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iPhoto 9.6 not loading after Yosemite, Library Converter not working

So did the Yosemite upgrade on my old iMac that was running Mountain Lion (skipped Mavericks on this one) and had the similar problem opening iPhoto that everyone else was having. Tried to upgrade it through the App store, and it still gave me the "iPhoto cannot be opened" problem, so I deleted iPhoto and reinstalled from App Store. Now, it's telling me "to open your library with this version of iPhoto, it first needs to be prepared" and links me to the iPhoto Library Upgrader application. I downloaded and installed that, and when I run it it tells me "you can't open your current photo library using this version of iPhoto. Please quit and use the latest version of iPhoto".


So now I'm stuck in a loop and can't open iPhoto at all. I have backups of the photo library on Time Machine, but not sure at this point what my next step should be.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2008 model, 24"

Posted on Oct 17, 2014 10:37 AM

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8 replies

Oct 17, 2014 10:52 AM in response to AZTriGuy

Odd thing, it's only happening to one account on the computer. This is the computer my kids use, and I just checked my admin account (no photos) and my daughter's account (handful of photos, <100 photos over 4 events), and iPhoto works fine. It only seems to be on my son's account where iPhoto (thousands and thousands of photos...) seems to have gotten goofed.

Oct 17, 2014 2:49 PM in response to AZTriGuy

Option 1

Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Choose to Repair Database. If that doesn't help, then try again, this time using Rebuild Database.


If that fails:


Option 2

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In early versions of Library Manager it's the File -> Rebuild command. In later versions it's under the Library menu.)


This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.


Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.


Regards



TD

Oct 18, 2014 8:08 AM in response to Yer_Man

i was finally able to get it - I had to delete the library (actually, just moved it out of the Pictures folder onto the desktop) and open iPhoto, telling it to create a new, empty library. Once there, I was able to import the old directory - took many hours, once I got to there I could see my son had over 27k photos in there, so once that finished we started the process of "Son, this is how to import photos and how to delete the ones you don't need". To be fair, he likes to do stop-motion things and saves all the pictures in there, so for one short movie there could be 1000+ photos. Now onto iMovie, which doesn't seem to want to update old projects into the new version, but that's another thread. Thanks for your help!

Apr 2, 2015 12:40 AM in response to Yer_Man

I was having a similar problem on a clients computer after she'd upgraded to Yosemite and the latest version of iPhoto.


Nothing I tried was able to get iPhoto working, it always bombed out trying to upgrade the library. I tried restoring from backups, the built in iPhoto First Aid and iPhoto Library Updater. I really didn't want to use iPhoto Library Manager to rebuild because she runs an art conservation workshop and depends on her albums for her business records.


Eventually I checked the logs (doh) and found this in system.log:


$ grep -i iphoto /var/log/system.log

Apr 1 11:11:47 studiomac.lan com.apple.library-repair.agent[744]: fchmod (un-setuid) failed (9) on path "/Users/xxx/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2008/19:05:2008/Conservation_10.bmp"


After moving that image to /tmp I tried opening iPhoto again, it failed on:


Apr 1 11:15:23 studiomac.lan com.apple.library-repair.agent[744]: fchmod (un-setuid) failed (9) on path "/Users/xxx/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2008/19:05:2008_2/Conservation_09.bmp"


After that upgraded the library and worked fine. Not sure what was wrong with the two photos, they opened just fine in Preview.


So for anyone else having mystery problems with iPhoto on Yosemite, check your logs.

iPhoto 9.6 not loading after Yosemite, Library Converter not working

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