Aperture is creating empty projects on start-up

Question

Aperture is creating empty projects on start-up

Hello,

I recently moved my iPhoto contents to Aperture. The transition went fine (i stored the content in Aperture library), and all events were created as projects in Aperture. Albums and faces are also correct.

However, I noticed that some of my projects were duplicated, and the duplicate projects are empty. I deleted the projects, and when i restarted Aperture they were automatically recreated. I deleted them again and emptied trash, but they still were recreated. I deleted the duplicates and renamed the projects to see if that stopped the duplication. But this time Aperture created the old project plus a duplicate, both empty (the renamed project stayed intact with all the photos). Very strange. This only happens to the same seven projects every time (they are not generic photo stream projects such as "oct. 2011 photo stream").

Does anyone know what this is and how I can get rid of the duplication?

Thanks

Posted on Dec 21, 2011 1:13 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 21, 2011 5:27 AM in response to andersfrombergen

Is anything listed at "Aperture→Preferences→Web→Accounts"?

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Answer 2

Dec 21, 2011 6:27 AM in response to Kirby Krieger

Hello!

First of all, thank you for taking time to reply.

There are no web accounts listed. However, I tried turning off photo stream, and that stopped the duplication immediately. The annoying thing now, however, is that if I want to use photo stream, I will have to put up with empty duplicate folders... Any tips or tricks to avoid this?

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Answer 3

Dec 21, 2011 12:39 PM in response to andersfrombergen

Maybe take a look at the section for deleting your preferences file in Troubleshooting Basics.

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Answer 4

Dec 21, 2011 11:17 PM in response to shuttersp33d

Hello,

I tried deleting my preferences without luck. I have however found out that it must be photo stream which is creating this mess. I know now (after checking iPhoto library) that I had at least two projects in iPhoto with the same name. When I imported in to Aperture, it started uploading to photo stream immediately. When I noticed that I had some folders with the same name, I deleted the duplicates. They were however downloaded again from photo stream (as empty projects) when I reopened Aperture, and has done that every time since as long as photo stream is enabled. I believe that photo stream somehow has stored those projects with the project-name, and download those when they are not present in the library. This is just a theory though.

I ended up doing the following:

- Deleted the whole library, including prefs

- Un-installed Aperture (using AppCleaner)

- Opened iPhoto and merged the two (or perhaps four) projects/events with same name. I also deleted photo stream projects/events

- Reset photo stream (I don't lose any photos as they are on my iPhone cam roll or uploaded from an existing project)

- Re-installed Aperture and enabled photo stream before any photos were imported. Deselected automatic uploading and importing.

- Imported iPhoto library once again...

As for now this has worked fine. Perhaps a bit overkill, but it seems to work. I am however uncertain of what happens if I turn on automatic importing of photo stream...

🙂

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Answer 5

Dec 21, 2011 11:41 PM in response to andersfrombergen

Update:

I think I found the answer to my problem in the Aperture 3 User manual:

"Note: When pushing photos to iPhoto or Aperture, Photo Stream downloads photos to iPhoto Events and Aperture projects that have universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) matching those of the photos’ original Events or projects. If you manually create iPhoto Events or Aperture projects with the same names as Events or projects in other libraries, Photo Stream does not recognize those Events or projects as matches. To create matching Events or projects, you must copy them from one library and merge them with the other".

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Answer 6

Feb 25, 2012 7:58 PM in response to andersfrombergen

Thank you for finding and posting this. I don't think I'm appreciating how to rectify the situation. I've got the same problem you described, but I'm hoping to avoid taking all the steps you listed prior to quoting the manual.

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Answer 7

Jul 19, 2012 3:12 AM in response to chicagopjp

I have exactly the same issue, and really don't want to go through all the rigarmoreole of deletion and reinstallation of the program. Has anyone found a more direct cure?

Thanks.

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Answer 8

léonie

Level 10

194,647 points

Jul 19, 2012 3:23 AM in response to bmorebill

The easiest way is to enable Photo Stream, but to turn off the automatic import. Then Photo Stream has no need to import images into specific projects and to create those projects. But you will have to import from your Photostream by manually dragging the images that you want to import into some projects to import to.

For me this works fine, since I do not want all images from the Photo Stream on all devices anyway.

Léonie

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Answer 9

Jul 19, 2012 5:09 AM in response to léonie

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

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Answer 10

Oct 20, 2012 9:45 AM in response to léonie

In addtition to this tip I would mention this. The returning (empty) folders are in fact the automated Photo Stream imports. To completely get rid of them AND still use the Auto-import feature, do the following:

- turn off automatic import for Photo Stream;

- identify 'the ghost'-projectfolders, select and delete them;

- close Aperture (this saves the current setting and condition of your library);

- open Aperture again;

- turn on automatic import for Photo Stream.

After this the 'ghost'-folders did not return and my project-/folder structure remained clean. Hope this helps.

Jannem

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Answer 11

P Diddy

Level 1

18 points

Mar 4, 2013 2:34 PM in response to Jannem1970

Jannem1970 - this issue has bugged me for months. The ghost projects/folders also cause issues with my iTunes sync too. I've tried your solution and it seems to have cured the issue. Many thanks for taking the time to post the solution!

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Answer 12

dac72

Level 1

0 points

Mar 11, 2013 2:47 PM in response to Jannem1970

@Jannem1970 - THANK YOU!!! This was bugging me for such a long time, and not easy to find a resolution. Thanks for your contribution.😉

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Answer 13

Mar 29, 2013 9:45 AM in response to Jannem1970

Hi, your solution worked for me. This was the only annoyance I had with Aperture.

Many thanks! 🙂

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Answer 14

ajhard

Level 1

4 points

Sep 13, 2013 4:29 AM in response to Jannem1970

I'm sure I am going to look really stupid here...I think I have the same problem, but I don't understand what to do to solve it...!

When I open Aperture it creates 2 projects - one called Aug 2013 Photo Stream and one called Sep 2013 Photo Stream. Each with nothing in it. I delete them and then next time I open it they come back.

What exactly do I need to do? I don't think I have any other folders with the same names...

Thanks

Al

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