iPhoto 11 is so slow when opening

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Level 1

17 points

iPhoto 11 is so slow when opening

Very recently my iPhoto has become so slow when opening, it can take anywhere between 3 and 7 minutes, during this time my Macbook just hangs, I can't use any other programs.

I have attempted running the iPhoto first aid, I have picked all of the options on the first aid list and nothing has helped. I have tried quitting everything before opening iPhoto and this makes no difference. I have also deleted some of the photos from my library, but I don't have an exceptionally large library anyway, 1900 jpegs.

I am running iPhoto 11 version 9.4.2 with mountain lion 10.8.2, I have no issues with any other programs being slow.

Once it opens it is generally fine, but it's just turning a 20 second task into a 10 minute task.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Nov 11, 2012 3:40 PM

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Answer 1

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,308 points

Nov 12, 2012 3:22 PM in response to thatgurlwho

How big is your HD? How much free space on it?

As a Test:

Hold down the option (or alt) key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Create Library'

Import a few pics into this new, blank library. Is the Problem repeated there?

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Answer 2

Nov 26, 2012 9:50 AM in response to Yer_Man

I have (had?) the identical problem, with just slightly different details (I'm on Lion, not Mountain Lion, and I haven't tried repairing anything yet in iPhoto). iPhoto used to start up in a reasonable amount of time, but it seems since updated to 9.4.2, the startup time is incredibly long (I'll guess 5-10x longer). Admittedly, I have one of the largest iPhoto libraries I've heard of, but I'm just really trying to see why the update changed startup time so much.

Note that I have 500GB of free space on my boot drive, and that creating a new iPhoto library results in a speedy startup.

An oddity I just now see after creating a new library is, when I go back to select my old library at iPhoto launch, there are two libraries listed, with identical names, and identical paths ("iPhoto Library" - /Users/UserName/Pictures/iPhoto Library). Looking in the finder, I only see one Library with that name. After playing around with opening either one, now the first one says "(default)" after it every time.

Note that I just added "(had?)" to the beginning of my post, as it seems like my library has started opening in the normal amount of time since I played around with the libraries (creating a new one, etc.). So maybe just creating a new library and then going back to the default library with help thatgurlwho too?

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Answer 3

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,308 points

Nov 26, 2012 11:20 AM in response to Rob Mitchell1

Creating a new library forced the app to recreate the cache, so, at a guess that's what was causing the slowdown.

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Answer 4

Dec 13, 2012 4:20 PM in response to thatgurlwho

I have this excruciatingly slow start-up with iPhoto as well. To add insult to injury, often after iPhoto is finally running, it totally slows down everything to the point that I have to re-start.

On an archived posting with this problem Apple fixed this with a firmware update to the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT. I have an NVIDEA GeForce 9400m, but cannot find anywhere what the current firmware version is supposed to be...

Klaus

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