Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

library garbage

After years of maintaining my photo library in Aperture my thumbnails are "suddenly" completely messed up. When I got to projects from photos imported a couple years ago, the thumbnails that appear have no relationship to the photos - it is a massive jumble of garbage. I honestly have no idea how to explain the mess the Aperture library is in.

It currently appears I have to go back and re-import ALL of my photos. Fortunately I was smart enought to NEVER trust Aperture to actually store my photos so they are secure in their own hard drive location.


I don't know if anyone else has run into this but I am completely frustrated at this point. I'm open to suggestions (even though I haven't given much to go on).


Thanks

Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2), 3.2 GHz Quad-Core, 12 GB RAM

Posted on Jun 16, 2014 8:01 PM

Reply
6 replies

Jun 16, 2014 8:19 PM in response to CarlWhite

Repair your database.

Details are on Apple's Aperture trouble-shooting page.

Although I have never heard of "repair" damaging a Library, as with any computer file, you should never use a Library without having a back-up.


Note that "photos" has no fixed meaning in Aperture. You have, it seems, your camera files stored on their own hard drive, but they are just as easily found in the Library package. Your Images -- the things you see in Aperture -- don't exist as full-size share-able files. They are created on-the-fly by applying the adjustments and metadata changes you've made to those Originals. The adjustments and metadata changes are saved in text files. The only way to create share-able files from your Images is via "File ▹ Export". In other words, you need Aperture to "get" your Images. There is nothing inherently better -- or smarter -- about storing your Originals on external drives.


Do you have any idea what might have caused your Library to become corrupt?

Jun 16, 2014 11:07 PM in response to CarlWhite

What is your Aperture version? are you shooting RAW or JPEG?



When I got to projects from photos imported a couple years ago, the thumbnails that appear have no relationship to the photos - it is a massive jumble of garbage.


If Kirby's recommendation to repair the library does not yet fix the problem with the messed up thumbnails try to recreate the thumbnails.


Select all effected photos and use the command from the Photos menu "Photos > Generate Thumbnails".


If you are shooting RAW and recently installed a raw support update, reprocess the originals as well: "Photos > Rprocess originals".


Have you used any cleaning application to remove duplicates? Like CleanMyMac 2 or Gemini?

Jun 17, 2014 7:55 PM in response to Kirby Krieger

Thank you for the link. I went through all of the steps indicated short of re-installing Aperture (that may be next). To partially resolve the issue I was running into I disabled Face Detection in preferences (after I deleted the plist files).


What I've noticed as I've gone through at least some of the "photos" (I understand what you said about Aperture not having a fixed meaning for "photos") and many older images that I had scanned in, as opposed to importing from a camera, did not always display. Instead I had a black box with a caution triangle in the middle. Trying to open that image showed "unsupported image."


I'm not sure what might be causing this and it could be a totally different issue than the one I started out with. I'm getting these on both referenced files as well as files that have what appear to be garbage names (rvjJKD4sT1WaacgyrQovSw.apdetected).


Reprocessing the originals didn't work, nor did generate thumbnails. I can try to re-import the files, which seemed to work in some instances.


Thanks for the help.

Jun 18, 2014 2:12 AM in response to CarlWhite

Instead I had a black box with a caution triangle in the middle. Trying to open that image showed "unsupported image."


This is frequently an indication of missing or offline original image files. Since you are using referenced images - is it possible, that you accidentally moved or deleted original files, or they have been restored incompletely from a backup?


I'd check for the file status of all images by creating smart albums, one album for each of the file status tags:

New > Smart album > Add Rule: Select "File status" from the drop down menu.


(rvjJKD4sT1WaacgyrQovSw.apdetected)


Where are you seeing these random names? In the library package, or in Aperture's Browser, when viewing the metadata of your images? These names are the filenames of the detected faces. If you are seeing image versions with these names, you have images linked to faces thumbnails, and that could have been caused by importing image files directly from an Aperture library package by importing as files and not as library. This kind of problem is hard to fix manually, because such wrong imports may occur all over the place.

Do you have a full backup of your library from before the time, before this problem occured? Or all your backups newer?


User uploaded file

Jun 19, 2014 4:25 AM in response to léonie

I actually found an old aperture library backup from version 1.5. I am able to restore that library and, after conversion to 3.1, the projects and albums look fine. So far, there are none of the "detected faces" found in my last library. I will have to go through and import a couple years worth of photos but that will take less time than trying to go through and fix all of the other issues.


While I do back up my libraries daily, they are not differential (each one overwrites the older version). Now I will keep a copy of my libraries every 6 months to a year - a relatively easily recoverable scenario.


Thanks much for the help - it is appreciated.

Jun 19, 2014 4:37 AM in response to CarlWhite

. I am able to restore that library and, after conversion to 3.1, the projects and albums look fine.

That is good!


Now I will keep a copy of my libraries every 6 months to a year - a relatively easily recoverable scenario.

Yes, archival backups are very useful. You might consider a combination of regular incremental backups and occasional full backups to archive certain states.

library garbage

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.