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Level 1

121 points

3.0.1 a huge step dow for me

After a bit of a struggle getting the 3.0 upgrade up, functioning, and actually working very well on my iMac, I was excited to see the 3.0.1 patch available this morning in software update. After installing the update I've run into nothing but trouble, these include:

* Frequent crashes while simply browsing my relatively small library
* Clicks in the browser being ignored
* Frequently observing an empty adjustment panel in the main window
* Selecting photos in the main window sometimes does nothing (i.e. the selected photo does not show in the viewer)
* Selecting a photo in the main window sometimes does not switch the adjustment panel to reflect the adjustments for the selected photo (i.e. the adjustment HUD shows the adjustments for the previously selected photo)

The release of A3 is a foregone software disaster for Apple, and I'm shocked that the product has been released — and updated — with such glaring problems. It's really an embarrassment of poor SQA and Release Management.

I've worked in commercial software development. leading very large teams, for the past 25 years, and just shake my head seeing such missteps in what is supposed to be a Pro-level application targeted to non-Engineers. The level of effort that the Aperture community has made to overcome these problems has been impressive. But this level of support should NOT be necessary.

Frustrated.

John

iMac and MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.2), 20th Anniversary Mac, 128K Mac, original Apple II

Posted on Feb 26, 2010 9:45 PM

20 replies

Coqui-

Level 1

32 points

Feb 27, 2010 9:06 PM in response to John Purlia

I had my issues with 3.0.0 and while some were fixed others popped out with 3.0.1. At the moment the program is relatively stable, but I am starting to see issues where I can't switch from one image to the other.

I would not consider this release a beta release. Maybe an alpha, at best. Specially when you consider this to be a "professional" program. This program is not in need of a 3.0.x release. Instead it is in desperate need of a 3.1 release, followed quickly by a 3.2 release. Too many bugs to fix.

I am sure (well at least hope) Apple will eventually fix the issue, but all in all, a very disappointing experience.

Feb 28, 2010 5:35 AM in response to John Purlia

John, try holding down shift/alt/cmd when you launch Aperture.

Also, make sure you don't have anything in ~/Library (esp the cache directory) named Aperture.

One thing I would suggest. If you can isolate those one or two corrupt images - even if you can get them out of Aperture's data by hand, file a bug report with Apple and attach those two images to the report.

I have had "corrupt" images in prior Aperture libraries (from prior versions of Aperture, not v3). It wasn't fun and was totally frustrating. I never did figure out where the corruption actually came from. But once I got them out, Aperture was fine. And I never took the time to send them in as a bug report (I know, tisk tisk). Maybe if I had people now would have less problems. Regardless, even if an image file is corrupt, no matter what the source, the application shouldn't crash on it. IMHO that's a bug and it needs fixed.

http://bugreport.apple.com/

Feb 28, 2010 6:32 PM in response to John Purlia

i am observing a similar though not identical problem. This is the same problem that plagued me during when I was using 3.0 however, that caused me to rebuild and lose my entire library, forcing me to restart my whole upgrade process from a backup (turned out to be a 40 hour process).

When I select certain images within certain projects, the images in the browser do not match the thumbnails. I have noticed this occurring mostly with scanned film images (I have not yet seen it happen with RAW files). my only resolution when I experienced this a week or so ago was to delete the file. no amount of thumbnail generation, or reconnecting masters would solve the problem.

even exporting just the project as a library and rebuilding it does not solve the issue. not sure where the disconnect is.

Feb 28, 2010 9:42 PM in response to John Purlia

Hold the Option key while launching.

Do you have more than two libraries? If so, the resulting window will allow you to pick another library. If not, create a new one from this same window ("Create New" button, bottom right). Select the Main Projects view from this new library, then use the File>Switch To Library command to get back to your old, main library. With luck, you should be in the Projects view. From the new library, you might try setting Quick Preview, then reopen the problem database. Of course, that would assume the thumbnail is not the source of the corruption, so I'm not sure there's an advantage there.

I don't think Option-Shift-Command is a key combination for anything (Zane's post, this thread). Option-Command is the combination to repair/rebuild/consistency check the database; adding Shift doesn't change it.

You could muck about in the Aperture Library database ("Show Package Contents…" from the context menu; usual cautions of having backups here). Drag the Thumbnails or Previews folder to your desktop (one or the other at a time), and try to relaunch then (guessing that a corrupt thumbnail/preview is the problem). If you suspect a bad preview, "Select All" and "Delete Previews" for killing off all your previews, from within Aperture's main photo view. Then rebuild all previews, or only the ones you need, as you need (this is how I use it). Or, if you know the file name/number, find that raw and drag it out of the library package ("Masters" folder in the package, but good luck finding it in that maze of a hierarchy… I much preferred the old package build). Rebuild the database after any mucking (Cmd-Opt double-click the database). Suspecting a corrupt file could hold the idea of bad-blocks in the back your mind also: Disk Utility, ProSoft's Drive Genius or equivalent.

Good luck. I'll be curious to see how this works out.

Bob

John Purlia Author

Level 1

121 points

Feb 28, 2010 10:15 PM in response to b.bingham

I managed to get the problem fixed, though I wouldn't call it "solved". After a lot of trial and error, which involved completely trashing Aperture, reinstalling from 2.0, digging out my original 1.x serial number, verifying that all my 2.1.4 projects were fine, reinstalling 3.0 as a clean install, applying the 3.0.1 update, and importing projects one at a time...

I discovered that the 3.0.1 import function consistently corrupts two of my 2.1.4 photos (one of which happened to be the very photo I was interested in when first applying the 3.0.1 patch - bad luck!). One corruption causes the disappearing or "stuck" adjustments panel in the main window. The other is the source of a hard crash of Aperture each time that photo is selected. Why the corruption occurs on these two photos is not entirely clear, though I strongly suspect it has something to do with the combination of adjustments that were originally applied to those photos (which are JPEGs, and were originally adjusted with version 1.x). Moreover, both of these photos include judicious use of spot'n'patch adjustments (before we had the much improved retouch tool in 2.0). My guess is that not a lot of attention has been paid towards the compatibility of spot'n'patch with the 3.0 importer.

I've filed a very detailed bug report with Apple, with the offer to provide to them the project (just 40 images) that becomes corrupted each time it is imported to 3.0.1. Entirely reproducible, and hopefully this will lead them to a rapid solution because photos — regardless of the version of Aperture from which they originated — must always remain compatible with new versions of the software. Photos are permanent records, and on the computer should be every bit as timeless as old snapshots.

Thanks for all the recommendations people on this thread, they were all very helpful!

John

3.0.1 a huge step dow for me