Referenced Masters stored in the Aperture library package

Question

Referenced Masters stored in the Aperture library package

This seems a bit of a strange one to me, hopefully someone can explain it.
My Aperture library is about 60GB, with the stored as referenced on an attached drive.

I upgraded to Aperture 3 on a clean install of SL and converted my Aperture 2 library over no problem.

My wife had some photo's taken while the upgrade process was ongoing, about 1500 RAW files stored on an external drive.

These were the first items we imported into Aperture 3. During the import, 'it just crashed' (I wasn't there when she did it!!)
On restart it all looked to be ok, all the photo's were there. However, when I checked the location of the referenced masters with 'Show in Finder' I found a number of the files which, although showing as referenced, were stored inside the Aperture Library package on my Mac HD rather than the external drive (their location is Aperture Library/Masters/2010/06 etc.)

When I select the browser to only show managed files, these files do not show up. They have the referenced files label on them.

I can go in and manually move them I suppose but I don't want to really mess around inside the Aperture library. Is there another way to show files by location rather than using the File Status/Managed filter in the browser?

iMac 24" 2.8GHz, Mac OS X (10.6.1), iMac G3 500MHz Mac OS X 10.4.11 iPod Touch Time Capsule Airport Express Apple TV

Posted on Jun 9, 2010 10:35 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 9, 2010 4:24 PM in response to Shuttleworth125

Interesting. I don't have an answer but strongly recommend really careful backups and then trying to restructure it all.

Good luck!

-Allen

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Answer 2

Tony Gay

Level 4

1,638 points

Jun 9, 2010 8:24 PM in response to SierraDragon

Before jumping in and moving things around, consider what this sounds like, there is something wrong withe the database, makes sense if it crashed whilst working. Also consider that this was the first import and it may have been set to managed.

Anyway, I would suggest you doing some first aid, this link details the basics.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3805

Of course there is also the need after installing aor upgrading software to run disk utility, permissions and repair disk.

Tony

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Answer 3

Jun 10, 2010 7:24 AM in response to Shuttleworth125

My "gut response" would be to use the relocate masters command to move them where they should be or to consolidate masters to make them managed. Without manually messing around in the library package.

I agree with Tony that there is probably a database issue and that some maintenance should be performed with Aperture Library First Aid tools. I would also repair disk permissions using disk utility and get rid of the A2 caches.

Still, I think I would resolve the location issue and back up first.

This is a VERY strange situation that I don't think any of us have seen before so it's guess work here.

DLS

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Answer 4

Jun 10, 2010 3:24 PM in response to DLScreative

Thanks for the replies everyone. I've run a permissions repair in Disk Utility and I've run the Aperture permissions and database repairs, but I've not gone as far as rebuilding the library.

I think I will try the re-locate masters route, it's just a bit harder to select the files I'm concerned with, as I can't get it to show only the referenced masters that are contained within the Aperture library, as like I mentioned it thinks they are referenced not managed!!

I'm making a guess that what happened during the import is that Aperture first brings the files inside the library and then sends them on to the selected destination. My import crashed part way through and the files were still in the Aperture Library. Like I say, it's only a guess!

It is however a slight concern. If I'd not found it I could have assumed the masters were all on my external drive. If I ever moved away from the Aperture library to another program, I would not know these files were not on my external drive. The only way to find out if you have got referenced masters in the Aperture library is to show the package contents and look in the Masters folder. I think I'll file this as a bug report to Apple, just in case.

Thanks again for the help. I'll report back when I've done it.

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