iPhoto export error "Unable to create /users/..."

Hi, I am having the same error while exporting from iphoto also.

I tried all the stuff mentioned in the post but nothing helped so I started digging into it more to narrow down the issue.

Here is my finding.

Also wanted to mention that I even tried copying and pasting the pictures, which are giving me, trouble but hat doesn't work as well. I am having no problem exporting out video or any other specific type of file but the problem seems to be limited to only two of my events (in iphoto). When I compared the pictures in these folders to the one in other folders / events the one thing I noticed is that under the information side there is one thing missing from these pictures (which are not getting exported). On the top right corner of the picture there is some information which says "AWB" which are not on the pictures with the issue but exist on pictures which are getting exported ok. Not sure what this is but except for this there seems to be no difference, which I can find.

Information displayed for problem files

Information dispalyed for files which are exporting ok

AWB stands for Automatic White Balance. It may have been turned off in the camera or the files are damaged somehow and that info can't be read. Check the camera to see if AWB is set or not.

Select the thumbnail for the problem photos and use the File ➙ Reveal in Finder menu option. That will take you to the original file inside the iPhoto Library package via the Finder with the file preselected. COPY the file to the desktop and open it with Preview.

When viewing with Preview type Command+i to bring up the Info window. Click on the EXIF button and check to see if what the white balance is listed at.

Thanks for the info.

I tried "Reveal in Finder on different photoes under the two events I am having issues with and get the following error.

The original files for those problem export file are missing. That's why you can't export. Since there's on a couple of themn you can try to recover them from your Time Machine backups. Copy the file names of those files and then delete them from the library.

Next download and use Find Any File to search for each file name on the external HD that houses your Time Machine backups. Each search can take up to 1 minute due to the complex nature of the TM backup structure. When the file is found just drag it from the search result window to your Desktop.

If you have many missing originals then your best bet would be to restore your entire library from a time just before you noticed this problem.

Thanks.

I tried all my previous time machine backups and seems like these files have been missing for a while as I can't find the files in any of my backups.

ONe question, Why are the thumbnails still there if the files are not present. I have done a repain and rebuild on the DB so should iphoto not realized that the files are missing (I have no idea in the first place why they wnet missing as I don't delete picturs once imported to iphoto) and removed the events. Under events you can see that I can still look for the information for these files and it tells me the size, name etc.

It means that the original file was deleted, moved, renamed via the Finder somewho and NOT by iPhoto. Therefore the thumbnails will still be in the library as well as the other information you can see. You can delete them in the normal manner to get rid of the thumbnails.

Same problem occurred today, iPhoto 09, OS 10.6.8, Snow Leopard. Successfully exported a group of 200 photos (jpeg max quality, title name) to a desktop file, then for a second group I kept getting the "unable to create ..." message. Finally found one damaged jpeg image in that group: thumbnail looked fine but when I clicked on edit to enlarge it, there was no image, only the scary "!" in a black circle. After deleting it I was able to go back & complete my exporting.

That ! mark appears when the file path to the original is broken. It can be repaired by launching iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuilding the library's database.

Great to learn that, thanks. The hard drive on my little iMac is nearly full, I'm juggling 32GB of available space until I can afford a new one, so I probably won't try that rebuild step right now, fortunately this only happened to me this one time!

YES, that is my problem. I used the "All Movies" smart folder in my finder to bring up videos, and deleted from there (and now realize what a bad move that was). Now the thumbnails are showing up in iPhoto even though the original file is gone. Is there another way to fix this besides finding the thumbnails I deleted one by one or using an old back up? For exmple, could I create a new library and import all "Originals" from my old iPhoto Library? Thanks for your help!

All I can suggest is to to create a smart album in iPhoto with the one of these two criterias:

1 - keyword is movie (I believe all movies imported into iiPhoto get tagged with a movie keyword)

2 - file name contains .mov

Then you can go thru each movie to find those that were deleted and remove them from the library using the Command+Option+Delete key combination to move them from the Smart Album to the iPhoto Trash. Then use the Shift+Command+Delete key combination to empty the trash bin.

Thank you!! I did that and it worked great. Thanks!

What exactly does "nearly full" mean? If you have less than 10GB of free space you are risking everything - it is possible to damage teh iPhoto library be3yond repair - even damage the OS - or the computer

How much free space do you have?

32GB shoud be OK - so not sure where you are

LN

The bottom line here is that there is a bad file - it could be a movie file, a "png" file, a "jpg" or anything. Rebuilding the iphoto database probably will not help. I hit the error when I was exporting about 20,000 images to an SD card for use in a digital photo frame. The logical thing is to create an empty folder for exporting and then count how many files had been transferred before the error occurred. Provided the selection is sorted in the same order as they are exported then you should be able to find the offending image/movie by counting. However, this can be dificult if you have a large number of images - as its not always easy to locate the nth image exported. In this case, its better to try to breaking the export into blocks that you can identify and keep making the block smaller but still causing the error. For example select the first half of the original selection and export. If the error occurs, there is a bad file in this block. Then keep halving the size of the "bad" block until you are down to a few files. In my case, I managed to locate 2 (consquetive) bad files in 20,000 in about 20 mins.

Late to the party on this as I only just recently started having the same problem when trying to export singleor multiple JPG images, but would appreciate any feedback before I try some of the "remedies" above. Here's the reason: they all involve restarting iPhoto after the "fix" is performed, but I have found the restart alone gets export working again. MY PROMBLEM is iPhoto will only allow ONE export, whether it's one or multiple files, before the error returns. The first export after starting up goes fine, but when I try another export, one or more files, I get the "unable to create ..." message. Close iPhoto, reopen back in the same album and I can export with no trouble. Try to do a second export and error comes up again. I can do this over and over, start export, shut down, start again and export etc. but only one export per startup. What's the deal with that? Seems whatever the problem is, it is cleared up with a simple restart and then comes right back after one export.