Some videos cannot be played in Photos after iPhoto library migration

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Some videos cannot be played in Photos after iPhoto library migration

Hi All,

Specs: MacBook Air 2013 - Catalina 10.15.2

I converted my old iPhoto library to Photos and am experiencing some issues with finding/ playback of videos now:

Some videos show an icon in the overview, but with a grey thumbnail and when I try to play I get a popup saying "Photos cannot play this video because the resource is unavailable.". When I try to open with VLC it crashes and when I try to edit with Quicktime I get popup: "An error occurred while preparing external edit". Also I can't export the video to e.g. desktop, in this case it shows "Unknown Error (-1)".

When I check the package contents of the migrated iPhoto library I can't find the video (.MP4) files either but I do see the thumbnail .jpegs for the missing videos. Strangely enough I also can't find the video files for the other videos (which can be played in Photos) in there either, apart from a few (?).

I've also tried opening the iPhoto library with iPhoto but won't open when I download it from my purchased apps in App Store, nor will iPhoto 9.6 start up when I downloaded it online.

The iPhoto library folder in finder shows a size of 28GB (which is I think about the size of all the videos which do display thumbnails and play fine), but when selecting info for all videos in Photos it shows 44GB. When I check info for a failing video it shows the correct size, name, etc. (see attached image)

Unfortunately my iPhoto/Photos on my mac was not connected to my iCloud.

Can someone please help me retrieve the videos?

Posted on Mar 17, 2021 6:12 AM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

200,789 points

Mar 17, 2021 7:28 AM in response to WforWinning

Do you still have the iPhoto Library?

You will not find the originals in the Photos Library package, because Photos is renaming the original image files internally. The originals are in the subfolder "originals", but in a random order.

Try to find the originals in the iPhoto Library package instead, where they are still having the original name. Can you play the videos there with QuickTime Player? If the videos can be played in there original location, delete them from Photos (including from Recently Deleted) and reimport them to photos. You cannot reimport them while they are still a part of the iPhoto Library. Copy them out of the iPhoto Library package, then try, if Photos can import them.

If you cannot play the videos at all, where are your photo libraries stored? Are they in your Pictures folder or on an external volume? The videos may not ply, if the file system format is incompatible with Photos (for example, if the filesystem format is case sensitive), or if the external volume has been used for time Machine backups or has other backup software installed.

The Catalina update deprecated the support for some older video codecs. I converted all older videos to a different format, while the format has still been supported on Mojave. You may want to check the codec of your videos according to this list for iMovie: About legacy media in iMovie for macOS - Apple Support

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Answer 2

WforWinning Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 17, 2021 9:56 AM in response to léonie

Thank you Leonie,

I looked in (migrated) iPhoto Library package. There was no originals folder, I did however find videos under the Masters folder where they have their original names indeed. Some of these are the missing ones but still not all I'm looking to retrieve (in Photos I see a lot more greyed out ones).

This Masters folder is btw also the folder where I before mentioned I did find the thumbnail .jpegs of the greyed out videos (which to me is a sign there are somewhere in there/ used to be?)

How can I best proceed?

It looks like the iPhoto Library package is a mix of videos that I can correctly play in Photos and videos I can't play correctly; but the numbers don't add up.

As for the storage location: the iPhoto migrated library and new Photos library are both under Pictures

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Answer 3

WforWinning Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 20, 2021 3:58 AM in response to léonie

Leonie, since i can't find them in my old iPhoto library, does that mean they are not in there? If so, how come the non-playable videos are mentioned (although greyed out without thumbnails) in my Photos Library and also counted in the total storage used in Photos?

Much appreciated if you can help!

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Some videos cannot be played in Photos after iPhoto library migration

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