iPhoto '11 and network home directories

Holy cow, thanks for the tip!

Apple should hire you for customer service. I had no idea that was there. I take it back Apple. Thanks to you and Terence, you have provided users with the ability to sound off. Now you no longer need to have discussion boards for people to voice their opinions, frustrations, errors and possibly helpful information for users.

Now we can all just go to the all new "Provide Feedback" feature that you have so kindly inserted into your software.

I can't thank you enough for your helpful advice Terence.

I think the better question is "why are you listening?"

If you are only a user and have no solutions, then why are you wasting your time posting nonsense to this board?

Yes, we are users. But if you think that nobody from Apple pays attention to these discussions, then you are sadly mistaken.

I have seen it happen many times where these discussion boards lead to solutions FROM APPLE - not just users. So if you are unhappy with people voicing their opinions about a flaw from Apple, then I suggest you find something else to do with your time.

Sorry, not usually hostile like this. But nonsense posts from users are a HUGE pet peeve.

You're welcome. There was no reason to enthuse so much. It only took me a second. Glad you found it to be of use.

¡Ay, caramba!

The simple fact is that there is no longer an "affordable" way to manage large photo libraries on a Mac. I had planned on moving to Aperture since Apple touted it as a solution to large photo libraries but if you read the comments about it, users have the same problems with large libraries as iPhoto does.

So if Apple offered a better product that handles large libraries better, it's obvious to me many other people would be willing to pay a higher price to use it.

Let's face it large libraries are no longer the exception, it's become commonplace (ie "the rule"). Digital photography on virturally every device you have has now made this the norm. Apple has made it easier to make it even larger by using the Photo Stream feature (which I love).

It's also obvious that this new issue was programmed in directly by Apple. It may have been to cut down on support calls but since so many people are experiencing it, I'm betting the amount of support calls went up, defeating the purpose. Putting out in thier specs that they don't support iPhoto libaries on an SMB share should have been enough to address it from that standpoint.

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PJ_au

For what it's worth, I've managed to get this to work via an NFS share.

1. Mount the share

2. Browse the share and open the iPhoto Library from within Finder.

It is upgrading my library as we speak. Opening iPhoto and browsing to the library gave me the 'unsupported filesystem' error, but using the above works.

Keep in mind comments about the reliability (or lack of) however. Backups are your friend.

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Great tip PJ but here's what I found out when experiminting with multiple systems and a split up iPhoto library.

Some constructive iPhoto library troubleshooting:

Suddenly multiple libraries get the error "unsupported file system" those libraries are approximately 14000-16000 photos each.

All libraries are on an SMB NFS system.

Open one of the split libraries directly in the Finder, same error

Open another one, it opens fine as does one of the other split libraries

Open the original main library that I split up (around 37000) and it opens fine.

Close it and it "upgrades" around 3600 photos. Open the libarary again, it opens fine.

So I can open 3 of the 4 libraries using the method PJ describes.

(Note I attempt this from three different Mac's using the same libraries all on OS X.7.3 and iPhoto '11 9.2.1)

For the purpose of troubleshooting's sake, I move everything back to an AFP formatted system. This takes a looonnnggg time since the entire set of libraries is over 100 GB's.

Once on an AFP file system, I share out the folder to the network, change the permissions on all files and folders to be safe and change all my mount scripts to match the new share name. (this of course takes a long time as well)

I open the 4th "unopenable" library and it opens without error. All other iPhoto libraries open without issue as well. I also note the closing iPhoto process is also faster.

While putting all this on an AFP file system may fix the "unsupported file system" issue, the libraries currently total over 100 GB's and will keep growing. So the only way to deal with this would be to put them on an external AFP drive or simply lose all the hard drive space on one of my systems.

The additional problem with the AFP solution is that Time Machine does not back up external drives. Putting an iPhoto library on an external AFP drive will now run the risk of not backing up some of my most precious files, my photo's. Previously having the files on an NFS RAID system was a lot less riskier due to the multiple drives.

Troubleshooting, it's what I do.

-eMax IT

The simple fact is that there is no longer an "affordable" way to manage large photo libraries on a Mac.

