Q: Library recovery: how can I recover a library after I get this message: There was an error opening the database for the library “/Users/Jim/Pictures/Libraries/K2 Library.aplibrary”???

By the way, the instructions seem to be wrong.  I was told at the Genius Bar that it was command+alt+double click at the Aperture icon and not at the library in Finder.

That depends:

• ⌥⌘- double clicking an Aperture Library will open the First Aid panel for the Aperture Library you selected in the Finder.
• ⌥⌘- double clicking an Aperture Library will open the First Aid panel for the Aperture Library that you last opened with Aperture.

If you only have one Aperture library, both ways should give the same result.

Is " “/Users/Jim/Pictures/Libraries/K2 Library.aplibrary”" the library you want to be using? Then try to open the First Aid on this library by directly selecting this library.

Is there a crash log, besides the error message? Then post the first 50 lines, please.

What is your Aperture 3 version and your Mac OS X version? If you have not upgraded to the latest Aperture version, you might try that and see, if that will fix the problem with the brushes.

What did you do, before the problem first occured? Import images, installed other software, plug-ins?

You already rebooted, but I suggest, you also try to start up in Safe Boot mode and temporarily disable login items.

Aperture will not be able to run in Safe Boot mode, but this will reset the Graphics card.

The forced quit my have left your Preferences file corrupted, so I'd recommend to remove the Preferences file, if fixing the library does not work, see: Aperture 3: Troubleshooting Basics

Regards

Léonie

Jaime, just to be sure, you're holding down both the Command and Option keys when you open an Aperture library? Your post says that you're only holding the Command key.

As for the duplicates of Aperture, are you sure you don't have multiple copies of the Aperture app on your computer?

As for the duplicates of Aperture, are you sure you don't have multiple copies of the Aperture app on your computer?

I am seeing this too, Aye Es Oh; unfortunately, I have no idea how to fix it.

Only one copy of iPhoto installed, but it is showing five times in the "Open with" list. And the number of items is growing, each time I switch the library.

Rebooting and emptying caches did not fix it.

I'm actually seeing it as well, although I thought initially it was because I have multiple backups attached to my machine. Doesn't seem to be causing any problems, though.

However, in my case ⌘- double clicking an Aperture Library will NOT open the First Aid panel on a library selected in Finder.

Is this still a problem, or did you manage to rebuild the library by now?

If not, did you try really hold down both the keys ⌥⌘ firmly and for long enough, while double clicking the library, untill the panel appears?

Have  look at http://itpixie.com/2011/05/fix-duplicate-old-items-open-with-list/#.ULZqa6XAoqY for a possible solution.

THere is also this from Apple http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24770 but it is old and may not apply to Lions

Thanks a lot, Frank. The lsregister did the trick! I am testing this on 10.8.2.

• http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24770 : I deleted the "com.apple.LaunchServices.plist", and restarted the Finder, even logged off and on again; did not change anything. The file has not been recreated, so it may not be used anymore.
• http://itpixie.com/2011/05/fix-duplicate-old-items-open-with-list/#.ULZqa6XAoqY
  The direct "copy and paste" from the post did not work: I had to retype it :

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchSe rvices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

but then it worked like a charm!

Cheers

Léonie

And btw: I turned on the "-v" option for the lsregister to see, what was going on, and saw plenty of error messages (error -10811); so I repeated the command with "sudo". After that I still saw five iPhotos. Repeating as regular user finally got rid of the redundant iPhoto entries. It looks like registering as super user may be causing this trouble.

Yup, worked for me, too.

Frank,

I just noticed a little side effect of resetting the launchdb:

When I try to open my LaTeX documents by double clicking, they now will open in Final Cut Pro of all things. Murphy's Laws again - when opening in a wrong application, why not in TextEdit or any other app that launches quickly? it just had to be Final Cut

It was easily fixed by using "Open with" and "apply to all" in the Get Info panel, no problem, but be ready for surprises, when you use this utility.

Léonie

Yeah its easy to forget all the different extensions we've set to open with certain apps over the years.

This may be a good thing to run every once in a while, just to clean out the flotsam of jetsam of our systems

flotsam of jetsam

I woud not excatly call my LaTeX documents "flotsam of jetsam", for I am doing all my publications and lecture note, slides, letters, simply all my word processing in LaTeX, but apart from that, a good idea!