I have to locate masters upon every Aperture run

Thanks a lot Léonie.

I have tryed the entire procedure, but with no luck. According to the article you sent me I have only two more options, one is to reinstall Aperture and the other is to rebuild the entire database.

Before going into that direction, I'd really like to understand what happened.

One more detail that might be helpful is that when I open the Locate Master window, in the upper left frame, I always see the volume with the masters "offline". If this can be useful the volume in question is my home directory (which is online by definition).

If I try to mount it, nothing happens, the mount button simply goes gray.

On startup I get no errors inside the console, except this one:

5/7/12 6:26:28.579 PM Aperture: The class 'NSProMenuItem' overrides the method identifier. This method is implemented by class 'NSMenuItem'

which sounds completely safe. Is there a way to get Aperture to log more verbosely?

Thanks

Egidio

Hello Léonie,

thanks again for your help. I have done all the test you have suggested, and here are my comments.

And your home-directory is on the system volume, or have you moved it to an external volume? is your home folder maybe on a file server?

Have you recently checked your harddrive? Use Didk Utility to check your system drive.

My home folder is local and on the internal HD. With some application I've had issues due to the fact my volume is encrypted with FileVault, but I don't think this is relevant with Aperture as also on the other computer I use FileVault, and Aperture works seamlessly.

You mean the moun/unmount button in the screenshot above?

This may happen, if Aperture notices, that the volume is online already.

Yes, that's exactly the button I was referring to. Don't you think it is a little strange that if Aperture notice the volume is already online, then it marks it as offline? Plus what I find inconsistent is that once you click on mount, nothing happens

You also have removed the Preferences, right?

Yes, of course

I still think their might be something wrong either with your Library or some settings in your User account, so that Aperture cannot store the correct status of the master files.

You could do two tests, to check that:

• create a new, empty Aperture library for testing and import a few images; reference these. See if you have the same trouble with this new library.
• If the new library works fine, then the problem is probably your old library.

I have created a new library, then I have imported few images, first inside Aperture's Library, and (of course) no issues in keeping files' location. Then I've tried to relocated the masters outside Aperture's Library and I've experiences the usual problem at startup

If also the new library does not work, try the same from a new user account. If you have the same trouble in different ,new account, then it is a system wide trouble, and either your hardware, your system, or Aperture needs fixing.

This test worked fine. After the creation of the library in the new account, the import of few images (this time directly as references masters), at Aperture restart everything was correctly referenced inside Aperture.

Then it might well be that Aperture installation needs fixing. Actually the weird behavior has always happened since the installation of Aperture. The computer having problems is relatively new, and I have installed Aperture there since no more than 45 days. I doubt there is a hardware issue, as I suppose I might have notices several other effects. The Disk Utility verify routine run smoothly and so far I haven't seen anything strange, outside Aperture.

If you find, that only your current library does not work, then try the last option and rebuild your library (rebuid database); but make sure you have a working backup, before you do that.

I'm using at least 4 different library and I'm experiencing the very same issue everywhere, consistently. One library is Aperture's default one, another one has been imported from the other computer, then one created as an export from the second Library and the latest one has been created from scratch by -double clicking on Aperture's icon.

At this point do you still think that a library rebuild might make any difference.

Since your masters are on the same volume as your Aperture library, you may also consider to consolidate the library temporarily after rebuilding it. This will move the master image files into your Aperture library and turn your library into a managed library, If this works, you can relocate the masters again to reference them later.

Once I'll have at least one working Library, no problem in moving all the file inside the main Library and then relocate them later on.

"Rebuild Database" cannot fix all corruptions. There are other options to recreate an Aperture library, but those are more involved, so we should stick with the routine procedure for now.

Thanks again for your help

Best Regards,

Egidio

Hello Léonie,

I believe you have found the problem. Actually a Library created outside the Vault volume (on an external hard disk) doesn't seem to be affected by this problem. This is somehow weird, but this is the result of the test.

After discovering the security issue of the File Vault (version 1) I think I can conclude it is at least very poorly implemented!!

Thanks a lot for your help. I'll try what happens with Filve Vault v2 and see if this problem persist and just in case I'll post the conclusions here.

Best,

Egidio

Hi all.

I have removed filevault (v1) and planning to move to version 2 in the near future, hoping it is a better piece of software.

Anyway I have an even worse problem now!

At Aperture first launch after filevault removal I had to relink all the masters through the usual Locate Referenced Files...

This library has a small amount of images (around 3000), but I have been able to reconnect only around 2800. The remainin 219 cannot be reconnected and I can't understand why. I can't really find a common pattern, except that all the offline masters are jpg images.

There is just one more detail. The timestamp timezone of the image master Aperture is looking for is different from the one Aperture finds in the master I indicate as the file to reconnect. But I'm not able to find what metadata field Aperture is using to grab this information (just in case I could change it through exiftool.

Here are some screenshot that should describe the issue much better than my poor english.

First of all the "locate References File..." browser window with the two different timezones

And here are 2 metadata subsets that show how Aperture actually report the correct timezone in the versions information

Thanks a lot for any suggestion!!

Best regards.

Egidio

Thanks a look. It worked like a charme.

Best,

Egidio