Aperture 3.6 locks up on lunch under Yosemite

How long are you waiting before for quitting Aperture? Aperture needs to upgrade the library, and that can take a long time. Let it run.

Also, the first few times after the upgrade it will take longer before you can access the menus.

Several users reported that they had to wait at least 40 seconds after each launch, after the initial library upgrade completed. And that background processing will be done, slowing Aperture down.

Let Aperture get the background processing done without interrupting it.

From Aperture's Release notes: Aperture 3.6 Release notes

Keep in mind that fully upgrading a very large library is a one-time process that can take a long time; the process may take many hours or even overnight, depending on the size of the library. Once the initial database upgrade is complete, you can begin working with your Aperture library. However, post-upgrade processing will continue in the background for some time, as face detection and preview generation are performed. (A progress indicator and the word "Processing" will appear in the status line of the Viewer or Browser to indicate these operations are underway.) While you can work with Aperture while these operations are performed, you may experience temporary slow-downs. Optimal performance will return when all post-upgrade processing is complete.

Just let it run over night, so it can get the house keeping work done and will be sooner back to norma.

Brian,

I had exactly the same problem. This is the procedure which helped me to solve this issue. First, I had exported all my presets in Aperture. Than I deleted Aperture app and I also deleted file com.apple.Aperture.plist in the library folder, rebooted and installed new Aperture 3.6.

Now Aperture opens in 2 seconds (MAC MINI MID 2011).

Had the same exact problem after upgrading to Yosemite and Aperture 3.6. Aperture suddenly took a really long time to start. Once the app window opened it took ~30 secs to be able to even see the photo thumbnails. After that it seemed fine, but I remained concerned since I had never seen this behavior before. And it wasn't getting any better by letting it "do its thing over night". So, I went ahead and renamed (for safety) the aperture prefs file in User/Library/Preferences, rebooted, and Aperture works like a charm. Thanks.

Hi all,

My Aperture is now also slow to open at about 40 seconds. It's then fine. This is every launch. I've left it overnight and have now deleted the User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Aperture.plist file but still the problem continues. Is this the preference file you are all referring to?

Thanks

Steve

That's indeed the file I was talking about. (You did empty the trash and restart, right?) I also recall that I did a permission repair from within Aperture (by holding down Command + Option at start) before having resorted to deleting that file -- but that didn't seem to help.

Hopefully one of the other solutions works and you don't need to do this full reinstall of Aperture thing.

Thanks for the reply. It was the reboot I missed. I had deleted and emptied trash on the plist, but it looks like it keeps the state and rewrites the file if you don't reboot.

Beck to normal now, thank you.

Steve

but it looks like it keeps the state and rewrites the file if you don't reboot.

Right.

That is caused by the new process model with "automatic termination" introduced with MacOS X 10.7. (http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7/8/) Applications may not really quit, when you quit them, but remain in the cache, ready to run again. Yosemite is hiding the difference between running applications and terminated applications. The only way to ensure, that the preferences files will not be simply rewritten with the cached values, is restarting the Mac.

As suggested by other posts, I trashed the "com.apple.Aperture.plist" from my Users/Library/Preferences. (You have to make your Users Library folder visible first.) I emptied the trash and restarted. I tried this a couple of times and it was still taking a long time to load the thumbnails. Finally I trashed the "com.apple.Aperture.plist" file again and also trashed the Aperture.app from my applications folder, emptied the trash and then restarted. I then went to the App Store and reinstalled Aperture. This time Aperture opened rapidly, as it should. Since it created a new Photo Library,

I had to switch back to my original Library and re-do the preferences. It seems to be working correctly now.

Deleting the plist and rebooting fixed my problem. You don't have to delete the trash, but you do have to reboot. Thanks for the help. This was really bugging me.

I'm having exactly the same problem!

Can someone explain in VERY simple terms how to find this please:

User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Aperture.plist

I've found several other files which have com.apple and end in plist - but can't find one for Aperture. So can you explain how I get to this chain of things to get to the preferences

Many thanks

It will depend on your MacOS X version, how to open the hidden user library and to find the file.

In all versions will work to use the Finder's "Go" menu.

In the Finder click "Go" in the main menu bar, then select "Go to Folder" and copy and paste

~/Library/Preferences

into the text field. This will open the Preferences folder in your User library. Scroll down to com.apple.Aperture.plist

Many thanks Léonie, sorry, only just seen the notification about this. Now found that file, so will try to follow other advice on this thread.