iphoto not working after a Mavericks update. Any suggestions?

If you still have your original library and would like to try to keep the Events that were in it try the following:

Starting over from scratch with new library

Start over with a new library and import the Originals (iPhoto 09 and earlier) or the Masters (iPhoto 11) folder from your original library as follows:

1. Open the library package like this.

2. Launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and, when asked, select the option to create a new library.

3. Drag the subfolders of the Originals (iPhoto 09 and earlier) or the Masters (iPhoto 11) folder from the open iPhoto Library package into the open iPhoto window a few at a time.

This will create a new library with the same Events (but not necessarily the same Event names) as the original library but will not keep the metadata, albums, books slideshows and other projects.

Note: your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.

Thanks. Have done all this but it did not help. I am left with having to edit everything to get it back to what it should be. There are though benefits as it makes me delete stuff I do not need to keep, something I have needed to do for a long time.

I too am having this problem. I have a 260GB iPhoto library from iPhoto 09 (aka 7.5.2). I open it up with the new iPhoto from my shiny new mac running mavericks and I have an empty library. Totally empty.

I've tried getting intermediate versions of iPhoto online (so far the only way seems to be to purchase a used iLife 11 DVD/CD set). I've tried the iPhoto conversion program (it is happy). I've tried the iphoto library manager, but all I was able to do with it is to create a new iphoto library with 10 photos that mavericks' iphoto says is empty.

What the <explitive deleted> is wrong? Isn't there a simple, easy and accessable method to upgrade and retain my old data? I'd settle for difficult, poorly documented and obscure now. I sold the new mac to the wife with the promise that she'd get to all her old photos and events (both original and edited versions), so now I'm in a bit of a spot of trouble now with her if I can't find a way to convert the old photo library.

tl;dr: Nothing in this thread has worked for me and I'm feeling massively screwed right now.

iPhoto library from iPhoto 09 (aka 7.5.2).

The latest version of iPhoto 09 is v8.1.2, of iPhoto 08 it's 7.1.5 and of iPhoto 11 it's 9.5.1, so I'm not sure what version you'e upgrading from.

How did you transfer the Library to the new machine?

Do you still have the original library?

I've tried the iPhoto conversion program

Are you referring to this: iPhoto Library Upgrader 1.1

Where is the library located? If on an external hard drive what is the format of the drive?

Have you looked inside the library package via the Finder to verify that the subfolders inside the Masters or Originals folder do contain image files?

Yes. The iPhoto Library Upgrader 1.1 says that it isn't needed.

The library was on an external hard drive (I made two copies before I shut down my old mac onto the hard drive). I have a second old mac that I've been using to test things out with.

The contents are definitely there. The folders take 260GB of space. From the command line, I see lots of files, including those you pointed out in your earlier post.

If I run iPhoto 9.5.1 (the one from the app store that mavericks installed) on this library, it shows up as having 0 pictures. If I re-run iPhoto '08 (I know my earlier post said '09) 7.1.5 after that, all the pictures are gone. If I rebuild the library, as discussed on this thread, then all the photos come back.

If I use iPhoto Library Manager (3rd part) to create a library that has only 10 or so photos from two events in it (nice bit of code), then even that tiny library shows up empty in the maverick's iPhoto (and if I try to re-read the library after, iPhoto '08 fails).

I have way too many events to go back and hand correct them, so I want to preserve them, the edits and the metadata from the old iphoto. I'm looking for the full deal, not some hack that looses data.... I have come up with plenty of those before I turned here, and they are all unsatisfying...

My next plan is to get an iPhoto 8.x package somehow (not sure how short of buying one online), install it, and see if I can use that to convert the whole library to the 8.x format, then try to jump to 9.x from there... That seems to be the only way to preserve the data, but I'm sure there will be bumps along the way...

How is the EHD formatted? It should be:

Same (modulo sizes), except it also has 'Case Sensitive' in the format.

If you're able to temporarily move the files off that EHD so you can reformat it I would do so and make it non case sensitive. That has posed problems for others at time.

It may be that re-editing all is the final solution. As I wrote in this thread some weeks back my library went wrong after an update for iPhoto to version 9.5.1 installed. It said on starting to open the library that it needed to update it with a prompt to agree that. I accepted it and it exited it. It refused to load it no matter how many times I tried. I have a backup and it was doing the same with that. I then found that if I opened up the file it would not list anything, almost as if the directory was empty but it tells me it is 104gb so there had to be something in it.

I reinstalled a clean copy of the latest version, ensured it had no library and then tried importing the original file. It accepted it but as indicated by others here all the data has gone awry. The events do not show as they were but are now listed with a number which if you look at it is a spread of dates listed with year first then month then day. If I open an event to see what is there, there is a mixture of photos. On the whole most relate to the same event but not always. The data for each individual photo though is intact.

Bit by bit I am having to open each event, check all that is in it to make sure it inter relates, then name the event again and go on to the next one. I have no idea when I will finish the task!

Somehow I can only assume the update to iPhoto when it said it needed to convert or update the file, scrambled a lot of the data.

The only up side is it is making me do a lot of editing and trashing!

No

You created the mess when you

then tried importing the original file

You never Import one iPhoto library into iPhoto - it does not work and creates a massive mess

Do you still have the original library available?

LN

I created the new library on the system disk that is formatted w/o ignore case, so that's not the issue in my case. I also copied that new library to a different mac with scp and still no joy.

I also created a new library with 7.1.5 on my system disk and added a few random photos I had to it in two events. It too had all the same issues with this library when I copied it with scp, when I tared it up and copied it, when I drug it to a memory stick I'd formatted with MacOS Extended format (Journalled). Reformatting the external hard drive isn't going to happen, since it holds other things I don't want to risk, but it also sounds like it would be a huge waste of time and result in the same behaivor based on other experiments I've run.

9.5.1 simply lacks the ability to read the 7.1.5 created libraries, even small ones. It looks like I'll have to convert to something newer before making the jump.

To convert an iPhoto 7 library to iPhoto '11 version 9.5.1 you must frist run the iPhoto library upgrader - http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1523 - then run iPhoto to finish the upgrade

LN

LarryHN: Been there, tried that. It said it had nothing to do, both on my huge library and the small test ones I've been running, I even mentioned that in a prior post. It simply doesn't work.

unfortuantly when you tag onto a very long, involved thread it makes it almost impossible to the volenteers to follow your part of the thread effectively

which is why it is always better to create a new thread with a new problem

LN