Obviously that's going to depend on your definition if "affordable" but you can manage a virtually limitless library for the cost of Aperture and a NAS and/or a hard disk(s)

I had planned on moving to Aperture since Apple touted it as a solution to large photo libraries but if you read the comments about it, users have the same problems with large libraries as iPhoto does.

Not sure that's true. 200k libraries are mentioned frequently on the Aperture forum and one user ahs a Library of 400k.

So if Apple offered a better product that handles large libraries better, it's obvious to me many other people would be willing to pay a higher price to use it.

Again, define "large" but iPhoto is good for 250,000 images and Aperture has no know limit.

The only issue here is the matter of storing a Library on a NAS. There is no issue storing a Library on a HD formatted appropriately. With Aperture it's trivial to have your Library on your mac and store the Masters anywhere youwant.

So, not really sure what you're on about here.

Hmmm, I see why some posters have questioned your posts but to answer your questions:

"Obviously that's going to depend on your definition if "affordable" but you can manage a virtually limitless library for the cost of Aperture and a NAS and/or a hard disk(s)"

"Not sure that's true. 200k libraries are mentioned frequently on the Aperture forum and one user ahs a Library of 400k."

"Again, define "large" but iPhoto is good for 250,000 images and Aperture has no know limit."

Launch the APP Store on your computer, read the customers review for the latest version 3.2.2. This reports on slowness and memory hog issues. One specifically states it run's "dog slow" with a library of 50,000 images so it makes your claim of running fine with 200,000 questionable.

I see many complaints of a constant beachball spin even with systems with a high end i7 processor. These are all recent reviews and I find the same results doing a web search. Because of this, I tend to believe these users and did not purchase Aperture. If all these users are incorrect, then I apologise. But until I see it running in action without the reported issues, I will not purchase it.

"The only issue here is the matter of storing a Library on a NAS"

Which I addressed at length.

"There is no issue storing a Library on a HD formatted appropriately."

I disagree. Not being able to backup an external AFP drive speaks to this.

"With Aperture it's trivial to have your Library on your mac and store the Masters anywhere youwant."

So your solution is to store one of the libraries locally which I assume is not a full 200,000 photo's and store the rest "elsewhere" which could be a network share. I disagree - When libraries exceed over 30 GB's, storing externally and pulling those libraries in whenever you want to work with them is by no means trivial. You have to transfer the data from the network share to your local drive, work with it, and now because the library differs from the network stored version you must copy it BACK to the network share again to stay in sync. Somehow that doesn't seem easier.

The purpose of my post was to give users real information to work with, let's try to stay in that spirit.

Launch the APP Store on your computer, read the customers review for the latest version 3.2.2. This reports on slowness and memory hog issues. One specifically states it run's "dog slow" with a library of 50,000 images so it makes your claim of running fine with 200,000 questionable.

No thanks. The problem with "reviews" on the App Store and similar is that you have idea the knowledge and experience of the "reviewer". Nor do you know the condition of the machine it's running on. Sure, many people report Performance issues with Aperture. If the experience of the Aperture forum here is anything to go on, these issues are generally solved by rebuilding the database and/or trashing the caches. For instance see this thread and note the complaints by user Don Trammel, the response by user Diplostrat

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3607046?start=15&tstart=0

and the conclusion by Don Trammel

While you're there, Search for Kirby Krieger. He's the guy with the 400k library.

And again, there is no issue with storing a Library on an appropriately formatted disk. There is also no issue with backing up to an appropriately formatted disk.

So your solution is to store one of the libraries locally which I assume is not a full 200,000 photo's and store the rest "elsewhere" which could be a network share. I disagree - When libraries exceed over 30 GB's, storing externally and pulling those libraries in whenever you want to work with them is by no means trivial

No, that's not my solution at all - and perhaps neatly illustrates my point about the knowledge and experience of "reviewers" on places like the App Store. My suggestion is to run a Referenced Library. The Library is local and the Masters stored wherever. Again, no performance hit - unless you try something extraordinary like export all the Masters at one go.

The basic point here is that there are ways of working with very large libraries. They are safe and effective. The one thing that's not possible is to store a library on a NAS. But Library-on-a-NAS is by no means the only way to work with a large library.

