OSStatus error -54.

Select one of the affected videos in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Reveal in Finder -> Original. A Finder Window should open with the file selected.

Does it? Can you play it from there?

Well now we know what a -54 error is.

The file is missing, time to restore from your back up.

That doesn't seem to be the issue - I am getting same error message. When I open imovie I can see and play the same videos that won't open in iphoto. so it's a workaround, but would be more convenient to just be able to load right in iphoto like i could yesterday before i upgraded my computer

Might not be the issue for you. But we have no way of knowing as you don't tell us what your issue actually is.

Hi Terence,

I have a similar issue, that I get an "OSStatus error -54" when I try to view an .mpg clip from 2003. Background, I had the clip on my desktop, and it plays fine from default Quicktime application. I opened Iphoto 9.51 (OS Maverick) and imported the file from the desktop. It appeared to import successfully, as the opening image shows. Then I tried to open it and got the message "The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -54.)". I followed your advice above to open original in finder and got "The operation can’t be completed because the item can’t be found."

Yet i-photo info shows a 3.4mb video of 32x240 size, 9 seconds long, with correct date of capture. I believe the camera used was an old Sony cybershot, so old that there was no audio.

Any ideas? I'd like to keep my video files with all my pics in i-photo. Is this reasonable for i-Photo to handle?

This video problem seems related to another issue I have. When I open i-photo, I get a message:

"4 photos have been found in the iPhoto library that were not imported.

Would you like to import them? No Yes "

(Earlier today, it said 3 photos, so the video that didn't import increased the count.)

In response I would hit yes, it shows same message again, hit yes again and it goes away and iphoto opens. And I have 85 empty folders named "iPhoto Library Recovered Photos_85", dating back to July when this message started.

Any thoughts on this, like how to stop it?and is it ok to delete the empty folders? I have always avoided doing anything in the Pictures folder, as I don't want to corrupt my iphoto library data. I have over 37,000 pics dating back to 1932 with a lot of work tagging and correcting dates...

Quit iPhoto and to to the iPhoto library (by default in your pictures folder) - right click (control click) on it and select show package contents - find the folder named import (or importing) and drag it to the desktop - DO NOT MAKE ANY OTHER CHANGES - launch iPhoto and you will be fine.

Open the import(ing) folder and if there is nothing in it that you need move it to the trash and empty the trash

And you can trash the recovered photos folders once you verify that there are no unimported photos tha tyou want

LN

Mac OS error -54 (permErr): permissions error (on file open)

I don't know in particular how to solve the issue. Devlin/Larry are both very good with iPhoto and will hopefully be able to hash it out. BOL.

or iPhoto Diet

That's certainly a candidate given that it tries to delete the "unwanted masters" of edited photos.

You can't restore into that Library.

You need to restore the whole Library from TM - just do it to another location so it doesn't overwrite the current one. Check it out and see if everything is there. If it's not move the missing stuff over from your current libray.

To restore a library from TM

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4927

To choose which Library to open:

Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'

LarryHN, Thanks for your help on fixing my "missing imports" issue. Your solution did the trick! No more annoying questions when opening iPhoto!

Happy New Year!

I have read this thread with interest. I have a similar, but slightly different problem.

OSX 10.9.4

iMovie 10.0.4

iPhoto 9.5.1 (902.17)

My iPhoto had slowed down to a crawl and one of the pieces of advice I had was to take the videos out and put them into the movies folder instead of iphoto. I started doing this by dragging them into a folder on the desktop and then dragging them into the "movies" library. But then when I got to the files from 2011 and earlier I discovered that I couldn't play the movie in iphoto,(OSStatus error -54) and I also couldn't drag and drop, or copy and paste.

I then went into iMovie, where I can see all the movies, with all the details, but when I try to play them I get the error "The operation can’t be completed because the item can’t be found."

I've tried to do what you advised, i.e. "file, export, kind: original" but then iPhoto quits unexpectedly on me! I've tried it with one clip and with 27 ...

Not sure what to do next. I have back ups in time machine, but as the disks get full they get over written, so I"m not sure how far back they go.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Try restore from your back up.