iPhoto not importing videos; "The following file could not be imported...."

Thank you for the prompt reply OT.

I tried as you suggested and all the videos imported fine.

Does this mean that I have a corrupted iPhoto library and therefore need to create a new one and re-import everything anew?

I'll do that if necessary, but that's what I was in the process of doing when I got this error. (I.e., I had a referenced library, read that it was a bad idea, and started a new copied library and got this error upon first import of these videos, after importing ~30K photos.)

Isn't the same error likely to happen again, and how to I avoid?

Thanks!

Thank you. I tried the first solution (using iPhoto to rebuild the library) and it worked...for a while. Then it had trouble again with the videos, and also was doing weird things. (A couple of them: Finding videos that supposedly weren't imported already, but were. It also did strange things to the files: They still read as .mp4 or .mov, but became very small in file size (<100K in some cases) and without thumbnails; upon opening them, Quicktime would convert them into larger files (>MB).) I'll try iPhoto Library Manager and report back. (And, at some point, is it better to just suck it up and reimport the photos/videos, so that the library is "factory new" and not "refurbished"?)

Relatedly: Is it recommended that a library not get beyond a certain size? (Without videos, it is ~100 GB; with videos, it will swell to > 300 GB.) Or that you have multiple libraries, e.g., one for photos and videos? (Which I guess then could be managed with iPhoto Library Manager.) I'm just having a feeling that troubles arise as the library gets more full.

Thanks again.

Hi Terrence. Thanks for the upper item limit information.

On the QuickTime point: As I mentioned, iPhoto was finding videos that it said were not in my library, and asking if I wanted to import them. I said no, since I didn't believe that they were duplicates, and iPhoto saved them in a recovered photos folder. It went through this process each time I opened iPhoto, and so I'd end up with duplicate files in the various recovered photos folders (e.g., file x.mov and x_2.mov).

As an example: One file was saved as x_2.mov and is identied by the finder as being 12 KB; there is also a file x.mov, which is 6.3 MB. When I double click it the 12 KB file, it opens as a small rectangular video in QuickTime, with QT saying "Converting," and then opening another window with the converted video. After saving the converted file, I have the file x_2.mov (Converted), which is 6.3 MB, the same size as the x.mov file.

I don't know enough to speculate as to what's happening, although I can state that it's quite frustrating.

Hi Terrence. Thanks for your post. See below, which answers your questions, after some digression.

Old Toad and Terrence--Given that the problem I have is only with videos, I've decided--for the time being at least--to have a photos-only and videos-only library. I used iPhoto Library Manager to rebuild the photos-only library, and it seems to be OK (for the moment; fingers crossed).

As for the video library: I created a new library (by holding down "option" while opening iPhoto). I imported one folder of videos, faily small in number, with no problem. Then I opened a set of four folders (i.e., a parent folder containing four subsidiary folders) with 500+ videos and started experiencing import problems again. The videos play fine from the finder (double clicking opens them into QT). But for some reason iPhoto is saying it can't import/doesn't recognize the format, even though these are .mp4s and .movs. (I thought for a while that the subsidiary folder videos would import fine I did the subsidiary folders one by one, but the import/unrecognized format came back.) This is where I need help most.

To answer your specific questions, Terrence: As mentioned, I split into photos-only and videos-only libraries. Neither of the exposed libraries has a folder called "Import" or "Importing" (they do have "Auto Import", but it's empty). Other folders include "Attachments," "Database," "iLifeShared," "Masters," "Previews," and "Thumbnails."

An addendum: Some of the import errors I'm finding are for .avi files--hidden .avi files. After finding these hidden files and converting them to .mp4s, they seem to import OK.

Question: Why is the Finder hiding these files (not all are .avis; some are, e.g., .mp4s)?

I mean that the videos are "hidden" files, not ordinarily viewable in the Finder; I needed to use an app (in my case, Show Hide Invisible Files, recommended on this forum) to find them, and then used HandBrake to convert the files, and then imported them into iPhoto. Some of these hidden files were the ones that iPhoto apparently had trouble importing as described, although a majority of the trouble files weren't hidden.

I store my photos and videos in folders by year and quarter (e.g., a parent folder 2013, with subfolders 2013 Q1, 2013 Q2, etc.). The majority of the hidden files were in the quarterly subfolders.

Any thoughts on how to make iPhoto friendly? It is odd to me that QT and other apps can open them but not iPhoto.