iTunes can't find Aperture Library for iPad sync

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Level 1

8 points

iTunes can't find Aperture Library for iPad sync

I just upgraded from iPhoto '11 to Aperture 3. When trying to sync my iPad, and telling iTunes to now sync photos from Aperture, I get the following message:

"Your Aperture Library could not be found. Open the preferences window in Aperture and enable the preference to share previews with other applications."

All well and good, but when I go to the preference pane in Aperture, I do not see the referenced option. Under the "Previews" tab (Aperture > Preferences > Previews) I see the options for "Share previews with iLife and iWork" (Always/When quitting Aperture/Never)--is that the preference indication they mean? None of those options results in iTunes being able to see my Aperture library.

Oddly, Aperture can see and import photos on my iPad that are not already in my Library, but claims it cannot send photos in the other direction because the library can't be seen. Frustrating

iMac Desktop 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.6.6), Aperture 3.1.1/iTunes 10.1.1/iPad 3G 32GB

Posted on Jan 13, 2011 6:51 PM

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Answer 1

Bill Doebler Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 13, 2011 7:23 PM in response to Bill Doebler

I should add that, of course, the same problem occurs with my iPhone 4. Aperture will import photos from the phone, but iTunes can't find the Library that would allow photos to be returned to the iPhone

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Answer 2

Mikkel D

Level 1

2 points

Jan 15, 2011 12:37 AM in response to Bill Doebler

I'm having the exact same problem. Really frustrating..!

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Answer 3

Feb 20, 2011 6:13 AM in response to Mikkel D

+1, I also have this problem. Also added the contents previously in iPhoto to Aperture. Aperture purchased in the Mac app store.

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Answer 4

D Leslie

Level 1

0 points

Mar 14, 2011 3:31 PM in response to Bill Doebler

same problem here. But not just iTunes, even in iWork

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Answer 5

Mar 19, 2011 1:09 AM in response to Bill Doebler

Hello,

Same problem here.

An interesting side not is that I had a Aperture library just for a specific trip I was taking and synced it to my iPad. Later when I came home and cleaned up my main aperture library and imported the trip library, I deleted that specific trip library. I went to sync with my iPad and it could only see the deleted library. It could also sync with it. I have searched my drive and did a find command and that data is not supposed to be anywhere on my laptop, but it is still able to be loaded on my iPad.

Also, iphoto can see it, but iWork only sees a couple of the albums, the ones I resynced with my iPad as a test to see if it was going to sync something. Mail also sees all of the albums from the trip library. iWeb sees the trip album only.

I opened the new MS word app and asked it to insert picture from browser and even it see's the trip album and can put the picture in the document.

It sounds like something is up via the media browser cache or plist with iLife.

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Answer 6

Mar 22, 2011 3:49 AM in response to Gary Bower

Try deleting the iPod Photo Cache directory and restart iTunes. I had a similar issue where iTunes wouldn't recognize any new photos I added to Aperture.

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Answer 7

Mar 24, 2011 2:52 AM in response to tommycampbell

Nope didn't help. I have exported the entire 100+GB and 21000 photos to another library and that library is now able to be seen in iTunes and other apps.

The problem was that it wasn't seeing ANY of the picts in the library or even the library. I am now in the long drawn out process of updating the previews of the said 21000+ photos to see if that could have helped. Didn't really want to waste the time in the first place since so many have said it didn't help them.

One big note that I forgot to mention is that this library that wasn't being seen was a library that I had on another laptop and it was the rebuild from other libraries that had different picts from different projects on it, so it could have been a permissions thing, but I had used aperture and disk utility to try and fix any of that.

My solution: export the pictures out as a new library. Pictures, metadata, places and faces all kept.

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Answer 8

Mar 28, 2011 12:23 PM in response to Bill Doebler

Hi Bill
I have the same problem did you sort it?
Ta

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Answer 9

D Leslie

Level 1

0 points

Mar 29, 2011 9:33 AM in response to George Hilton

What worked for me, was to create a new blank Aperture Library and select that library in Aperture. I then shut down Aperture. Restarted the computer, re-opened Aperture to make sure the blank Library opened, and then was able to find the blank library in all other Apps. Even in the photo's drop down for the screen saver. I then switched back to my original Aperture Library, and everything is perfect. Must have been a bug with one of the software updates???

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Answer 10

Apr 14, 2011 12:59 PM in response to D Leslie

Thanks very much D Leslie from Nevada. I've had the same problem and had been wondering what to do. Your solution worked for me too. (My Aperture library had been copied across to the pictures folder of my new iMac from a portable drive I used to use with a MacBookPro. I had the same error message that Bill Doebler wrote about in his post on 13th Jan 2011). Now I can sync my iPhone and iPad. Problem solved. Many thanks.

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Answer 11

Apr 25, 2011 8:52 PM in response to D Leslie

Thank you D Leslie - I did everything but reboot and it worked!

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Answer 12

Jul 3, 2011 12:32 PM in response to Bill Doebler

Yep - thanks for that! Saved my bacon too.

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Answer 13

Jul 6, 2011 3:52 PM in response to Bill Doebler

I did everything to get iTunes to recognize new albums in Aperture. I repaired permissions, removed preferences, processed previews at a larger size and enabled sharing across iLife products. Some combination of these things along with reprocessing older RAW file with the newer RAW convertor seemed to so the trick. However, it still doesn't see new smart folders.

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Answer 14

Jul 8, 2011 7:48 PM in response to Bill Doebler

This is a repost from another thread dealing with what I think is the same issue. It is what ended up working for me:

I have gone through a lot of steps and they all seem to have inched me closer to resolving this issue. My original post may have been cluttered so I'll list the steps I took here. The final step, though very time consuming seems to have corrected most of the problems, though I think I now need to get Aperture to generate new previews for all of my images at a size that the iPad likes (1920x1920).

1. Set Aperture's preference to Always share with iLife applications

2. Set Aperture's preference to generate previews at 1920x1920 or better

3. Repair Permissions via the Aperture Library First Aid function described here (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3805). You may want to do one of the more serious Library repairs just to get things organized with the file structure system but "Repair Permissions" seems to have been all I need to do.

4. Go to the top of your image hierarchy and reprocess all of the images with the newest Aperture RAW convertor by control-clicking on Photos and selecting "Reprocess Masters"(if you shoot RAW... and you should shoot RAW). It gives you several options, I chose to preserve all of my edits which will add additional time to the process but is worth it so you don't have to re-edit everything. I selected "All Photos" and "Reprocess Existing Images"

If you have a large library (1TB or more) you are now two days or so into this process.

5. Back up your Vault to save these changes

6. Generate new previews since you changed the size in which Aperture saved the JPEGs it uses to export to Aperture. I believe this is done from the top of the image hierarchy as well by holding down the option key when you right-click on the whole library. But, I am not at this stage yet so I can't be sure about that.

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Answer 15

Bill Doebler Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 18, 2011 2:09 PM in response to Bill Doebler

Six months later, the problem was resolved for me thanks to the folks at this thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2635567?start=0&tstart=0

From the Users/[Me]/Library/Preferences folder, I deleted this file:

com.apple.iApps.plist

[My folder contained three iApps-related plist files, all of them last modified before I installed Aperture. I deleted all three.]

I closed and reopened Aperture, and iTunes was FINALLY able to see my Aperture library! I had long been using a brute force workaround--i.e., exporting the photos I wanted to sync to folders on my hard drive that I then sync'ed directly. That worked fine, but it wasn't very elegant and introduced extra steps (and extra copies of the photos) into the process.

I hope this works for others as well.

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