iPhoto Library, Rebuilt multiple times but errors continue

The reason I put my iPhoto library in that path is because my wife uses this iMac in their own separate user, which uses Japanese as its primary language. I want to be able to access that iPhoto library from my user, and she wants to be able to access it from her user (obviously not at the same time, of course).

That is the reason for the permissions problems you are encountering. Sharing your iPhoto library in the public folder is not supported under MacOS X 10.8.x. It used to be possible in earlier MacOS X versions, but is no longer possible.

To be able to share your iPhoto library with your wife, the best option would be to put the library onto an external disk or a separate disk partition, with the "Ignore ownership on this volume" enabled. The procedure is explained in this support article:

iPhoto: Sharing libraries among multiple users

To repair the permission problems created by accessing the library from two different user accounts in the shared folder, iPhoto's "Repair Permissions" is preferable to repairing permissions with Disk Utility, for Disk Utility does not understand the permissions in the library package.

Regards

Léonie

Put a Post-It on your Mac remininding one to power on the EHD when booting up the Mac.

OT

What are the advantages and disadvantages to following Apple's advice is creating a sparse disk image in the Public folder versus your suggestion of creating a separate hard drive partition?

The sparse disk image will have to be mounted before using it, just like an external drive. Partitioning your drive may make the access a little bit slower. But I find this is barely noticable.

Before MacOS X Mt. Lion it was not possible to add a partitionto the system drive without reformatting and erasing the whole drive, so if you were using an earlier system, adding a disk image would have been less trouble than reinstalling everything.

You can use Disk Utility to resize system partition and to add a second partition. But make a backup before you try such a critical operation.

Regards

Léonie

You see, if I partition my internal drive, I would need to leave enough space in that partition to accommodate future photos and videos because the partition size doesn't expand automatically. But wouldn't a sparse bundle grow in accordance to the data I add to it?

James, when you create your sparse bundle, you would also have to specify a maximum size. But it will only take up as much space, as it needed to accomadate the current content. That is right.

Also, isn't there away to automatically mount a disk image at login?

If you add your sparsebundle to the list of login-items in your user account (System Preferences > Users&Groups > Login Items) it will open outomatically, when you sign in. To add a login item, click the "+" button below the list of items.

If one user has mounted the disk image, it will appear as mounted for all users, that also will log in.

I use sparse bundles primarily to have encrypted folders, that will require my password to look inside. This way, I can put them into a shared folder, but only I can read them there. But I noticed, that the sparse bundles occasionally can no longer be opened, after I accessed them from a different mac. If you put your library into a sparse bundle, you will have to make sure, that your backup scheme is really working reliably, so that you will be able to restore it from a recent backup.

I'm not sure about this and you might want to check it out but:

One thing to bear in mind with Sparse Bundels is that TM can't do incremental back ups of it. Any change triggers a complete copy of the whole thing.

It sure would be nice if Apple could find a way to solve this problem for us, especially since I imagine that many families use the same Mac computer and have multiple users, each of them want to access the same iPhoto library.

Here's the problem: the whole point of computer accounts is to keep data separate. There is a simple solution to for people who "want access to the same iPhoto Library" - it's called iPhoto sharing.

If you want another user to be able to see your pics, but not add to, change or alter your library, then enable Sharing in your iPhoto (Preferences -> Sharing), leave iPhoto running and use Fast User Switching to open the other account. In that account, enable 'Look For Shared Libraries'. Your Library will appear in the other source pane. Any user can drag a pic from the Shared Library to their own in the iPhoto Window.

Remember iPhoto must be running in both accounts for this to work.

But I suspect that 'access' is not what you want. You want two users to 'own' and 'control' the data, and when the data is an object as complex as a photo database, this is where the problems arise.

The simple solution is to put the Library beyond the permissions issues of the start up disk - an external, for instance.

But you don't want to do that, so now you've run out of "simple" solutions. From now on, everything is going to me more or less complex.

Here's one way that I have set up for a family in a similar situation. It's a bit clunky at first, but it does work well. Most importantly, it uses the System to do the job for you.

Create a new Account on your Mac, call it Media. Create an iPhoto Library there. (BTW: This will work for iTunes too.)

Enable Sharing on the Library:(Preferences -> Sharing), leave iPhoto running and use Fast User Switching to open the other accounts. In those accounts, enable 'Look For Shared Libraries'. The Library will appear in the other source pane.

This means that all users will be able to see the pics. If you want to use a pic then simply drag it from the shared Library to your own in the iPhoto Window. This means that each user can have their own edits.

If you want to add photos to the Library: Log into the Media account for that purpose.

To make it all seamless: Set your Mac to log into the Media Account automatically. Set iPhoto to launch on log-in. Then switch to your own account using Fast User Switching.

Net result: a Library that's permanently available to all users but also protected. Each user can have their own versions of the pics if they want.

No partitioning, no permissions issues. Uses no extra disk space. What's not to like?

If I do create a sparse bundle disk image, should I put it in my Applications folder or in the Shared folder or somewhere else, such that any user on my Mac can access it?

Put it in the "Shared" folder. The Applications folder has special permission settings and should be reserved for applications.

You seem to indicate that in your experience sparse bundles can be unreliable (get corrupted when read by another Mac).

I did not mean "unreliable". Sparse bundles work very well. I only meant, that any kind of data error can be worse for a sparse bundle than for an external drive or a partition. A few wrong bits - for example caused by a bad surface on the drive or an transmission error, will probably make an image unreadable, but all the other files and the library still will work. The same happening to a sparse bundle may make it impossible to mount the sparse bundle and to open it at all. So a god backup strategy is essential.

But isn't it true that Time Machine makes its backups into a sparse bundle?

That is necessary for backups on network drives, that cannot be formatted MacOS X Extended, like Time Capsule.

It sure would be nice if Apple could find a way to solve this problem for us, especially since I imagine that many families use the same Mac computer and have multiple users, each of them want to access the same iPhoto library.

That is a feature enhancement request, not a bug report. iPhoto has been not designed to handle shared library, even the Pro application Aperture has the same limitations. You are right; proper ways to share a library between family members or collegues would be very useful, but would require a complete redesign of the application.

Send feedback to Apple: Apple - Feedback

Regards

Léonie

As I say, you left the simple solutions behind some time ago.

No you can't share as Events, but you can share in Albums. You can't share slideshows. You can drag and drop to the user Library, and thereafter email or drag to the desktop etc.

Regards

TD

First of all, I don't see any way to automatically open that shared library in my wife's user account when she first launches iPhoto.

You can have iPhoto launch automatically when the guest account is loggen into initially by going to the System/Accounts/Login Items pane for that account and adding iPhoto to the list of apps to launch at boot.