Master files are both referenced and managed (or neither)?

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Level 4

1,010 points

Master files are both referenced and managed (or neither)?

Hi All,

Just got back from vacation and something weird is going on.

I had a number of projects (about 10) with referenced masters. To the best of my knowledge, all photos were referenced. I used the "File Status" filter to confirm that all files were referenced, and not missing.

I used the "Consolidate masters" for all projects. However, one project gave me the following error:

Unavailable masters images cannot be consolidated.

The selected master images are either offline or not found.

When presenting that error, Aperture gave me the option of canceling, or continuing. I chose the option to continue -- to consolidate all masters which Aperture determined could be consolidated.

Now, in that project, every photo is managed. That means that Aperture consolidated all masters, even after telling me that there were masters which would not be found and therefore not colsolidated.

Now, using the "File Status" filters, no photos show up with "referenced". However, I get the same error (same as I did initially) if I try to use the "consolidate masters" function. This is in contrast to other projects with no referenced photos. In that case, Aperture says "No Referenced Files". Also, if I try to "locate referenced files...", Aperture tells me there are "No referened Files" as well.

So, it appears that I have a master image that is referenced and missing, but that I also have no referenced images! Does anyone have any idea what is going on here? I'm afraid I'm missing some photos with no real way to tell!

nathan

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Aperture 3.2.2

Posted on Mar 30, 2012 7:51 PM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Mar 30, 2012 11:04 PM in response to Mr Endo

Welcome back, Nathan! I hope you had a pleasant trip and brought back plenty of great photos!

Where are your zombie-masters (neither referenced nor managed) now? Are they inside the Aperture Library "Masters" folder or are they de facto referenced and still outside the library package?

During the last year we saw quite a few posts with that kind of problem and never could fix it, if it is really the weird problem of Aperture not finding some managed masters inside its own library 😟 afaik. If you can locate the master files using the Finder, have a look at the filenames (white scace, ethnic characters, uppercase, lower case) and permissions. Hopefully this time with your help we can find out what is going on.

Regards

Léonie

P.S.:

As you know the drill I assume you have done the basic trouble shooting 😝

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Answer 2

Mr Endo Author

Level 4

1,010 points

Apr 27, 2012 3:24 PM in response to léonie

Leonie,

Thanks for the reply. Sorry to have lost this message, although my problem still exists.

Basic troubleshooting didn't help anything.

Unfortunately, I cannot identify what photos Aperture thinks are the trouble. However, my masters are both inside the library and outside. Funny quirk of Aperture -- if you have a master referenced in more than one project, Aperture will not actually move the file when you select move from the Consolidate Masters window. And yes, I am in that case. I made a huge mess of my vacation photos, so I had them referenced in two projects -- one was the mess (intending to get rid of that one), and one was the "good" version.

So.... The photos that are managed in my library also have masters outside the library. However, I cannot identify any photo that is missing from either place. Apeture thinks there is photo missing and just won't tell me what it is!

The file names are default from my camera, so there are no special characters or anything.

Thanks for the reply. I suppose I will just live with it, since I don't appear to be missing anything.

nathan

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Apr 27, 2012 4:02 PM in response to Mr Endo

Nathan,

that is really a tricky constallation!

Is the project with unclear file status very large, and did you already invest a lot of work into editing and tagging the images? If not, then I would simply export the Master Image files of that project again, and then compare, if you got all masters exported. Maybe you can spot your missing photo this way. Then delete the project in question and reimport the exported masters, managed.

Regards

Léonie

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Answer 4

Apr 27, 2012 4:59 PM in response to Mr Endo

Hi nathan -- good to see you back, and let me echo Léonie's wishes that you returned with good photos (and that they don't fall endlessly into your Aperture 😉 .)

You say:

Funny quirk of Aperture -- if you have a master referenced in more than one project, Aperture will not actually move the file when you select move from the Consolidate Masters window.

Can you explain how you got to that point? My understanding -- and please forgive me if I'm being thick; it's been a very long week -- is that it is impossible to have Images in separate Projects which have the same Master.

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Answer 5

Apr 27, 2012 6:10 PM in response to Mr Endo

Wow you really did make a huge mess of it (or else you discovered a weird Aperture wormhole) 😁

Mr Endo wrote:

Funny quirk of Aperture -- if you have a master referenced in more than one project, Aperture will not actually move the file when you select move from the Consolidate Masters window. And yes, I am in that case. I made a huge mess of my vacation photos, so I had them referenced in two projects -- one was the mess (intending to get rid of that one), and one was the "good" version.

Anyway I just did to an image what you said you did. I imported an image into two separate projects both referencing the same external file. When I selected both those images and ran consolidate masters, selecting move file as the action, the single master file was added to the library twice. Each image now has its own master. Just to be sure I looked in the library package and the master file is in there twice.

So whatever else is going on with your library this isn't the problem. You should be able to consolidate masters and have it work as it should.

regards

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Answer 6

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Apr 28, 2012 1:45 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

My test setup:

Two projects referencing the same masters.

I then consolidated the first project, using the "move" option: Aperture copied - not moved - the masters into the library. Now I have duplicate masters, project "Patagonia" managed, project "Patagonia2" referenced.

No problem, now I have duplicate managed masters.

But after deleting both projects, Aperture still showed the most recently imported project in the the browser, with corrupted thumbnails.

I then did the experiment Frank described: selecting both projects at the same time and doing "Consolidate masters" by "moving", and this time again created duplicate managed masters.
Last experiment: Joining the two projects referencing the same masters into one project and consolidating by moving the masters: Again duplicate masters, and no broken links.

Regards

Léonie

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