iPhoto '11 stuck in loop trying to upgrade.

As far as I know yes... I still have a fully functional iPhoto, no issues so far.

Question for Everyone who has a iPhoto library that crashed and burned....

How many of you started your iPhoto library when it was first introduced many years ago? My library started when iPhoto was first introduced, and has been upgraded with each new upgrade of iLife (iPhoto, and including all updates).

I am wonder if there is something in our library that is causing this problem that is a skeleton leftover from many years ago?

My experiences: never try with a large database. The most "stupid" thing about iPhoto is that it just "import" everything in to some thing called "library", which is very easily messed up after a disk corruption or kenel panic. Why don't they just do the other way like every one (Picassa, Acdsee...): index your library to somewhere and leave the pictures them selves alone???? When you ever need to upgrade or backup anything, just copy the index file. Any problem happens with the "viewing application", your entire photo library is untouched. In this case: think different is not good.

I have a database of more than 2TB, and imagine if I lost all of them because that application failure.

Actually, iPhoto stores all the files in the Finder. Your files are in no more danger than when stored in your own system of folders or in the Library Package. If you have a real jones to manage the files yourself then run a referenced Library.

Please don't spread FUD.

Regards

TD

I tried this solution by tHe sR5, but when I right-clicked "Show Package Contents," I did not see any of those files.
Tried another solution, double clicked on iPhoto within the MacOS folder as recommended in another post, but that did not work either.
My problem continues--the upgrade seemed to go smoothly but whenever I open iPhoto, it gets stuck trying to upgrade. This problem has definitely NOT been solved.

I followed tHe HR5's post and also couldn't find the files he said he trashed within the iPhoto Library. I believe these get created during the first attempt to upgrade while booted in normal mode; so I'd take a look again by right clicking show contents on iPhoto library. If like me you can see these files have now appeared you can delete them.

Make sure you reboot in safe mode by holding the shift key until you see the progress bar. Then restart iPhoto holding the Command (Apple) and Option (Alt) keys selecting options 1,2 and 6. This worked for me as the upgrade completed fully.

Mike

iPhoto keeps asking to upgrade Library on my iMac 21.5" ... And I have tried all solutions proposed below, still stuck in loop trying to upgrade.
What is strange : I had different libraries (from iPhoto '09) and upgrade went well. I even tried to import .avi files in it and still working. But the main one (60GB) is still stuck in loop.
On my MacbookPro 13", everything went well, even with an older Library (with .avi files in it too) and which was up-graded from old iPhoto 09' (which was coming from a older iPhoto 08' library).
Also, access to iPhoto pictures from iMovie was strange and gave me troubleshooting too.
I agree that who ever put this question as "Answered" hasn't read well our messages! This problem is still unsolved for many of us. Please Apple... Give us a hand!

SOLUTION YEY....

Remove DIVX codecs from Library/QuickTime or ~/Library/QuickTime

Then restart iPhoto 11. It opened perfectly and I can see all my photos! hooray!

thank you very much, tHe sR5! your solution worked like a charm. 🙂

This did not work for me.

I had no Divx codecs installed (because I never installed Divx app) and nothing to remove in the Library /Quicktime 😟

Any other ideas?

same here... No DIVX codecs here and still have the problem.

I also was very frustrated because I had no Divx codecs installed. However, I realized that I had not correctly followed the instructions given by the earlier post. I had been looking in the iPhoto folder in the Applications folder. But when I looked in the iPhoto Library folder, in my own Pictures folder in my own user directory, I did find the files listed. I deleted them as instructed and it did finish the upgrade and is now working. To recap: go to the iPhoto Library file. Right click "Show Package Contents." Delete these files: InterruptedUpdate, ThemeCache, ProjectDBVersion.plist,Projects.db, Projects.db-journal.
Restart iPhoto and it should do the upgrade and you should see the Welcome to iPhoto screen. Good luck and eternal thanks to tHe SR5!!

did what you said and it worked for me as well, got the elusive welcome screen and iphoto seems to be working fine now

How many of you who are reporting this problem have a NVIDIA graphics card installed? See this topic: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12471578#12471578