iphoto corrupting photos from iPhone while importing

I had problems like the original poster - images being corrupted with coloured blocks and noise, videos going missing, etc. And the problem happened sometimes, then stopped happening the second time I imported. Unlike some, for me Image Capture always seemed to work fine but iPhoto's import broke the images about half the time (but perhaps I never imported enough via Image Capture to break it).

Rebuilding my iPhoto library from scratch has (so far) stopped photos from being corrupted when they are imported into iPhoto.

If you doubt it, try it and report back - create a new iphoto library with no images and try importing your photos into there, then transfer them later into your real library. This will prove or disprove my theory, and help Apple to fix the bug.

I recently rebuilt my iPhoto database -- using iPhoto.

I initially rebuilt my iPhoto DB using iPhoto's repair function, and it didn't work for me either. However the fresh rebuild approach I described has worked for me so far - it's been about 6 weeks and half a dozen imports now, so fingers crossed.

My reasoning for trying it was, as a software developer myself, I was sure they'd have automated unit tests built for pretty-much every feature of the software, but those tests would probably be based on a new, small database - it makes them fast to run through their test suite that way. I doubt they'd have created many unit tests using a 124 GB database initially built in iPhoto 05 like mine. So, I figured I'd reset my environment to match theirs.

Anyway, as always your mileage may vary, and I hope my advice has been helpful to someone out there. And good luck - it's a ****** feeling losing precious memories.

For what it's worth, someone posted above that starting with a fresh library didn't solve the corruption problem. And although I admire what you've done, I don't really understand how the iPhoto DB could cause photo corruption (even though I can imagine that it might cause photo loss). Years ago, I argued with Phil Schiller that iPhoto shouldn't have been designed with a proprietary storage format, and he replied that it didn't use one. Indeed, photos are stored normally within various folders inside the iPhoto Library. The "database" to which you refer doesn't contain photos at all, but rather information about the photos. And iPhoto isn't supposed to be manipulating the information stored in photos at all, unless you ask it to. So I have trouble understanding how a corrupt database could lead to corrupt photos.

Having exact same problem as OP. Been going on for months. Just reported it to Apple.

Exact same issue as OP. V unhappy as lost 10 important pics. Won't check the "delete" option, when importing in future, but seems obvious data corruption on transfer error as opposed to iPhoto database.

V dissapointed, Apple. It should either work or error out, not trash memories!

Hoping for quick fix (but not that enthusiastic, considering how long issue has been around).

I'm wondering whether anyone else is running Image Capture at the same time as iPhoto (I am). I first download videos using Image Capture, then delete them -- to avoid downloading them into iPhoto. Then I launch iPhoto, usually while leaving Image Capture running, and then import the photos using iPhoto.

I have a hunch that this might be causing problems.

Yes. I am actually now using image capture to import the images to iPhoto. I have had one or two instances where the image sets have been corrupt with artefacts (etc) but have spotted them, re-imported with the same method and had success.

It certainly is not pretty and not what you'd expect from Apple (I hope), but none the less I've had the issue now for at least half a year. I use an iPhone 4, connected to a Macbook Pro iCore7 with all OS software and iPhoto software up to date.

I just run Image Capture on its own (I don't use iPhoto), and it still corrupts a few photos every 2 or 3 imports.

I'm seeing the issue randomly with Image Capture and I find it Incredibly frustrating. I'm spending a lot of time (hours) manually verifying all the photos and videos that I imported from my iPhone. Then re-importing the problem ones and verifying that they re-imported correctly.

I'm going to try iExplorer tonight; this issue really needs to be addressed.

Still happening, more frequently actually. With image capture or iPhoto. Also, if the computer has been left on and I reattach the iPhone with new images, there is no recognition of this on either application until after I reboot the iMac.

Very poor by Apple's standards. I reported it some time ago, no doubt others have and my expectation would be that this had been attended to by now in updates. Another reason to look at a device in the future which has expandable memory which can be mounted as a drive itself, with pictures transferred that way.

I am having this problem with both stills and videos. I stopped deleting on the phone and had to re-import 1 photo at a time. This seems to solve the problem for now. Maybe coincidence but in the last 12 months Apple has put out innumerable buggy and apparently untested products out there including OS X Lion and iPhoto. There is an arrogance here which will come back to bite it. People are not idiots and patience only lasts so long.

I've been using Image Capture for the last month or so with no issues...but I'm not holding my breath.

MAKE SURE YOU REPORT THE PROBLEM TO APPLE!

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html

The problem affects the iPhone4S, iMac I5, Aperture, all latest versions of software. I uploaded an album of the images that were viewable. Many other images could not be viewed. If an apple engineer wants those images or any other help debugging this SEVERE issue, please let me know.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150937979037270.433525.659307269&typ e=1&l=9bad455935

What I want to know is how Aperture is saving the corrupted images in the backup folder, in addition to the database. Files that were transferred with the same USB cable to a PC did not have issues.

Does this problem ONLY affect the iPhone 4S transferring to a Mac (regardless of iPhoto or Aperture)?

Thanks.

No, I have the problem with iPhone 4, 2010 MacBook Pro 17", 10.6.8 and Image Capture (v6.0).