iPhoto '09 Freezes Snow Leopard

Thanks for your quick reply.

"This is happening on both machines?"
Yes, sorry I didn't make that clear in my original post.

I tried your suggested test.
Created new library, imported 4 photos, edited - same thing. Whole machine froze up.

Could this be a plist thing rather than the database/library? Just a thought...

Cheers
Steve

Message was edited by: sneal

Just tried another test, in the hope of eliminating the plist file as a possibility.

Logged in as a different user on the MacBook, launched iPhoto with that users own library etc.
Editing an image, the machine locked up again.

Should also add that I have recently upgraded both machines to Snow Leopard and iLife '09 - all was OK with Leopard and iLife '08. Oh! the joys...

Steve

Delete it and see. That would be the first suggestion we'd make.

Thanks OT.

Just tried that too - with no joy.

Interestingly, this time just before the whole UI froze up, it displayed what I can only describe as a psychedelic pattern across pretty much all of the screen. This remained until I turned the MacBook off.

So, perhaps I should be looking at a graphics driver problem instead of blaming iPhoto?

Steve

Thanks Guys.

Both machines have 4GB RAM, though whilst C2D processors the memory controller only allows Snow Leopard to access 3GB.
As for free disk space, MacBook: 177GB and MacMini: 49GB. Hope that's not an issue 😉

Will try booting in Safe Mode later - off out with the family for dinner :-))

Thanks again

Will try booting in Safe Mode later

With the MacBook in Safe Mode edit of any jpg image seems to work OK with one major exception - the screen or window is black! Edits appear to save though!
Similarly, double clicking an image in an event does nothing instead of zooming in on it.

Perhaps a re-install of iPhoto is needed?

Steve

Again, thanks guys.

I have reinstalled iPhoto as described, but still no luck.

I'm beginning to think that this is nothing to do with iPhoto, but more to do with the Snow Leopard upgrade on both MacBook and MacMini. Both have 4GB of RAM, yet have 32bit memory controllers or something which means that only 3GB is usable - wonder if that has something to do with it? I'll have a search in the SL forums too.

I know of folk with newer machines which came with SL and iLife 09 and it all works fine as you'd expect. Perhaps I should try a clean install of both to a different disk as a test.

Sounds drastic action though - your thoughts?

Thanks
Steve

OK, been a while but I have an update on this one.

iPhoto '09 still freezes up Snow Leopard - on two of my machines. A MacBook[1] and MacMini[1]; I have two other machines, yes, a second MacBook[2] and a second MacMini[2]. All are Intel Core2Duo devices.

The first two, older machines, are the ones that lock up.

I installed Snow Leopard on to an external USB drive on MacBook[1], along with iLife '09 then applied all the latest updates (SL 10.6.4 using the combo update) to both SL & iLife.

Guess what, editing a photo still cause iPhoto & SL to freeze up.

Next, was to use this 'clean' SL/iLife USB drive on MacBook[2] - all works fine, just like that machines own internal system disk.

Digging in to the specifications of the machines, I discover that both the older machines MacBook[1] & MacMini[1] have Intel GMA 950 graphics controllers. However, MacBook[2] has Intel GMA X3100 and MacMini[2] a NVidia GeForce xxx.

So, my conclusion from all this is that there is a compatibility problem with Snow Leopard 10.6.4, iLife '09 (or iPhoto '09 [8.1.2]) and the GMA 950 graphics controller.

Anyone come across this before, or know of a fix?

Thanks

Steve