Exclamation mark instead of pictures (sophisticated)

See the options above, depending on your version of iPhoto.

I tried the iPhoto Library Manager -

Got error message: "The new library could not be created. Check to make sure you have sufficient permission to write in the enclosing folder."

Hunh? I'm the administrator - what more do they want?

I would say they want you to check the permissions on the enclosing folder. Have you tried that?

I'm sorry - I don't know what that means.

Where are you trying to save the new library? Find that folder, select it and type Command+i to bring up the Info window for it. It will look like this:

If you don't have Read & Write access to the folder click on the pad lock and change it.

OT

I'm having a similar problem and I'm really worried that I lost my pictures.

So everything started yesterday when by mistake I merged two of my biggest events. After that I tried to separate them so I cut and paste pictures in and out until I was done. The thumballs are fine but when I open some of the pictures they are gone and only the huge exclamation sign appears, the actual picture appears for a second and the turns into !. So I tried the command+option and all of the options it offers and nothing helped. So I decided to just restore a backup from the day before. Now the events look exactly like they did originally before I started all this mess BUT those pictures with the ! still wont open properly. I have only checked that one event so I'm not sure how many pictures are actually messed up of my 27000+. Help please! I have iPhoto '11 version 9.4.3 (720.91) I just did a new repair database and it still wont work... I forgot to add that iPhoto permanently freezes when I try to browse through my pictures, this is happening only since yesterday..

See my answer to yoru duplicate post - once per issue is actually better that multiple posts in different threads

LN

Could you link to that? I gave up in despair in May...

Link to what? Pronouns must have antecedents. The solution and links to IPLM are in the second post and the solution. What exactly do you need?

LN

The antecedent is your answer to Maje2012's post that starts "I'm having a similar problem and I'm really worried that I lost my pictures." Your answer is copied below:

LarryHN

See my answer to yoru duplicate post - once per issue is actually better that multiple posts in different threads

LN

I can't explain why this works, but it did for me. I was having a similar problem, only so far, only a few of mine are displaying the exclamation mark.

When browsing my photos, I have them opened in "Info" mode all the time so I can name faces and enter key words. I discovered some that had the exclamation mark and nearly panicked. Read a lot of threads.

When I click on "Edit" in the lower right, suddenly, the full picture appears. When I deselect "edit" or go back to "info" the picture disappears again. If I apply an edit to the photo, then the picture stays for all modes. When I click back on "info" the edited picture is now displayed. Then I go back to "edit" and "revert to original" and now the original is displayed without any problem, in all modes. It also works if I select "none" as an editing overlay option.

Like I said above, I don't know why this works. I assume that it re-writes the entry into the database. It's certainly slow when dealing with thousands of pictures, but it works on my machine. Hopefully it will on yours too.

iPhoto 9.5.1

iMac 27" i7, 32 GB Ram, 3TB Fusion

I just moved my library from my 2010 MBP to the new machine a couple weeks ago.

I noticed this exclamation mark was appearing occasionally in place of the original photo in iPhoto 8. I went to Finder, searched on the last 5 digits of the original photo, the name produced by the camera and found my missing 03502 photo in three places two of which were in iPhoto Library and one of which was under Pictures. I dragged the latter into iPhoto and deleted the original with exclamation mark. All's fine now but my py pic is showing at the same size of 2.5Mb. Sheer luck or had I exported the photo (it would never have been at the 2,5Mb rez!) from iPhoto to there recently I don't now but perhaps that caused the problem in the first place - I had split events in that folder and that always leads to some sort of mess. Comments?

Never make changes to the iPhoto Library from the Finder.

You also should have a comprehensive back up strategy.

I avoided the two in iPhotoi Library and only moved the one under Pictures which I assume I must have exported at some point from iPhoto to use as an online attachment. I'd bet in the distant past I have moved out of Library which may have caused past problems. I guess Time Machine is my backup but I am not savvy or brave enough to rebuild iPhoto from it.