File acts as an alias but used to be jpeg

Question

Level 1

8 points

File acts as an alias but used to be jpeg

Hi there,

I'm not sure when it happened but I realized after the installation of Lion that a huge number of my pics are somewhat corrupted. I hope that anyone out there has an idea to solve this issue to which even the Apple second level support did not have a clue. I have 2,000 files that used to be jpegs in the iphoto library that currently act as an alias.

iPhoto can open the pictures.
In the Finder, they appear to be aliases having the little arrow on the bottom left and the icon is that of Safari.
Get Info says it's of Kind Alias.
Quick Look shows a small version of the picture and stating "Alias".
QuickChange shows the file type as JPEG/GKON.
The size is that of the pic, not an alias, sometimes being 1 MB.
When opened through double-clicking it reacts like an alias that has lost its original file, displaying the "Fix Alias" error.
When trying to attach a sample file to either Apple Mail or this post, it doesn't recognize the file to attachable, since it seems to be an alias. Zipping helps with Mail but not for this post.

This is clearly a Finder issue which I tried to get rid off using different methods:

Rebuilding the iPhoto Library doesn't work because it doesn't change the master picture
Copying the library using iPhoto Library Manager doesn't work because it doesn't recognize the pics in question as pics and therefore avoids them.
Changing the extension doesn't work because it is already jpg.
Removing the file type doesn't work.

In order to not losing the faces and places information, I have figured out a very time-consuming way to correct the issue. Identify the defective file. Open iPhoto, find the picture, export the pictures. Quit iPhoto. Go to the masters folder in the Finder deep inside the iPhoto Library and move the exported ones there. With over 2,000 of these being in a lot of different folders, this is quite a task.

Does anyone have an idea how to automagically fix this issue?

I would really appreciate if anyone has an idea or can point me to a shortcut.

Thanks.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.1), MacBookPro4,1

Posted on Sep 7, 2011 11:15 AM

Reply

Answer 1

May 15, 2017 6:45 PM in response to jsd2

I have a similar problem. About 450 photos downloaded from an iPhone were changed to Alias files. the extension is still .jpg but all the sizes read 2.6 MB. I downloaded the Path Finder software and was able to uncheck the Alias bit but I still could not open the photo file. The Custom icon box was also checked but unchecking that didn't help either. Do you have another suggestion? I exported the files to a PC but to no avail. I am not able to see a smaller version either.

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Answer 2

jsd2

Level 5

6,245 points

Sep 7, 2011 1:56 PM in response to Dr_O

I sounds as if the "alias bit" on the affected files may have been mistakenly set. This is a metadata attribute that the system uses to flag a file as "kind:alias".

One way to access and change the alias bit is to download and run Path Finder - it has a 30-day free trial period. For safety, be sure you have everything safely backed up before trying any of this:

Navigate to the one of the suspect alias files from within Path Finder, select it, and choose File Menu>Get Info. Path Finder's Get Info window should allow you to clear the alias bit by unchecking the appropriate box:

If that successfully converts the file to a "normal" one, you could then try a batchwise conversion by selecting a number of affected files in Path Finder, and then pressing option-command-I. This hopefully would give you Path Finder's "Inspector" multiple item Info window, and you could then uncheck the alias bit for all of the selected files:

This still doesn't do a recursive conversion of all the files in a folder hierarchy though.

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Answer 3

Dr_O Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 7, 2011 2:49 PM in response to Dr_O

Hi jsd2,

You saved my day! I had tried Path Finder a couple of years ago and remember that it has lots of useful features. I didn't expect that it was this easy. Once I get spotlight running again (it doesn't seem to be able to search on Kind anymore), the rest should be easy.

Again, big thanks.

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Answer 4

jsd2

Level 5

6,245 points

Sep 7, 2011 6:18 PM in response to Dr_O

You're very welcome, glad it worked!

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Answer 5

neonated

Level 1

9 points

Jun 1, 2012 8:55 PM in response to Dr_O

I am having the exact same problem but the Path Finder fix isn't working. I tried doing the long fix that you mentioned in the original post and it changes the file size units from 644 bytes to 80 kb but the picture is still small like a thumbnail. I have a ton of pictures this is happening with and any help would be greatly appreciated. When I tried the Path Finder fix, the picture becomes unusable. It just shows a drawing of JPEG and thats it.

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