Regards

TD

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3607046?start=15&tstart=0

and the conclusion by Don Trammel

Read the whole discussion, not just page 2 which includes other complaints. This example is for a 10,000 pic library. No one here has trouble with that, even in iPhoto.

"No, that's not my solution at all - and perhaps neatly illustrates my point about the knowledge and experience of "reviewers" on places like the App Store."

No it doesn't since I'm the one who wrote that to you and not a reviewer. But you do bring up a good point of the referenced listing pointing to the files on a network share. However if it doesn't work with a NAS what's the point?

Again I'm open to trying Aperture but am far from convinced that it's the solution that we need it.

-eMaxIT

Well the darn thread is a shopping list for Aperture 4. Start one of those about any app and you'll get the same. My point is that the performance issues were resolved with a wee bit of troubleshooting.

But you do bring up a good point of the referenced listing pointing to the files on a network share. However if it doesn't work with a NAS what's the point?

Duh. It does. Can I spell this out for you? Store the Library locally and the Masters - that's the bit that takes up all the space, right? - on the NAS.

Remember you can download a free trial of Aperture to check it out.

For the sake of completeness I will also point out that it's perfectly possible to do this with iPhoto too but I wouldn't recommend it.

Regards

TD

Thought I'd add if anyone needs a reliable solution to use iPhoto / Aperture with a NAS in a single user environment. I've had 100% success every time using iSCSI (on a supported NAS) with the ATTO iSCSI initiator for MAC.

Regards,

Gopal

gopalpatel wrote:

Thought I'd add if anyone needs a reliable solution to use iPhoto / Aperture with a NAS in a single user environment. I've had 100% success every time using iSCSI (on a supported NAS) with the ATTO iSCSI initiator for MAC.

Regards,

Gopal

Aperture questions are best ask in the Aperature forum

For iPhoto the solution is very simple - the iPhoto library MUST be on a volume formated mac OS extended (journaled) so if your drive is not that format you much place a disk image on it in that format to hold the iPhoto library

See the very first answer

iPhoto needs to have the Library sitting on disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Users with the Library sitting on disks otherwise formatted regularly report issues including, but not limited to, importing, saving edits and sharing the photos.

That it worked for you in iPhoto 09 is simply down to luck. Many times we received reports from folks whose Libraries worked fine on a NAS for years and then one day didn't.

Workaround: Make a Disk Image formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and put the library on it. Store the image on the NAS.

It is strongly not recmmended to use the iPhoto referenced library mode to point to original photos on the NAS

LN

I'm sorry Larry, absolute rubbish. iPhoto '11 will create a library on a FAT32 volume just fine, this error is only caused by SMB protocol. Try creating an iPhoto Library and specifiying a FAT32 local volume, no problems. Next try and share an HFS+ over SMB and AFP and connect using SMB, it doesn't work, now try AFP it does. Stop upsetting people with your made-up assertions, I found this thread via google and you wasted my time too.

"For iPhoto the solution is very simple - the iPhoto library MUST be on a volume formated mac OS extended (journaled) so if your drive is not that format you much place a disk image on it in that format to hold the iPhoto library"

Richard

It's your Library on your computer and you can do what you like.

But you will have issues with an iPhoto 11 Library on a FAT volume. When you do remember that you know the solution.

Have a look at this

http://www.apertureexpert.com/tips/2010/8/3/network-drives-nas-and-aperture.html

(And recall that Aperture and iPhoto use the same Library now.) Note this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3252 as well

You have a nice day now.

You certainly have a way with words - but getting agressive does not change the fact that you are dead wrong - if you put your library on a FAT volume you will have problems

"For iPhoto the solution is very simple - the iPhoto library MUST be on a volume formated mac OS extended (journaled) so if your drive is not that format you much place a disk image on it in that format to hold the iPhoto library"

Enjpoy your life

LN

I'm sorry, but from my point of view it is a major bug/flaw.

But it's not a bug or flaw because iPhoto works they way it was intended.

A software bug is an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program orsystem that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways.

The two reference links in TD's last post on page 2 of this topic describe what the intended ways are. Trying to use an application in ways it was not designed to be used is not a bug or flaw. It's user error.

OT