Aperture 3.4.4 crashes help!!

I suggest some tests, to narrow the problem down:

• Does Aperture launch and can you open your library, if you hold down the Shift-key, when you launch Aperture?
• Does Aperture launch and work well, if you launch it with the ⌥ alt/opt key held down, and when you select to create a new, empty library?
• If none of the above should work, does Aperture work from a different user account on a new, empty library?

Post back with your findings, please.

Regards

Léonie

Unfortunately, recently I have just migrated to a new imac and I don't have a new time machine yet to back up the most recent changes.

You really need to back up your system now. Any external drive formatted MacOS X Extended (Journaled) with enough space to hold a copy of your Aperture library will do. Just drag your Aperture library to that drive. You need a backup, if the problem should be related to hardware problems. And you cannot do much trouble shooting with your Aperture library, if there is no backup copy.

The best backup in this situation would be a clone of your system drive on a second disk.

I first tried holding the shift key down while launching aperture - and that hasseem to solved the problem.

...

Actually, what does this mean?

Launching Aperture with the shift-key held down defers the generation of Preview images. This way Aperture will not process your most recently imported image files or videos.

If Aperture stops crashing when launched with Shift key, that is usually an indication that you have imported an image file or video that Aperture cannot process. You need to find the file and to delete it from the Aperture library.

How many images did you import from your iPhone with the last import? Did you delete the files from your iPhone or are they still there?

If you still have the files on your iPhone, I would simply delete them from the Aperture library now that Aperture is running again and back up the system.

Then check, if you can get Aperture to launch without the Shift key.

Then I'd import the again from your iPhone, but with Image Capture and not with Aperture. This way you will have the media in a folder on your hard drive and can check for any corruption, before you try to import them again to Aperture.

Added: I'd try to import videos and photos separately. Videos are cauing more often problems than photos.

A lot of my photos were actually imported by photostream. .... Does photostream create this sort of problem?

• If it is only one video or or image file that cannot be processed properly, it may be caused by transmission errors, for example when reading the Photo Stream. Or bad blocks on your disk.
• If you cannot process any of the videos or image files imported from your iPhone all of a sudden, then something with your software may my wrong. This can be caused by installing other software that has compatibility problems, and then I would recommend to do the second and third test as well.

Post back, if you find that all of the videos should be unreadable.