iPhoto freezes

Question

iPhoto freezes

I have over 26000 images in iPhoto and now it freezes up everytime I try to scroll through the library. Does anyone know how to fix this?

iMac (Flat Panel), Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Jan 3, 2013 1:38 PM

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Answer 1

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,396 points

Jan 3, 2013 1:56 PM in response to Daniel Karaczun

Remember: we cannot see your machine. There are 9 different versions of iPhoto and they run on 8 different versions of the Operating System. The tricks and tips for dealing with issues vary depending on the version of iPhoto and the version of the OS. So to get help you need to give as much information as you can. Basic things like :

- What version of iPhoto.

- What version of the Operating System.

- Details. As full a description of the problem as you can. For instance: 'iPhoto won't export' is best explained by describing how you are trying to export, and so on.

- History: Is this going on long? Has anything been installed or deleted?

- Are there error messages?

- What steps have you tried already to solve the issue.

- Anything unusual about your set up? Or how you use iPhoto?

Anything else you can think of that might help someone understand the problem you have.

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

207,667 points

Jan 3, 2013 3:17 PM in response to Daniel Karaczun

Also how much free space on your hard drive and RAM do you have?

OT

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Answer 3

Jan 3, 2013 6:48 PM in response to Yer_Man

Latest iPhoto 9.4.2 and OS10.8.5 with 4G RAM and over 2TB of free space. This has been going on for several weeks. Also, I created a new album and dragged the latest import of 40 photos into it. What ended up in the album was over 2700 photos from who knows where and not the 40 I dragged. All these quirky things seem to have started with iCloud and OS 10.8.

I have all these photos in seperate folders on an external 1T drive, so I'm not worried about loosing anything. I just want iPhoto to work as advertised. I will not delete the images from iPhoto and start over. If I can understand which library file to delete and recreate the index, I'd happily do that.

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Answer 4

Jan 3, 2013 6:48 PM in response to Old Toad

Over 2TB of free space on my internal. It is a new 3TB drive.

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Answer 5

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,396 points

Jan 4, 2013 12:26 AM in response to Daniel Karaczun

Is the Library on the external drive? If so, what format is the drive?

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 6

Jan 4, 2013 2:41 AM in response to Yer_Man

No, the Library is on the internal drive. I have a backup Library on the external 1TB drive. I created a new library without a problem. However, when I opened my backup from the external drive I had that freeze up again. I think that the number of images might be the problem. Perhaps I should create seperate libraries for differnt topics. That seems rather a clumsy workaround though. The alternative could be corrupt software and I should go back to the original iPhoto11 and go through all the upgrades and then launch iPhoto and see what happens?

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Answer 7

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,396 points

Jan 4, 2013 2:48 AM in response to Daniel Karaczun

An iPhoto 11 library is good for 1,000,000 images. I have 20k more images that you have in my Library and no such problems.

Option 1

Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Choose to Repair Database. If that doesn't help, then try again, this time using Rebuild Database.

If that fails:

Option 2

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In Library Manager it's the FIle -> Rebuild command)

This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.

Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.

Regards

TD

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Answer 8

Jan 4, 2013 8:12 AM in response to Yer_Man

Thanks, Terence. iPhoto seems to be stable at this point after rebuilding the index. However, it has reverted to a state that was about 11 month old. All my new stuff is gone. I don't know much about the technical stuff although I've been using Macs since 1985, but this seems so weird.

As Apple migrated from the beta of mail through .mac, mobileme, and now iCloud I've had nothing but problems. My mail won't sync between my iMac, MacBookPro, and iPhone 4s and hasn't for years. I've had sessions with the people who wrote the mail software and they couldn't fix my problem.

I bought a Mac origionally because I'm the creative type and not a techie. That main reason for buying "the computer for the rest of us" seems to have vanished in the wave of features that I almost never use. The reliability and dependability coupled with ease of use is no longer part of Apple's reputation, not to mention that the aqua interface is no longer attractive.

My main purpose for using a Mac is that it was the first "graphics" oriented computer based on the Xerox Star GUI. I was a desktop publishing consultant and made my living for 10 years in the early days. I thought that the last really stable OSes were OS 9.4 and OS 10.6. I don't mind occasional crashes but I do mind losing 11 months of work in iPhoto. The NExt Step OS for the NExt Computer was solid as a rock. I used to have one.

Thanks for your help.

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Answer 9

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,396 points

Jan 4, 2013 8:46 AM in response to Daniel Karaczun

Sorry but I'm not sure what you're asking there.

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Answer 10

Jan 4, 2013 1:28 PM in response to Yer_Man

Not asking just relating my problems. In short, Apple just isn't what it used to be which is sad. I'm going to have to do lots of work getting back to where I was just a few short weeks ago.

Thanks again,

Dan

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