Zathrak
Level 1 (8 points)
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Q: Starting over...

So, no matter what I do, I have to keep rebuilding my apparently screwed up Aperture library. I think I'd just prefer to cut the losses and start over. Is it possible to export the "good" projects out of my bad library and into my new one? If so, what's the best way to take on such a conquest?

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 3.4GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM

Posted on Mar 24, 2013 5:58 PM

by léonie,Solvedanswer
léonie léonie
Level 10 (108,884 points)
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A:

Are you sure the library is your problem and not some other problem with your software on your mac?

Does Aperture work well, if you create a new, emty library and import a few test images, adjust and tag that images? If that were not the case, starting over would not be of much help.

Is it possible to export the "good" projects out of my bad library and into my new one?

 

You can select projects in Aperture and use "File > Export > Project as Library" to export them as a new library and import them into an other library with "File > Import". You could reconstruct the library project by project this way and carry over all metadata tags and edits.

 

But without knowing what is making your current library problematic, it is hard to predict, if you would not just copy the trouble from one library to the new libary.

So to be able to help we would have to know more - your Aperture version, and why you have to continually to rebuild. Does Aperture crash?

Have you tried all of the Aperture 3: Troubleshooting Basics ?

 

Regards

Léonie

Posted on Mar 24, 2013 11:18 PM

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Zathrak

Q: Starting over...

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  • by léonie,Solvedanswer

    léonie léonie Mar 24, 2013 11:18 PM in response to Zathrak
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    Mar 24, 2013 11:18 PM in response to Zathrak

    Are you sure the library is your problem and not some other problem with your software on your mac?

    Does Aperture work well, if you create a new, emty library and import a few test images, adjust and tag that images? If that were not the case, starting over would not be of much help.

    Is it possible to export the "good" projects out of my bad library and into my new one?

     

    You can select projects in Aperture and use "File > Export > Project as Library" to export them as a new library and import them into an other library with "File > Import". You could reconstruct the library project by project this way and carry over all metadata tags and edits.

     

    But without knowing what is making your current library problematic, it is hard to predict, if you would not just copy the trouble from one library to the new libary.

    So to be able to help we would have to know more - your Aperture version, and why you have to continually to rebuild. Does Aperture crash?

    Have you tried all of the Aperture 3: Troubleshooting Basics ?

     

    Regards

    Léonie

  • by Zathrak,

    Zathrak Zathrak Mar 26, 2013 8:16 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (8 points)
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    Mar 26, 2013 8:16 AM in response to léonie

    Leonie to save the day again! :-)

     

    I don't really have a reason to think other software is causing the issues. Essentially the story is this. I created a new library (my first one ever) and started dumping acres and acres of photos/videos in to it for permanent storage from what used to be a simple hierachal date-based folder structure of media. I got about 200GB in when randomly, the library started showing me different errors about how my database needs to be repaired. At first, I was excited to repair it thinking to myself, how awesome is this for catching it?! Upon repair, a large chunk of photos and videos from nearly every project in the library was mercilessly thrown in to a "recovered" project which I have no intention of working from. I'd rather just go back to the source and start over. (Sigh.) I then recovered the last known working library from Crashplan and tried working in it again. A few days later, the same thing happened, but this time the error was something more along the lines of "several crashes in a row might mean you have inconsistencies in your database." This gave me 3 repair options. Needless to say, the first two options didn't fix anything and the third dumped many of them back in to the dreaded recovered project. So I'm essentially at a loss with that. As to another question of yours, it has worked for a month or so when I was initially building the library, so in short, it does work when a few test photos are in there.

     

    You also mostly already answered my next question; does exporting projects and importing them to a new library 1) preserve the original image quality 2) preserve tags/keywords and the like. I assume the image quality will remain preserved as well?

     

    I'm assuming that if I took the broken library and exported everything that isn't in the "recovered project" area that this would keep the troublesome part of the library out of the new one, leaving me to just manually re-do the troublesome parts of the bad libary from their original source in to the new one.

     

    The only thing that would possibly make sense in the troubleshooting you've listed might be the plist which I haven't yet done. I often open my library via the network as it's stored on either my iMac or my thunderbolt storage (Drobo 5D). I say this because I've tried this on both. I'm running today's version of Aperture 3.

  • by léonie,Helpful

    léonie léonie Mar 26, 2013 9:46 AM in response to Zathrak
    Level 10 (108,884 points)
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    Mar 26, 2013 9:46 AM in response to Zathrak

    You also mostly already answered my next question; does exporting projects and importing them to a new library 1) preserve the original image quality 2) preserve tags/keywords and the like. I assume the image quality will remain preserved as well?

    Yes, exporting as library will preserve the image quality. It will export the original master image files paired with the versions and all edits, metadata.

     

    I'm assuming that if I took the broken library and exported everything that isn't in the "recovered project" area that this would keep the troublesome part of the library out of the new one, leaving me to just manually re-do the troublesome parts of the bad libary from their original source in to the new one.

    You don't have to afraid of touching the "recovered" project. It will contain essentially original image files.  Export them to a folder on your Desktop and browse them in Preview, to see if any images cannot be opened. Perhaps there are valuable images in there that you do not want to lose.

    I often open my library via the network

    This may be the reason for your trouble and frequent library corruptions. Aperture is not guaranteed to work when opened over the network. Network errors may cause the database inside the library to be left in an inconsistent state. I'd avoid network access. See this support article by Apple:

         Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library

     

    Regards

    Léonie

  • by Zathrak,

    Zathrak Zathrak Mar 26, 2013 10:28 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (8 points)
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    Mar 26, 2013 10:28 AM in response to léonie

    Sounds like I just need to utilize my thunderbolt external to store my library. Kind of ***** for backup purposes but I'll go that route if I must. I should ask, if I permanently store the library on an HFS+ External HDD, can I bring it to and from other Macs and open it without risk of corruption, etc?

     

    Thanks Leonie!

  • by léonie,Helpful

    léonie léonie Mar 26, 2013 10:45 AM in response to Zathrak
    Level 10 (108,884 points)
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    Mar 26, 2013 10:45 AM in response to Zathrak

    Sounds like I just need to utilize my thunderbolt external to store my library.

    That is a good plan. Thunderbolt will give very fast access to the library and quick response time, so you will profit from the faster connection a lot. Editing will be much more joy, believe me!

     

     

    I should ask, if I permanently store the library on an HFS+ External HDD, can I bring it to and from other Macs and open it without risk of corruption, etc?

    If  the file system is HFS+ - aka MacOS X Extended (Journaled), that will be perfect. Simply plug it into any Mac you want to work from. 

    Make sure, you set the "Ignore Ownership on this Volume" flag on this drive, if you want to use this drive from different user accounts on different macs.

    This flag is in the "Sharing & Permissions" brick of the "Get Info" panel for the drive.

     

    Regards

    Léonie

  • by Zathrak,

    Zathrak Zathrak Mar 26, 2013 10:58 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (8 points)
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    Mar 26, 2013 10:58 AM in response to léonie

    Thanks for everything Leonie!

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Mar 26, 2013 11:08 AM in response to Zathrak
    Level 10 (108,884 points)
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    Mar 26, 2013 11:08 AM in response to Zathrak

    You are welcome   Good Luck!