iPhoto 9.4 update very buggy - HELP !!

I get this too. I was on Mountain Lion, just updated to 10.8.2, then updated iPhoto from 9.3.2 to 9.4. Now when I go to Faces, scrolling will only work if I scroll slowly. If I scroll too fast, it stops working until I close iPhoto and open back up. When scrolling isn't working, I can still use the up and down cursors to move up and down, and I can hold down fn key and use up and down cursors to page up and page down. But scrolling is shot as far as I can tell until I close and open iPhoto.

Not sure about the other items you mentioned, but I can definitely confirm Problem #1 is an issue.

I also found that when scrolling stops working, I will still see the slider bar on the right side going up and down when I scroll, or I can click on slider bar and drag it up or down as normal. It's just that the pictures in the main section do not scroll with it. However, if I click on the screen, and happen to click on a spot where a picture would be had the scrolling taken effect, it has the effect of selecting the picture at that spot wherever you scrolled to, and the screen suddenly jumps to where you scrolled to and the picture you just selected is highlighted in blue. If you click somewhere where there isn't a photo (at the place where you scrolled to but can't see yet), then it doesn't do anything. So it appears there is an issue with the main section being redrawn properly to match where the scrolling is supposed to be. Again, this happens the first time after opening iPhoto and going to Faces that I scroll quickly enough that iPhoto can't keep up.

Slight update: Sometimes it will jump to where I scrolled to after I click as I described above and there won't be a picture highlighted at that point. But it will definitely jump or not jump depending on where I click.

Problem #2

A more serious problem was that when syncing my Apple TV (1st generation), iPad 2 and iPhone 4S (both with iOS 6) the Photos tab in iTunes displayed extra events that do not exist (the names indicate old previously deleted ones). In addition, there is a long list of spurious (never existed), and empty events that are named with dates in the past month. As an example there are 6 events with the name "August 14" and they are shown to be empty. These extra and spurious events are only visible in iTunes when the Photos tab is selected when syncing my Apple TV, iPad or iPhone. None of the these extra events sync to any device even when selected, likely because they are empty.

1 - open your iPhoto Library with the Finder as shown in this screenshot:

2 - locate the AlbumData.xml file and move it to the Desktop. Make no other changes inside the library.

3 - launch iPhoto so it can rebuild that AlbumData.xml file.

4 - now try your AppleTV.

Those old, empty event folders inside the library should be gone.

OT

The bug in iPhoto has been identified and reported to Apple - they are reportedly working on a fix. The current version of iPhoto doesn't create "well formed" XML - so deleting and rebuilding the AlbumData.xml file may merely rebuild the problem. The Apple TV and iTunes can't read the bad XML, and the result is a scrambled mess.

If you can't wait for 9.4.1, then you might want to try editing your Photo Albums. For many people, the problems are due to the Photo Albums having songs associated with them, if the song name, album name, or artist name has an &, <, >, quotation mark or apostrophe in the name it will cause problems in the XML file (symptoms vary, depending on the specifics of what character was used and where it shows up).

You can go through each item in the left-hand column of iPhoto, one by one, and click the "sildeshow" icon (at the bottom of the iPhoto window, in the center) then choose a "safe" song, then click "play" (just for a second or two).

Or if you want, you can open the AlbumData.xml file and search for the "& " (don't search for the quotes, but do include a single space after the & ). That should zoom into the problem song name, and the Photo Album name will be just above that - you can then go into iPhoto and edit just that one Photo Album.

This won't work for everyone - the potential problem may affect Photo Album names, things you typed in comments - anything that gets recorded in the XML file - not just song names. And not just ampersands - but it is harder to search for apostrophes and quotation marks, < or > (unless your comfortable with "regular expressions"). It's also possible that yours is an unrelated problem, and just coincidental that the ampersand thing is happening at the same time (but I think they're likely related).

If you're lucky, your problem will be caused by an ampersand in a song name. If not, best thing to do is just wait for the fix in iPhoto 9.4.1.

I have to agree with Chris, the most messed up upgrade ever. I have 118 Gig tied up in iPhoto so the upgrade took about 2-3 days give or take.

First I did not trust what was going on time wise, so my library was totally screwed up after a couple of force quits.

Had to get my data back from my time capsule.

Updating thumbnails took about 8 hours, updating library another 8 hours. Meanwhile my iMac was working like a snail.

Glad it's over, can't wait what bugs will pop up after this.

Next time I am the last one to upgrade.

Wolfgang

Yes I too have had many iPhoto crashes.

1 I had started to notice that after an edit or looking at a photo in close up the library would jump back to a completely different place. Eventhough that picture was still selected.

2 Also I noticed the problems more when I went to look at the info column on the Right. I noticed that not long after this the Faces feature took off and started to look for faces I guess amongst all the library eventhough I had not selected that feature.

3 Then curiously and worring enough I did a search for a picture I had been looking for a long while about some renovations I had been doing years ago. (that is why i had the info feature open so I could try and zoom in on a date or image number.) Here is the REAL WORRY. In the search i was doing i noticed HUNDREDS OF extra FACES had been created as images and not just that BUT they Had created similar image numbers in the process. Here there was hundreds of little faces snap shots of people I could not give a brass razoo about but whose snippets had the same IMG_ etc numbers as many of my photos.(now I can relate to what it was doing racing away with the faces feature.) I hope this does not put my existing images at risk because these hundreds of small face snippets have the same numbers. If you are having problems just check that out by searching for a few images by there image number. It was scary all those images I did not create it was like the FACES feature FROM ****.

I am very disppointed that I jumped in with this update. I cant see the pictures in my library while looking at events but cannot open individual pics. I can see the pictures as thumbnails but cannot open them to adjust or resize. I cannot export...it crashes. I cannot create or see slide shows. I get this

"This library cannot be rebuilt. The album data file for this library is malformed.

Encountered unknown ampersand-escape sequence at line 95885" when I try to rebuild the library.

This is a train wreck. I cannot use IPHOTO at all. The only thing I haven't tried is extracting the photos into a new folder but am terrified I'll lose the whole thing 90GB. I back up religiously with Time Machine but have heard lots of bad experiences with that.

Any suggestions.

Sorry...I double posted.

This may be your next option:

Start over from scratch with new library

Start over with a new library and import the Originals (iPhoto 09 and earlier) or the Masters (iPhoto 11) folder from your original library as follows:

1. Open the library package like this.

2. Launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and, when asked, select the option to create a new library.

3. Drag the Originals (iPhoto 09 and earlier) or the Masters (iPhoto 11) folder from the open iPhoto Library package into the open iPhoto window.

Click to view full size

This will create a new library with the same Events (but not necessarily the same Event names) as the original library but will not keep the metadata, albums, books slideshows and other projects.

Note: your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.

Wildman6 - don't worry about your photos, they'll be fine.

The problem is only with a single file that works like a sort of "table of contents", and it's actually a suprisingly small error (with obviously major symptoms). The basic structure of that file is still OK.

The bug in iPhoto right now is actually a lot like the Abbott & Costello "who's on first" routine (without the laughs). iPhoto is currently playing the role of poor Lou Costello, who can't figure out what Abbott means when he says "Who" (or in this case "&").

& is on first base, < is on second, and " is the name of the guy on third.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfmvkO5x6Ng