It has just sat there for 2+ hours The activity monitor shows iphoto is very busy. Should I keep waiting?
Problem occurred when iphoto was opened (and it worked fine three days ago) and it told us that the library was busy of needed to be rebuilt. Reboot of imac didn't help.
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.1)
How big is your iPhoto library? For a really huge library (several hundred GB) rebuilding can take several hours without any visible progress - in that case let it run.
If your library is smaller, try rebuilding with iPhoto Library Manager .
See Old Toad's post here, on how to run iPhoto Library Manager: Re: All my photos are Black Exclamation Marks - iphoto on ExtHD
How big is your iPhoto library? For a really huge library (several hundred GB) rebuilding can take several hours without any visible progress - in that case let it run.
If your library is smaller, try rebuilding with iPhoto Library Manager .
See Old Toad's post here, on how to run iPhoto Library Manager: Re: All my photos are Black Exclamation Marks - iphoto on ExtHD
If I kill iphoto and start over with the library manager is this likely to screw up the library?
The iPhoto Library Manager will leave the original library untouched and create a copy.
Nevertheless, it is good practice to always have a backup copy of the library, when trying a rebuild.
What happened to cause the necessity to rebuild in he first place? Did iPhoto crash? Did you install or upgrade any new software? Ran any maintenance software, like cleaning apps? Move the iPhoto library?
This is my wife's computer. Nothing system-wise happened since last she ran iPhoto -- though perhaps an automatic update to iPhoto occurred.
I have made a copy of a week-ago version from time machine. She has added no phtots since then.
I'm going to let it run overnight and then, if not done, kill it. Move a backup version into place and try again.
Thanks for your continued assistance.
I have made a copy of a week-ago version from time machine. She has added no phtots since then.
How did you make the copy from Time Machine? An iPhoto Library needs to be restored from the Time Machine Starwars screen and cannot simply be dragged from the Time Machine backup like other files.
I have made a copy of a week-ago version from time machine. She has added no phtots since then.
To add to léonie's response the library must be restored as follows from within the Time Machine application:
OT
OK. Thanks for the further info. As noted if nothing by tomorrow AM (Eastern US time) I'll do the restore per those instructions.
iPhoto 09 rebuild stuck Examining Library with progress bar unmoved
