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Extreme Nightmare - Aperture Won't Open

Hello All -

Each time I attempt to open my Aperture library I now get a window that says something like "Aperture quite while attempting to restore its windows. Do you want to attempt to restore it's windows?" I have two choices -- Don't Restore Windows or Restore Windows. No matter which one I choose I then get the window that says "Opening Aperture - name of my library" and the gear that continually spins. The spinning beach ball also appears. This goes on for about 30 minutes before it appears to quite trying and my computer monitor (ACD 23inch) goes black. Although the computer still appears to be running I have to manually reboot the system by shutting everything down and turning it back on. Once the computer is restarted, Aperture still tries to open. I am able to Force Quit. I have then attempted to open Aperture by holding down the Option key (so I could attempt to open my other library on an external drive or so that I could attempt to create a new library. I still get the window that asks whether I want to rebuild window or not. I have also attempted to open Aperture while holding down Option + Command. Still get the same thing -- Spinning beach ball, spinning gear while attempting to restore windows, then the crash and black screen.

Now let me explain how this all started -- I imported a new project (319 images). Everything appeared to go just fine, I was even able to backup the entire library (typically, once I import a new project my next step is to backup my library before doing anything else). All thumbnails were there, all previews seemed to have generated. However, some of the previews were scrambled at the bottom when first appearing on the screen, but in a second they would render normally. I attempte to regrenerate previews in an attempt to fix the scrambling. This did not work. I restarted my computer (sometimes this help to "refresh" everthing). When attempting to open Aperture I would then get a window that said "Apeture has detected inconsistencies in you library" with the option to restore. This happened several times, but each time the restoration process appeared to go fine since my library successfully opened. However, a new problem appeared. Now there were no thumbnails. However, I could still click on a thumbnail and see the image in the browser. Attempted to regenerate thumbnails. This did not work.

Since I still had all the images on my CF card I decided to start fresh by deleting the project and re-importing the images. Importing the project seemed to be going fine but suddenly stopped at 67% complete. I cancelled the import, deleted the images that had imported (they had no thumbnails), and was going to start the re-importing process again. And this has now brought me to the situation described in the first paragraph above -- No matter what I do, attempt to open normally, attempt to open by holding down Option key, attempt to open by holding down Option + Command key -- I just get the window that says "Opening Aperture - name of my library" with the spinning gear and spinning beach ball, followed by a crash and sudden black screen. Sometimes it still asks me if I want to attempt to restore windows, but I get the exact same result.

I am at a complete loss and have absolutely no idea what to do now. I do have a backup of my library and I still have the images of my last shoot on my CF card. If I delete the library from my pictures folder can I then create a new library and build it using my backup?

Please help. Desperate!

John

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.5), MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV

Posted on Mar 23, 2013 6:11 AM

21 replies

Apr 5, 2013 8:39 PM in response to John Dunnigan

If your thumbnails are not appearing, did you try selecting them and then selecting generate thumbnails from the Photos menu. I suggest doing a repair of the library as well.

If backup up keeps crashing, maybe you can try another drive to back up to. Are you low on disk space on your main machine?

léonie

Level 10

195,113 points

Apr 6, 2013 2:57 AM in response to John Dunnigan

What type of Mac are you working on? You never answered my original question about details of your system. Your profile signature lists "Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.5), MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV"

Are you working on your MacPro or MBP? How large is the system drive you are using? And your MacOS X version is 10.8.2? This is starting to look like system trouble and not a question of a broken library, so it would be good to be able to look for similar cases on similar systems.

Apr 6, 2013 7:33 AM in response to léonie

Leonie --

Sorry, I'm on a Mac Pro 1,1 (origianl Intel Mac Pro) running 10.7.5 (I cannot upgrade to Mountain Lion on this system). Hard drive is 2 TB with about 503 GB free space, 8 GB RAM. The inabilitiy to perform backup or create a new vault and successfully back that up is a new problem.

firstlaund --

Yes, I've attempted all of that -- Attempted to generate thumbnails individually as well as entire Project at one time. Performed Repair, Rebuild and Restore several times with no luck.

John

Apr 6, 2013 8:41 AM in response to John Dunnigan

Leonie --

Okay, attempted another backup just for the heck of it (quit all applications except Aperture. Then just for the heck of it I quit Aperture and reopened just Aperture). Backed up successfully in literally about 2 minutes -- Didn't hang like it did last night for some reason). I think that if a new Mac Pro comes out sometime this year (sooner than later, hopefully) I'll be getting one and performing a clean install of everything (As you've probably noted, my system is pretty old). Don't know how to perform a clean install but I'll research that when the time comes. I've thought about getting a fully loaded iMac, but the overheating issues I've read about make me nervous. Still, I'm wondering if in the meantime perhaps I should install a larger internal hard drive and perhaps beef up my RAM to 12 or even 16 GB.

John

léonie

Level 10

195,113 points

Apr 6, 2013 9:35 AM in response to John Dunnigan

Backed up successfully in literally about 2 minutes -- Didn't hang like it did last night for some reason)

Good, so you have a backup again.

Ask about the clean install when you are about to get your new mac. Keep to backups of everything, best a bootable clone. Take a note of all serial numbers you might need, and make sure you have installers for all applications.

I just notice, I forgot to comment on that part from your earlier post:

I restarted just fine, Aperture detect a problem and seemed to Rebuild successfully. I then remembered an old trick about removing the com.apple.Aperture.plist. After doing that & restarting I got the window where it asks if I want to add my iPhoto library.

Removing the plist file will erase Aperture's memory of the settings and recent items. It does no longer know the location of the Aperture library. That is why you saw the question which library to use.

If your library is not in the Pictures folder and simply names Aperture Library, Aperture will create a new library by default. After erasing the plist it is best to launch Aperture by clicking the library.

léonie

Level 10

195,113 points

Apr 6, 2013 9:40 AM in response to léonie

Still, I'm wondering if in the meantime perhaps I should install a larger internal hard drive and perhaps beef up my RAM to 12 or even 16 GB.

If your drive is already 2 TB I would not put in a larger drive right now. Mt. Lion seems to have problems with larger system drives. More RAM might be useful, but you can test if you have a problem with too few RAM by launching the utility "Activity Monitor". It will show you the memory usage of the running applications and by clicking the column headers you can sort the applications by memory demand.

Extreme Nightmare - Aperture Won't Open