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Aperture simply unusable on new iMac with Lion

I bought a new iMac having been a happy user for many years (iMac 21.5" i3 3.06GHz with 4G RAM), and thought I'd upgrade to Aperture as I want to get a little more creative with my photos.


I was astounded when I imported my iPhoto library of about 60GB that it was still "processing"after 24 hours, but I let it be and it seemed ok


I've just done my first import of about 300 photos from a holiday (they're on an 16GB card so it can't be that big...) and all seemed fine until I quit Aperture and reopened it - now it's back to "processing" and running at snail's pace. It's been at it for about an hour so far.


This renders this totally useless software - but if I click on "report a problem" on the email receipt, I'm simply taken to the support pages - and if I try to actually contact Apple they tell me my hardware is out of its free support period so there's nothing I can do!


This is absolutely outrageous - I paid £55 for software that simply doesn't work on an almost new machine - and yet apparently it's tough because my machine is more than 3 months old! Can this be right?


And am I missing something, or is Aperture supposed to take several hours to open up? It's unuseable as it is.


Secondly, where are my photos that I've uploaded into Aperture? I've deleted them off the card, so I want to at least import them into iPhoto so I can give up using this heap of junk and ask for my money back.


Thanks

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Aug 20, 2011 12:00 PM

Reply
31 replies

Aug 21, 2011 1:07 AM in response to andyfromembsay

I downloaded the Aperture Trial. I did this right after upgrading to Lion. My MacPro is a couple years old, but I am not having a slow down problem. I also have turned the face recognition off, didn't want to use it. It is true Apple tech support lasts only 3 months unless you get the extended warranty. However that three months only applies to being able to talk to someone directly, not that your computer can't run Aperture.


As to finding your photos... since I have the trial version, it created a file called "Aperture 3 Trial Library" Yours may be called something else, mine is in the Pictures folder. If you right click on that file you will get a menu, click on "Show Package Contents" You will then see a list of files. Your photos will be in the "Masters" folder.


I don't think Aperture is a heap of junk, I am finding that it does photo retouching better than Photoshop!! So just be patient, see if 09FXD's suggestion helps a bit.

Aug 21, 2011 5:56 AM in response to andyfromembsay

Well I've just reopened it after it's been closed overnight. 10 minutes after doing so (and I've done nothing - this is just the program opening) it's still spinning away "processing" - what can it be doing? Surely after almost 24 hours of the "import" thing it can't still be doing the original import?


I can't even get into anything to turn faces or anything off - it just spins.


And I really can't agree about the support thing - I bought a product from Apple - namely a piece of software. It doesn't work - at all - but they think it's ok to offer no support for that? I think that's treating your customers with contempt.

Aug 21, 2011 7:17 AM in response to andyfromembsay

andyfromembsay wrote:


<snip> it's still spinning away "processing" - what can it be doing? Surely after almost 24 hours of the "import" thing it can't still be doing the original import?

<snip>

"What can it be doing?"


Here is how to find out.


  1. Open Aperture while holding Option,
  2. Create a new library (which you will delete later)
  3. Window > Show Activity
  4. File > Switch to Library > "your library"


The Activity window will show you what it's doing

Aug 21, 2011 11:25 AM in response to andyfromembsay

I see what you are saying andyfromembsay, but most software companies have you buy support after a certain period of time. I just had an issue with Parallels that showed up after thirty days since I installed the program, to get support now I would have to buy it even though I never submitted a support issue in the first thirty days.With Apple if you buy the extended warranty you get support for three years. I didn't buy the Parallels extra support, it was quite expensive, I went to their forums and found the answer I needed.


Anyways, there is another thread in these discussions about Aperture being slow, it seemed to clear up after an update to 10.7.1. Also someone mentioned using Disk Warrior to clean up a fragmented directories. That is the one piece of software I wouldn't be without. It has saved me so many times! I ran Disk Warrior before I even upgraded to Lion, fixed a bunch of fragmentation. The upgrade has been smooth. I have not had any glitches with Aperture. I also do not have Time Machine backing up constantly. I have it back up once every 12 hours using Time Machine scheduler, that has also been reported as a problem.


I do think you have an issue, it shouldn't be updating like that, mine hasn't been doing any updating that I can see. I still have the Trial, so maybe that is different, but I used software update to update it to the 3.1. I will probably buy it, but I don't usually spend more than a few bucks on software that I haven't tried out, I have wasted too much money on programs that are not really good and the developer abandons after a year! I always download a trial before getting software if I have a choice. The Aperture trial was not in the App store, I had to Google to find it, but glad I did, I really wanted to see if it was worth spending more for it than just upgrading to the latest iPhoto (now that is a program that annoys me!) I think it is.

