What to do if "Aperture Library First Aid" dos not work?

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What to do if "Aperture Library First Aid" dos not work?

I think I just lost my entire Aperture Library. Please help!

My iMac froze as I draged photos into my Aperture Library. I did force quit. Then Aperture would not read my Library file. The error box says "There was an error opening the database for the library "/user/Peter/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary".

The rescue process of opening Aperture while holding down the Option and Command key will also not open the Library.

I realize now that my library was 146gb, which may be too big for Aperture to handle.

What to do?

I'd really apreciate help from anyone who know a solution for restoring my library file.

Peter

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Jul 13, 2013 2:50 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 13, 2013 5:22 PM in response to Pebiski

First thing the size of your library is not the problem.

So what happens when you start Aperture holding down the command and option keys? Please be specific with any error messages or alerts you get.

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Answer 2

Pebiski Author

Level 1

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Jul 14, 2013 8:32 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

My Library is restored!!!

Yesterday, the command+option start up to launch the rescue process opened the three options for rescue, but my iMac remained inactive regardless which option I chose.

Today, this is what solved it: i) a good nights sleep, ii) I freed 250gb of my hard drive to leave the iMac space enough to restore in case it needed it, iii) ran disk utility to repair the disk in case of disk errors, iv) relaunched the command+option start up for the rescue process and here the first two options did not work, while the third 'rebuilding library' ran for about 20 min, and then my library opened, seemingly fully restored.

Quite impressive that it worked, and I am very thankful. Now on to updatig my vault!

Thanks for your question of being specific which helped me look at the problem systemtically one more time.

All the best,

Peter

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Answer 3

Jul 15, 2013 5:43 PM in response to Pebiski

Glad you got i sorted out, Leaving enough frees space on a disk is very important, especially if the disk is the system drive. Running short of space on the system drive can cause all sorts of problems.

You might want to go back and have a look at the system drive and see just how much free space there is. 10% of the system drive free is a good rule of thumb. If you have any questions post back.

regards

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Answer 4

Pebiski Author

Level 1

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Jul 15, 2013 7:37 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

On space, I am fine with 1/3 out of 750gb free on the system drive.

But now that I have you, what is the best way to optimize the drive? Diskwarrior tells me that almost 40% of files are "out of order" (see screenshot). In the old days, I would defrag the hard drive. What is the best tool to defrag a Mac?

Cheers,

Peter

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Answer 5

Jul 16, 2013 7:58 AM in response to Pebiski

Ah that wonderful topic, Should I defrag my OS X disk?

This comes up often not just here and you will find that there as as many opinions on this as there are posters in on the Internet, basically an infinite number 😉

While in the past with older OS and disk technology defraging was sometimes beneficial I am of the opinion that with modern OS's and technology this is no longer required and in some cases can actually lead to a decrease in performance.

There are a few cases where defraging might be beneficial, I'm thinking of video editing where you are streaming huge amounts of data but then those files should not be on your system disk anyway.

So for me this is a none issue I don't defrag and I don't believe it is worth the time and resources so I can't give you any specific recommendations for software to do this. You could copy everything off your root drive, erase and format it, install the OS and then copy everything back. That will put things 'in order'. Remember you have to copy not clone as a clone will just put things back where they were to begin with.

If you do do this please post back both the results of Diskwarrior after the defrag and if you think it was worth the time and effort.

Remember system performance depends on a number of factors, root drive free space, the health of the drive, the amount of memory in your system matching up with the way you use the system, etc. If defraging buys you anything I would put it far down that list.

regards

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Answer 6

dbmoore

Level 1

105 points

Jul 16, 2013 8:40 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

Pebiski defrag is a big conversation, and everyone has 2 cents to throw in. Here is my 1 cent of knowlege to think about. Like Frank said copy your lib to a external HD (recentley formated or defragged) but before coping it back make a separate partitan on your root drive to hold your lib plus 3x the space. You can use disk Utilites to create the volume. I use idefrag but I believe that Disk Warrior defrags as well. Once the volume is made copy the lib back. the process of coping and deleting the vol and coping back the lib is a safe way of defraging but I have idefraged my Lib Volume in the past, I will denie that in a court of law if you have problems:) Cheers

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