problem after migration from time machine

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Doktoor Author

Level 1

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problem after migration from time machine

I recently changed the hard disk in my macbook to a bigger one,

and then used migration assistant and my time machine backup to restore the system.

Everything seems to work just fine except aperture.

about 90% of my projects do not show any thumbnails, just outlined gray boxes with a file name

when I click on them I get to see the photo in question but when I click "show master" aperture says "master image offline" (and does not show the photo anymore)

my Library is referenced and the masters are located on the computers hard disk itself (not on an external one) and they are all there !

(i.e. they were perfectly transfered from time machine)

when I first opened aperture after the migration I got a message that the library was corrupted, I clicked repair and this produced a recovered folder

with a recovered project which as far as I can see is empty ?

I tried the 3 trouble shooting tools (repair permissions, repair database and rebuild database) none of which changed anything

I was going to try to restore the library file from time machine but now time machine says that I do not have permission to acces the pictures folder !?

(at least not on any backup older than the last one, which was done after the system was migrated)

I am starting to get stuck here, I found several references online to the same problem but no real solution.

Any ideas?

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 11, 2014 7:30 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 11, 2014 7:42 AM in response to Doktoor

Sounds like a permissions problem which can occur if the restore of your system from TM was done correctly.

So first what is the OS version and Aperture version you are using? How did you do the restore. When you put in the new drive there was no OS on it so what were all the steps you did to get to the point you are at.

In general if after you installed the OS on the new disk you created a user account to log into to run the migration then the your permissions will be messed up.

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Answer 2

Doktoor Author

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Feb 11, 2014 8:17 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

I am using Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and Aperture 3.2.4

I did indeed use a user account to do the restore.

The new drive was put in by a repair shop who also installed OS X 10.6 again and made an account on it

when I started the computer it went straight to that account and then I used migration assistant from there.

Would deleting this other account help? Would I need to do another full system migration or would I just need to

restore the aperture libary file from time machine? (If I can access it)

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Answer 3

Feb 11, 2014 8:53 AM in response to Doktoor

Was the drive that was removed in good working order, and only getting small? If so, I would put in in an enclosure or drive stand, and and try to copy the Aperture Library and Referenced Master from it to replace those installed via migration.

Why do you use Referenced Originals if on the same drive, btw?

Ernie

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Answer 4

Feb 11, 2014 5:44 PM in response to Doktoor

I would just start over and use Setup Assistant when the the system first comes up rather then Migration Assistant after the fact. This way all accounts made from the TM backup will have the same user IDs on the new drive as they had on the old system.

There are other ways to try and fix this but for me the easiest is to just start over from scratch.

If for some reason this is not possible (not sure why but if it is) post back and we'll try to figure something else out.

regards

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Answer 5

Doktoor Author

Level 1

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Feb 12, 2014 2:20 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

OK, so I did a clean install of snow leopard from the installation DVD and then used setup assistant to restore from time machine.

Since time machine had already made backups after I migrated for the first time it basically restored the system

to its previous state (with aperture not working properly), it did however restore the admin account which I had already deleted.

This allowed me to access my older time machine backups.

When I tried to restore the aperture library file (after first deleting the current one and emptying the trash)

I got a window saying copying 0kb from 10,68GB that just hung there

after checking my user account I found an aperture library file of about 6GB, I deleted this and did the restore again and let the window saying copying 0kb of 10,68GB run for half an hour, I then found an aperture library file in my account of 11GB. I opened aperture and guess what? exactly the same as before! no thumbnails and no access to masters except for about 10 projects (in fact every time I try this aperture makes previews for exactly 608 photos !?

I might try to copy the libary file from the old hard disk if I find something to mount it, but I am starting tho think that i will just have to reimport the entire library, and forget about the versions and be thankfull that I at least saved the masters :-(

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Answer 6

Feb 12, 2014 5:23 PM in response to Doktoor

Well of course if you restored the system to how it was when it was not working it still will not work.

When you did the Setup Assistant from TM were you not given an option to pick a specific backup? If so you should go back to one the was done before you installed the new drive and ran Migration Assistant.

If you look in System Prefernces at the Users pane what do you see? How many users are there? Are any of them from the old system?

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Answer 7

Doktoor Author

Level 1

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Feb 13, 2014 7:09 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

I must have done somthing wrong in using setup assistant after reinstalling OS X

The first time I just followed the promts and was not given the option to select a specific backup

I booted again from the install disk but this time selected restore from time machine

from the menu and now I was given the option to select a specific backup.

The system is now back to as it was just before I changed the drive but Aperture still has the exactly the same problem. I tried to delate the aperture library file and restored the second to last backup from time machine, but still exactly the same result.

I am afraid that time machine has just not backed up aperture correctly.

I am going to reimport the photos and use a separate backup with the vault from now on (I didn't know the vault existed until now, I thought time machine covered everything)

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Answer 8

Feb 13, 2014 8:12 AM in response to Doktoor

I have found it hard to follow exactly what you have done, but where is the Time Machine disk, and where is the Vault, if any? Be aware, Referenced Originals are not backed up on a vault, only what is actually in the Aperture Library.

Do you have no one with any device in which you could mount the old hard drive, and then access it?

Ernie

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Answer 9

léonie

Level 10

200,795 points

Feb 13, 2014 9:18 AM in response to Doktoor

I am afraid that time machine has just not backed up aperture correctly.

There are two problems with Time Machine to be aware of:

If Aperture is open, while Time Machine is doing the hourly backup, it cannot create a full backup of the library, only incremental backups. It is important, to quit Aperture before the backup starts, to ensure, that at least one full backup will be done.
And Time Machine does not make archival backups. Meaning, if Time Machine needs to free space, because the drive is filling up, it will delete older backups. You cannot be sure, that an older backup of the Aperture library will complete, only the latest backup is guaranteed to be complete. The older backups are great to restore older versions of single files, but not reliable for older versions of Aperture library packages.

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