Faces is missing so many faces... any way to get it to rescan?

iPhoto menu -> Provide iPhoto Feedback

Regards

TD

so can i select all images in my library and click scan for missing faces?

i just did and the faces section has the spinning arrows and it wont stop... i hope it is doing what i want it to do...

Well you’ve just set it to rescan your entire Library, so it will take a while.

Regards

TD

oh yeah thats wat i was wondering so now there is a way to rescan the library, perfect

wait but when it rescans it keeps all the faces i already named, i hope???...............

Well you’ll know when it finishes, won’t you?

😉

Seriously, I do expect it will preserve your work that’s already been done.

Regards

TD

There is definitely something amiss here that is beyond Faces just not performing recognition well. It was working very well for me—recognizing many faces, adding many new, almost always correct, suggestions to the "[name] may also be in the photos below" section whenever I took a look at it. Faces took its time on my iMac G5, but it worked well.

Then, it all came to a screeching halt. No more suggestions for new instances of known faces. And—as others have said—no more identification of any faces at all in newly imported photos. No boxes drawn around faces—if I want to add a new face instance, I have to draw the box. Something has just conked out.

Some things that may be related to the problem:
- I replaced my iMac G5 with an aluminum iMac, and moved everything over via Migration assistant. Alas, I do not know if the Faces conk-out was immediately after the migration or not. Wasn't paying close attention at the time.
- My iPhoto Library is shared between my account and my wife's—the Library file (package) is in the Shared user folder. It has been this way for years without issues.
- I have 27,000+ photos. Maybe Faces gave up after its database got too big.

I hope a definitive solution to this issue is found. I am thinking about trashing my faces db files (see previous posts) as a fix, but a) I don't want to lose my existing tagging work and b) I don't have lots of confidence at this point that the problem will not recur.

I have tried "Detect Missing Faces" (right-click on photo in v8.0.2) on about 10 photos. This does faithfully draw boxes around most faces, but it has yet to suggest the name for a face that is already "well-known" by Faces. So the recognition routine still appears stuck.

Message was edited by: nolamike

Message was edited by: nolamike

- My iPhoto Library is shared between my account and my wife's—the Library file (package) is in the Shared user folder. It has been this way for years without issues.

This may well be a cause of your problems.

This form of Sharing is deprecated in 10.5. Due to the ACLs introduced with 10.5 there are going to be permissions issues with the Library in that location and trying to share.

Move the iPhoto Library Folder to an external HD set to ignore permissions. You could also use a Disk Image or even partition your Hard Disk.

Regards

TD

A better way to share an iPhoto library than using an external drive, is to put the library in a directory readable/writable to all interested parties. (The /users/Shared directory is writable by the the owner of the file, but files created by one user cannot be modified by another user.)

I created /users/SharedWritable and placed my iPhoto library there. I used access control lists to change the permissions on the SharedWritable directory so that files written by me could be read/written by another user (wife in this case). This can be tested by one user creating a simple document, then the other user tries to view/edit/save the document.

Here's a link that describes how to set the access control list (ACL) on the directory.

http://ad.hominem.org/log/2005/07/acl.php

Basically you execute the following command from "terminal" for each user (replacing your user name where "megan" occurs below).

sudo chmod -R +a "megan allow read,write,append,delete,
list,search,add subdirectory,deletechild,
file inherit,directoryinherit"
/Users/Shared/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library

Or, in my case, I use a directory called /Users/SharedWritable, so I can share read/write files other than the iPhoto library.

It’s worth noting that the link you provide dates back to 200 and OS 10.4. There are have also been folks who have had problems with Sharing after changing the ACLs. Whether this is due to inexperience in the Terminal or other issues, I have no idea. I used also to mention this as an option (but pointing to a link in MacOS X Hints) but have recently dropped it for these reasons.

Regards

TD

post deleted by bhagemann

Message was edited by: bhagemann

Message was edited by: bhagemann

OK, so I decided to try the ACL option to ensure trouble iPhoto Library sharing across accounts. This is in part based on the fact that I have a lot of command line Unix experience.

Prior to running the command provided above, I did an ls -el and noted that there were two files within the iPhoto Library that were owned by my wife:
Library6.iPhoto.bak and
Dir.data

Before I applied the ACL adding command, I changed the ownership of those two files to me, so all files and directories in the root fo the iPhoto Library were consistent. Then let fly with the ACL command. An ls -el confirmed all went as expected.

Go back into iPhoto and low and behold, there is a new photo under "[person] may be in the photos below." Confirm that one, then several more show up. Did a few cycles of this. Browse some photos in "Name" mode, sure enough I se one that says "Is this Kelly?"

After brief testing, it looks like Faces is functional again. I'll post again if I encounter any oddities or problems.

Thanks for the suggestion Terrence.