Unexpected Vault Behavior- missing images

First -- only because your write-up is inclusive and this wasn't there -- check to see if those are rejected Images (i.e.: rated "x" or its odd keyboard equivalent, "9").

Also make sure Aperture has finished processing. You never know.

My next suggestion is too late: always run "Repair Library" prior to moving a Library.

That makes me think that maybe running "Repair" on your new, diminished Library might have some effect.

Fwiw, my experience with moving very large Libraries (>100,000 Images) is that a handful of Masters are always lost. This has happened whether I moved the Masters separately and then located them (i.e.: reconnected them) or used "File→Relocated Masters". "Handful" = <15. I put this down to low-level drive errors (I have not scanned the drives by sector).

I have never lost a Version, however. (I don't use Vaults.)

Comparing Masters between two Libraries is inelegant, but not difficult. Comparing Versions is probably the same. Just for fun 😝 you could put a tag on all the Versions in the smaller Library, then merge it back into the original Library and then filter the resulting Library for "Does not have tag".

Keep us posted. Good Luck.

The 31.16 GB discrepancy is in the sizes of the two .aplibrary folders? And you see the difference in image counts by looking at the count in the Photos view or by looking at the toatal number of images listed in the Library Choice window? And are all the images in the library managed?

Need to give this more thought but for now is there anything in Images Removed from VaulttotalNamed folder (located in the folder where the vault is).

One other thing to try as you still have the original library is to create a new vault from it and compare that vault to the one you just updated.

Also the standard questions, the drive you are vaulting to and restoring to are formatted OS X Extended and are local?

DLScreative wrote:

Frank Caggiano wrote:

The 31.16 GB discrepancy is in the sizes of the two .aplibrary folders? And you see the difference in image counts by looking at the count in the Photos view or by looking at the toatal number of images listed in the Library Choice window? And are all the images in the library managed?

Yes the discrepancy is in the sizes of the two .aplibrary folders. I'm looking at the count in the Photos view. It's a mixed (about 50/50) managed/ referenced library. I did check to see if offline images were the culprit. No dice.

Even though you have moved on from this and appear to not have the time to go any further troubleshooting the problem I do have one further question.

In my original reply I asked how you were coming up with the image count in the library. You indicated it was from the count in the Photos view. I would also be curious to see how that count compares to the count given in the Library choice window. If you find the tie could you post that.

regards

Ps And as far as the suggestion that larger databases are somehow less robust then small databases, that opinion has no basis in fact. There are lot of reasons to choose a managed or a referenced workflow. Library size isn't one of them.

I never use Vault, and thus cannot answer a question that comes to mind about new masters that are created whenever you choose to edit a photo in an externall editor. Are those also backed up via Vault?

Ernie

Hi Ernie -- The answer is "Yes". Afaik, they are always created as Managed Masters, and as Managed Masters are automatically included in any newly-created Vault or added to any existing Vault when that Vault is updated.

DLSCreative was comparing a Library restored from a just-completed Vault to the original Library. Since no changes were made to the Library, the two should be identical, regardless of the file status of the Image's Masters.

The one thing I can think of is that creating and restoring from a Vault could give Aperture a chance to recover wasted disk space inside the Library. I don't know any way to check this -- it would be good to know. But 31 GB seems to be _way_ too much space to recover through database compaction.

I think he means when you hold down the Option Key while launching Aperture, and highlight each of the available libraries. A count of versions and Masters is presented with each.

Ernie

The window you get when you select Switch to other Library:

At the bottom where it shows the complete path for the selected library it also shows the number of masters and versions in that library.

Database's in general are one of the most reliable pieces of software out there. They have been around since allmost the beginning and have been extensivly studied and refined. One of the problems IMO is that then Aperture library isn't a database, its a mishmash of database files and flat files which actually make the code more complex then it needs to be. Hopefully at some future point the Aperture library will become a true database.

Until then we have to work with what we have and adressing the problems we encounter. We all have our own particular vodoo we use to try and cope with the isues. Just bear that in mind when recommendations are made here.

regards

I have one library where there 108 versions and 176 Masters. Although this was a test of a Referenced Library, I can also confirm that the difference is due to there being a pair of RAW + JPEG. The reason the Master count was not double was that there were JPEG alternatives created in Photoshop in the folder as well.

In the Browser view of the Project there is only one version counted for the pairs. That version can be changed with the Command in the drop down under Photo to be set either from the JPEG Master or RAW Master without changing the count.

Do you have some pairs in this database?

Ernie

I just completed a very interesting, and I think important test. I successfully used SuperDuper's Smart Update to create a full backup of my large Managed Library. The copy I updated was from early July, and was about 840 GB in size, and had over 50,000 images. (There are more recent backups, btw.) The current Library to be backed up is 888 GB is size, with over 55,000 images. Copying this in the Finder, in full, would take on the order of 5+ hours if both drives are internal, and a great deal longer if using an external as the target.

This Smart Update was accomplished in 36 minutes. It reports the exact same number of Versions and Masters as the source library, and opens without issue. The very few referenced images retained their path of connection as in the original Library.

One thing I had to remember to do, since the target library copy was done prior to the most recent Aperture and OSX updates, was to remember to open it in Aperture and let it be upgraded before attempting the Smart Update in SD. I had tried this once before, with another volume, but since I had not allowed it to be upgraded, the Smart Update found nothing up-to-date and had to copy in full.

This is very handy, and time saving procedure. I will likely continue to do some full copying in the Finder if for no other reason than to assure minimal fragmentation in the volume exclusively devoted to the library. With the Managed Library and clones as backups, I am ready toi go if something goes wrong without having to restore from Vault, say.

Ernie