Aug 21, 2011 11:40 AM in response to Gigi1701

Right - there's clearly a problem with something under 100 images, as every time I close it and reopen it it re-processes them. Some of them are videos, which I've deleted, but lots are normal images. I've written down the numbers of lots of them, and I'll need to track them down and delete them - this doesn't change the fact this software is sub-standard and the support offered is insulting.

Aug 21, 2011 12:00 PM in response to andyfromembsay

I have well over 100 (more like several hundred) images in my library, some taken with my Olympus digital SLR, so they are huge, (4032 px X 3024px) I also have it linked to my iMovie library with tons of video as well as imported video from my iPad 2. I have set up a Gallery on Mobile Me that is syncing when I do updates to the Gallery album. I do not have that processing thing going on at all. The problem my be in some other issue in your computer. I have also made sure to fix my disk permissions.


I am a graphic/web designer and spend at least eigth hours or more a day working on my computer. I have to have it in tip top shape, my clients don't accept excuses about my computer having issues for projects being late. That is why I invested in Disk Warrior and I routinely run programs like Onyx and Disk Utility to be sure everything is cleaned up.


I know I would be upset too if I was having issues like you are, and believe me I have had my share of days and days and days of troubleshooting. I have also contacted Apple when I have been dissatisified with things like I bought a Pro license for Quicktime 6 and right after that they released Quicktime 7, they refunded my money for Quicktime 6. Same thing happened when I bought this Mac Pro, I also bought a wireless Mighty Mouse (the wired mouse that comes with it is crap), the very next day after it arrived and I had opened the box, they came out with Magic Mouse. I called up customer support and complained that had I known the new mouse was coming I would have waited a day or so and got that mouse. They exchanged it for me at absolutely no cost not even shipping even though the Mighty mouse had been used. So if you are unhappy I suggest calling customer support and not tech support and see if you can get a refund.

Aug 21, 2011 12:19 PM in response to Gigi1701

Thanks - I'm sure it's something to do with these 72 images that it reprocesses every time - several are video (and Aperture says it doesn't recognise the format of any of the ones I've located) and others have the same file name as other images, which could be what's confusing it - but I don't see why iPhoto works just fine with these images - that's where they all came from! And where I shall be going back to...

Aug 21, 2011 12:48 PM in response to andyfromembsay

Hmmm, now that is interesting. That is one thing I did not do, I don't have any libraries from iPhoto imported into Aperture. I don't use iPhoto except when I absolutely had to, for importing images to iMovie and even then I tried to do work arounds. I personally don't like iPhoto that much and is why I am considering Aperture as right now I use Adobe Bridge or an Olympus program that came with my camera to browse photos. Was only considering upgrading to iPhoto 11 because a friend has it on her MacBook Air and it looked better than the 09 version.


Maybe try not using those images or movies and import something fresh like straight from the camera, see if that helps. Files can get corrupted and then give you a world of trouble when you try to use them. Something could be amiss with iPhoto/Aperture import too.


It really seems weird that you are having such issues, so something is messing it up.


ETA: It seems others are having issues with iPhoto and Aperture too - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2458598


Message was edited by: Gigi1701

Aug 22, 2011 9:01 PM in response to sorinfromtoronto

Well, that is good to know. RAM is the key to many things. On my Mac Pro I have 16 gb so having no issues, but my older laptop, MacBookPro 3,1 has only four gb. I was planning to put Aperture on it so I have it when at clients' we can look at the photos I have shot. I haven't upgraded to Lion on it, mostly because of Parallels (not quite dialed in yet), but looks like I would need to upgrade the RAM again to have both Lion and Aperture.


Thank you for the info, it is very,very good to know now before I do the upgrades on the laptop! Also explains the OP's issues. The very first thing I do with a computer is add more RAM. On any given day I have several Adobe CS5 programs open, several browsers, Mail, and dozens of smaller programs open too. Adobe programs are also RAM hogs, big ones, so more memory is step one before even turning the machine on.

Aug 23, 2011 12:44 AM in response to Gigi1701

Thanks - but why in the name of all that's appley do they not say so? And why do they release software that won't work on a machine with their standard spec? As it happens I'm about to upgrade the RAM to 12GB but what a stuoid, stupid piece of design if they know it won't work but they just take your money and don't tell you.


Dilbert, anyone?

Aperture simply unusable on new iMac with Lion

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