Since upgrading to Aperture 3(now3.4.2) I have been unable to open Nik Color Efex4 or HDR Prol Efex 2 - but all other Nik plug-ins work and even these two work in CS6. Any ideas as to how to fix this. And yes I have downloaded the latest versions from Nik.
I only have the trial, which is expired, but Nik's HDR Efex Pro seems to open up fine from Aperture on my machine. What does Aperture do when you try to launch those Nik plug-ins?
I'm on 10.8.2, by the way, are you also on Mountain Lion?
Yes, I am using 10.8.2. When I try to launch either Color EfexPro or HDR efex Pro I get the spinning ball and Aperture seems to be caught in an endless loop with the only way out being to use Force Quit. All of this started with Aperture 3 and continues with the latest update. Very Frustrating!
What happens when you launch the Color EfexPro and HDR Efex Pro apps themselves (in Finder, not as a plug-in/external editor)?
They open up normally as they do when I open them in CS6. It is only in Aperture 3 that I seem to have a problem.
I half expected that they would ask for approval to be started up. Sometimes plug-ins don't start up correctly if they haven't been launched by themselves first before being started by Aperture. You've tried accessing the plug-ins again from Aperture since launching them?
The only other thing I can think of is to reinstall the plug-ins entirely, or to repair permissions on your drive using Disk Utility.
Outside of that, I'm stumped 😕 . If the issue keeps happening, you might want to try filling out a ticket at the Nik support site.
Nik's response was essentially "this is an Aperture/Apple issue go talk to them". There have been so many problems with the Aperture 3.4 updates that they may be correct, but Apple is not very good about acknowledging problems.
Well, there's one more thing you can try to get more info. You can open up the Activity Monitor from your Utilities folder in your Application folder, and try to get a sample of what's going on while Aperture's giving you the spinning beachball. You can then save that sample and post it here, although we may not be able to figure out what's going on.
You could try contacting Apple as well through their feedback page here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/aperture.html
Aperture 3(now3.4.2) and Nik Color Efex4 and HDR Pro
