel themed layout. I do have many full bleed pictures. As a person posted above about changing the pictures to just a picture not a bleed, I do not want to do that. Any suggestions?

Ra Blank

Welcome to the Apple user discussion forums

I do not want to do that. Any suggestions?

Get over it and Change your mind

Either you have a missing photo frame somewhere

OR (most likely)

the background BEHIND one or more of your full page photos is the grey palm tree page background which requires a photo and does not have a photo on it (that is what happened to me)

Your only choice it to go through EVERY full page photo and look behind it (either change it to a smaller single photo layout out and find the page(s) with grey on them meaning a background photo and change the background to a solid background then change to a full page photo again) or go through those pages and change the back round to a solid color blindly (which is what I did and I messed up several times and had to do it again and again)

I, too, was doing a travel book. I suspect that there is a bug in the travel book that creates this but your choices are to fix it and order or whine "I do not want to do that" and not order.

Sorry for the news but that is the deal


LN

Message was edited by: LarryHN

Wow. There is no need for you to be rude. And I am not "whining." Also - I am not not stupid. I know that I do not have any gray backgrounds or gray photo boxes. Obviously that is why I am posting on this message board - I am stumped as to why my book is supposedly incomplete. Also, I meant that when I order the book I do not want the pictures to not be a bleed - not that I do not want to go through each picture.

BTW - I was trying to get help, not attitude from someone. Why don't you get over yourself and get a life if you are going make insolent comments to others.

I do appreciate your suggestion though. I forgot to mention that before. Thank you for that. I just did not appreciate your comments about me "whining."

How did you solve the problem? I'm having the same problem. Don't have any pages that bleed and mine is only 20 pages. I'm also using the Travel theme. I did a preview and everything looks fine. Any ideas?

If you haven't done so already, check all parts of your cover. Some of the layouts have frames for pictures not only on the front, but also the inside and outside flaps and the back.

Thank you, thank you! I am having the same problem. Although I stumbled on my error with the grey background, I will try to do the preview before I order my book again.

I've been getting "an unexpected error has occurred. please try again later." but for 3 or 4 days. I've gone through all the pages for gray background, etc. that I read in this discussion previous. I get to step 3 for purchase and get nothing-a time out message, or the unexpected error. Also, have double checked my iPhoto software is updated. Please help, what am I missing?

K J Lobb

Welcome to the Apple user discussion forums

Log into your Apple account and be sure one click ordering is turned on and verify the information there including the credit card info

LN

Sorry IGrebe... you'll just have to check it AGAIN!!!

I just spent ANOTHER 7 hours on this thing... in the end it was a single full-page photo that SHOULD have had a solid colored background checked IN THE "BACKGROUND" LIST, but instead it had the palm-tree grey background checked (even though that makes more sense logically to me...) and it stopped everything cold. SO WHAT I NEEDED WAS A SOLID COLOR, even though the lay-out for a single picture shows a grey background...

Let's face it, Apple has some work to do--but in the meantime, so do the users. I had a 28 page book ready a month ago and couldn't get it to work...called Apple Support but that wasn't much use... redid the whole thing with the internet suggestion to put the full-page pictures in LAST but in the end, had to wait to get back at it--redid it a third time --so in all this "quick album" took about 16 hours!! I tried all the on-line suggestions and finally it was changing everything in my full-page background pictures as suggested and checking and re-checking, changing and re-changing... bummer for IGrebe who has 40 pages... it's rather like looking for a needle in a haystack. I felt exactly the way you did... I'd presented the way I wanted it and didn't want to change it.... but I had to be willing to rethink everything, spend hours to make this "simple program" function the way it says it should, and go to bed at 5 a.m. after finally getting this rotten apple to work!

Oh, and when I found the problem, I went back and changed my other pages back to original form ONE AT A TIME to make sure I could still order the book. This works if you're like me and have already 2 or 3 copies of your book so you can use one as a reference. A good memory would solve that issue, but who remembers at 4 in the morning?

Good luck!

Hello all fellows who ran into problems with printing your iPhoto book. I had the problem solved last night with some help from the iPrint guys/girls.

The major cause of the problem has to do with
a) selecting the palmtree (third option) as background
b) selecting a layout with a NONE palmtree layout icon.

So if you intend to have a background photo PLEASE only select a palmtree related layout.

You can also select a standard background (number 1) and select a layout where you can use a large (page filling) photo together with a smaller photo on top. That also is a possibility.

Hope this helps to prevent frustration in other users

Koos