iPhoto quite buggy

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Level 2

303 points

iPhoto quite buggy

Okay so I've been doing some intense iPhoto work (well, not really)... I just have about 800 pictures that I've been adding faces to, finding them on maps, and organizing them into events (I transferred these from an old Mac so they weren't organized at all). It was working fine for a while... but after a period of time when I tried to split photos from events to make them into their own event... the event wouldn't appear in the list (it was as if I deleted the photos... they were nowhere to be found) so I just control-Z'd it to bring the event back to a whole. So I closed iPhoto via force quit since when I clicked the red "x" it didn't quit... rebooted the application, and then fortunately I was able to edit fine and split events. However, upon closing it again... the app froze (well, the app still worked I think but the red yellow and green bubbles were frozen) and so I had to force quit it again.

So my questions are: do I need to worry that I've lost or may lose some photos?

Is iPhoto '09 unreliable and should I do something about it? I don't like that I've had to force quit it
twice in a row and that it simply stopped working over time

13" MBP, Mac OS X (10.5.7), 2.26 GHZ, 2GB RAM, 160 GB HDD

Posted on Jul 11, 2009 8:20 AM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

207,439 points

Jul 11, 2009 11:11 AM in response to -rye-

The force quit may have damaged the library's database files. Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys depressed and follow the instructions to rebuild the library. Select option #5.

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Answer 2

-rye- Author

Level 2

303 points

Jul 11, 2009 3:13 PM in response to -rye-

Just option 5? Not the permissions or thumbnails one that is checked when the window opens?

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

207,439 points

Jul 12, 2009 9:20 AM in response to -rye-

Yes, just #5 to start with. It's much quicker than the thumbnail rebuild. The database is the heart and soul of the library. If that doesn't do the job you can try the thumbnails and permissions.

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Answer 4

-rye- Author

Level 2

303 points

Jul 12, 2009 2:43 PM in response to Old Toad

Okay I did just that; now hopefully all goes well. I mean, I don't believe I lost any photos... however for it to be needed to force quit twice I was just concerned. Should I expect this to happen again/do I have right to believe something is wrong? Should I do any maintenance?

Or was this just likely because I hadn't quit the application for a while in use?

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Answer 5

Old Toad

Level 10

207,439 points

Jul 12, 2009 2:48 PM in response to -rye-

Having to force quit is not a good thing. If it's running OK now I'd make a backup of the library and use an backup application that can make incremental backups on a daily basis, i.e. like Time Machine or what I use, Synk Standard. Just the new or changed files get backed up so it quite fast. Be sure you have plenty of free space on your boot drive, 10GB minimum, to assure optimal speed of both system and applications.

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Answer 6

Jul 12, 2009 4:54 PM in response to -rye-

This seems to be a bug in iPhoto 8.0.4 that is triggering some kind of corruption to iPhoto libraries that can't be corrected via the usual rebuilds, etc. See the thread "Iphoto won't delete photos properly and then can only force quit to exit" for additional detail.

Right now the only immediate solution is to do a manual import of your Originals into a new library (or use one of the shareware/freeware tools that will essentially do that for you)...but in doing this you will lose all of your Albums, Faces ⚠, etc, so depending on how much of that kind of metadata you have in your library, that could be an extremely drastic step for you.

Personally, I'm holding out a bit to see what Apple comes up with, because doing all the Faces and Albums over again would be a Very Big Deal for me....there's hours and hours of work there that I'd rather not lose except as a last resort.

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Answer 7

Jul 12, 2009 8:44 PM in response to -rye-

I just tried the "Rebuild Library" function of +iPhoto Library Manager+ from Fat Cat Software ( http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/) and it worked like a charm. It does take awhile (about 2 hours for my 11GB iPhoto Library) but it retained everything perfectly (including all the metadata), and now the issues with deleting photos, iPhoto not quitting, and all the other weirdness are gone.

iPhoto Library Manager keeps your original iPhoto Library intact and rebuilds to a new library, so you can test the effects safely.

I strongly suggest that anyone who has this issue give it a try. Please note that I have nothing to do with this software; I just tried it and it worked well on my library.

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Answer 8

Jul 13, 2009 8:32 AM in response to Old Toad

HELP!

I just tried your suggestion and iPhoto is much snappier, however I've seemed to have lost my last download of 250+ photos from our vacation. Are they "out there" someplace to recover?

<<The force quit may have damaged the library's database files. Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys depressed and follow the instructions to rebuild the library. Select option #5.>>

Message was edited by: Crawdaddy

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Answer 9

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,308 points

Jul 13, 2009 8:34 AM in response to Crawdaddy

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. This will create a new library based on data in the albumdata.xml file. Not everything will be brought over - no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your albums and keywords back.

Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.

Regards

TD

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Answer 10

Jul 13, 2009 6:36 PM in response to Yer_Man

I tried your suggestion and everything appears to be more stable in iPhoto (thanks!!!) but I'm still missing the 250+ images I downloaded last night.

Of course I told iPhoto to delete the originals, but I assume the flash memory card (Sony Memory Stick Pro in this case) is not totally reformatted. Is there a way to pry off the hidden images?

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Answer 11

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

Jul 13, 2009 6:55 PM in response to Crawdaddy

Media recover - http://www.mediarecover.com/ - is one choice

LN

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Answer 12

Jul 14, 2009 7:16 AM in response to LarryHN

Thanks... files saved! Now to backup!!!

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Answer 13

Ed Law

Level 1

30 points

Jul 22, 2009 3:57 PM in response to Crawdaddy

Crawdaddy I have a question, please. While your 250 photos were missing in action did you try <Spotlight> for all jpegs?? The reason for asking is that in several instances I have also lost an import with no idea of what happened; but, using spotlight I found everything, including a lot of images I didn't need to find.

Glad you are all together again. I'm making a note of the webpage you used for my own future screw-up. Massaging a few thousand pics around frequently has it's moments. .... I back up to a 500G desktop and two on-line services. Hurricane Ivan taught us a lesson that should not have to be learned by anyone!!

Ed.

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Answer 14

Jul 22, 2009 11:11 PM in response to Ed Law

n781lc -

No, I didn't even think about using spotlight... don't quite understand how it works. The photos were only on the machine for 20-30 minutes tops before my troubles. Don't know if spotlight had enough time to inventory them.

By the way, what did you have and an entry? photos?

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Answer 15

Jul 23, 2009 5:37 PM in response to Crawdaddy

Spotlight has many uses: Finder>help>mac help>enter 'spotlight' in window>voila! In the instant I mentioned I just wondered where the pics had gone so I entered 'jpeg' in the spotlight window and all the jpegs on my HD showed up .... amongst the myriad (zillion) there were the "lost group" with where they were. Moved them to iPhoto.

...........<By the way, what did you have and an entry? photos? >..............

Sorry, but I don't understand ...

Ed

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