iPhoto '11 stuck in loop trying to upgrade.

I too have the same problem...almost. While doing the upgrade of my library, iPhoto crashed and said it couldn't find a plug in. Then when I launch it again, I got the gray screen with the spinning wheel and a spinning beach ball. I let it run for about 30 min and figure that something is wrong. Did a force quit after reading the window before doing the force quit, "iphoto was not responding"

Repaired permissions and reinstalled iLife 11. Then restart my Mac. Relaunch iPhoto and it said it had to upgrade my library. After upgrading, I have no photos. The albums are listed and the events are listed. However, the thumbnail on the event folders don't show any photos. When I select a event, again no photos. All of my 25K+ photos are now gone!

I did a right click on my iPhoto library (to see package contents) and can't find the original photo folder ( iLife09 iPhoto had an original folder, where the original photos were stored) iLife 11 iPhoto library doesn't have an original photo file (Not Good). I used to copy contents of this folder when I did my backup to an outside location from my house.

I am now restoring my library from my time machine (I'm thankful that I have time machine). My library is about 70gb. It will take time machine 4 hours to restore the library. I'm pretty upset.

Update: I noticed that after doing the upgrade of my iPhoto library from v 9 to 11, the library went from 72 GB to only 9 GB. Therefore, I'm sure I lost my photos. (I'm still restoring my old library from Time Machine).

We also have the same problem. Unable to upgrade successfully. It will go through the process each time I open the program.

Same thing is happening to me, everytime I launch it starts upgrade again and takes hours and hours to do it. I have about 25,000 photos in my library.

I have the same problem

I have the same problem with the iLife 11 update

This could be caused by minor database damage, or even a locked file.

1. Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Include the last three options.

Regards

TD

One to try:

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. This will create a new library based on data in the albumdata.xml file. Not everything will be brought over - no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your albums and keywords back.

Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.

See if you can upgrade the rebuilt library.

Regards

TD

Same here it won't repair

Same here.
Stuck "Upgrading iPhoto Database."
Let it run for 10 hours through the night and still upgrading.
My library is large at 170GB.
Activity Monitor has iPhoto Not Responding and using all my RAM.

For the record, iPhoto Library Manager has not yet been updated to work fully with iPhoto '11 libraries, so trying its rebuild command will almost certainly just result in it stopping pretty early on with an error message (the original library won't be modified in the process though). So until I've had a chance to update iPLM (hopefully in the next week or two), the rebuild command won't be an option for iPhoto '11 users.