Aperture 3.4 FUBAR'd my network - what now?

Question

Aperture 3.4 FUBAR'd my network - what now?

Aperture has been working perfectly on my 16 Gb Mac Mini using a 10 Tb NAS to host the library over Gb EtherNet. When the 3.4 update came out I can no longer connect to the library at all. Furthermore the network disconnects itself from the NAS when Aperture is running (i.e., when it's trying to load the lib). No other apps cause these problems, including Final Cut Pro and iTunes, both of which are running from the same NAS.

I tried copying the entire library from the NAS to my Mac Air. Then I installed Aperture 3.4 on the Air and allowed it to upgrade the library (which worked fine on the local Air SSD). I then moved the library back to the NAS but it still will not open at all over the network.

My next step is to simply get all my work out of Aperture and switch to Lightroom, unless anyone has any ideas as to wherther Aperture is just permanently ruined. P.S. 3.4.1 made no difference.

Aperture 3, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), Aperture library stored on a NAS

Posted on Sep 28, 2012 2:20 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 28, 2012 2:24 PM in response to steve_macdonald

I meant to say the Mini (OSX) disconnects itself from the NAS when I try to start Aperture. In fact quite often Finder itself becomes "not responding". Something is VERY wrong with Aperture.

I've seen an Apple product do this sort of thing before (a Time Machine) so it isn't a complete surprise. Any help would REALLY be appreciated, of course.

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Answer 2

Aye Es Oh

Level 2

330 points

Sep 28, 2012 2:38 PM in response to steve_macdonald

Looks like storing libraries over the network isn't supported: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3252

You could use a referenced library, and try to store the Masters (or Originals, rather) on the network drive, but the Aperture library itself definitely should be on a local drive.

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

200,519 points

Sep 28, 2012 2:47 PM in response to steve_macdonald

Aperture has never been intended as a remote, shared database. Since Aperture version 1 it has been required to host the Aperture library on a local volume, not a network volume. And the volume has to be formatted MacOS X extended, see this support article, it is from 2010.

Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library

If you got away with running Aperture from a NAS so far, you have been very lucky.

Previous Aperture releases did not check the location of the library, and so many users put their Aperture library at risk, by hosting it on a network volume, but the recent version now is checking the formatting of the drive, and Aperture will not work any longer with the library on a NAS at all, sorry.

Regards

Léonie

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Answer 4

Sep 29, 2012 1:17 PM in response to léonie

Fair enough, I suppose. They should however remove the "professional" designation for this product. I'm not aware of many professional *anything* that store all their data on local disks. Shudder.

So I guess my next questions are:

1. What's the best way to extract all my work out of Aperture

2. What real "professional" tools exist for OSX (i.e., systems that understand the existence of LANs)?

Thanks!

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Answer 5

Clem

Level 3

701 points

Oct 1, 2012 1:50 PM in response to steve_macdonald

What brand of NAS are you using btw?

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Answer 6

Oct 1, 2012 2:21 PM in response to steve_macdonald

The library needs to be on a local disk. Note that Aperture is not a multi-user DAM. You could store your master files on the NAS, but the catalog (database) itself needs to be local. This is the same as competing products in the category.

As such, I'm not aware of anything other than the null set for #2.

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Answer 7

Oct 1, 2012 4:34 PM in response to Clem

Clem:

ZFS-based file system. Exporting AFP shares which are mounted locally. As I said, this worked flawlessly up until 3.4.

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Answer 8

Oct 1, 2012 4:36 PM in response to William Lloyd

Thanks for that input. I think you may have solved my problem. As long as I can store the masters on the NAS (hence taking advantage of my off-site backup system) I can live with the local catalog.

Thanks William!

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