Aperture 3.4 will not open.

Where in the library folder? Is it in a particular folder within Library? What's the complete path so I can locate it.

Is it in a particular folder within Library? What's the complete path so I can locate it.

Are you asking about the Aperture preferences file? It is in your Home folder.

The User library is hidden in MacOS Lion and later, so use the Finder's "Go" menu:

Finder > GO hold down the "Options" key, until the library appears in the menu, select it.

The path to the preferences:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Aperture.plist

UPDATE: Found the hidden library and moved com.apple.aperture.plist to my desktop. Aperture opened without error this time and I pointed it to the correct library. All is well for now. Cost me 3-4 hours to sort out and thanks to those who suggested this fix.

Hi Mtn Ed, if you look through this thread, removing the plist may not be a permanent fix for the issue. If you re-enable FaceBook you may run into the issue again.

The best solution would probably be to re-install Apetrure and then update to 3.4 if you bought a physical copy of Aperture, or just delete and re-install 3.4 from the Mac App Store if you bought the app there.

Aperture 3.4 crashed repeatedly on start up and deleting the plist file worked for me.

Shoddy upgrade though. My mother would have been terrified.

Same story here. Didn't buy from App store but have been around since early versions on DVD.

Same library opens fine in iPhoto, but Aperture is crashing no matter what I do. Not very Mac like... :-/

Looking forward to the 3.4.1. patch.......

@jhave Why wait? Just reinstall/reupdate and you are good to go?

I may have already asked, but where in the Library folder can I find com.apple.Aperture.plist ? What's the path to get to it?

Worked great - thanks.

And it lasted. While deleting the plist would make the issue re-appear, uninstalling completely and re-installing from DVD, then updating fixes it, and even makes FB integration work.

Hard to believe Apple is still pushing the update as is and hasn't removed it yet for a fix.... 😟

Thanks all.

Dan

Well, reinstall what? I don't have the DVD, password and all that crap anymore. Could just buy a new version from the App store (paying only 63 EUR) and I would be OK... I suppose.

Goody – The answer is, don't delete your plist. Delete Aperture from your /Applications folder and reinstall it.

I don't have the DVD, password and all that crap anymore

If you can get Aperture to run for a moment - from a different user account, or on a new empty library, you can see your Aperture serial number in the about panel in the main menu bar:

Aperture > About Aperture

If you do no longer have the install DVDs, use the Trial Download:

Try if this download link for the trial version still works: if yes, you can unlock it with your serial number:

Regards

Léonie

JUST deleting the plist seems to have worked fine for me, over several hours and restarts. So far. What causes the issue to reappear?

Goody64: The plist preferenes are hidden in User/Library/Preferences. You'll have to use something to show hidden files - I use Pathfinder. But note it is not working for everyone! It seems the easiest fix to try first though.

I imagine the Aperture team are being flooded with crash reports at this very moment.

I just had the same problem on two different Macs. I phoned AppleCare.

They know about the bug. They believe it impacts people who previously used MobileMe with Aperture (I did). My other half didn't have the upgrade problem, but my other half also didn't use Aperture with MobileMe.

I was fearful that, since it said a library upgrade was required, that it damaged my library. Turns out the library upgrade was fine and all photos were fine. The issue is a .plist file corruption, but that's very easy to fix.

The fix is:

Close all apps.

Open Finder.

Hold the "alt" key on the keyboard and click the "Go" pull-down menu (in finder) which causes the "Library" folder to appear (the "Library" folder wont be in the list if you aren't holding down "alt".)

Pick the "Library" folder.

Navigate to the "Preferences" sub-folder (under Library)

Find the file named "com.apple.Aperture.plist" and drag it to the Desktop (you can drag it anywhere as loing as you get it out of the ~/Library/Preferences folder.

ALSO... if you have a "com.apple.Aperture.plist.lockfile" (and you probably will) then you need to drag that file out of the Preferences folder (e.g. drag it to the Desktop) as well.

NOW start Aperture.

You'll probably get a message that the last time you tried to run it, it kept crashing. Just click continue.

Since you've moved the preferences file, you will get a few prompts that you're not used to seeing (I think you get a screen offering to give you an overview/tutorial, you'll be asked if you want to use it when a camera is connected to the Mac, and you'll get a prompt asking if you want it to show you were photos were taken on a map (which requires an interaction with Apple which would send the GPS coordinates of all your photos to them.) Aperture will create a fresh .plist file (non-corrupt.)

After that, Aperture will work normally again.

Once you've verified that Aperture is working, you can delete the copy of the old (corrupt) .plist files that you sent to your desktop. Just drag them to the trash.