Yosemite, iPhoto 9.6 upgrade, large photo library is not recognised.

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Yosemite, iPhoto 9.6 upgrade, large photo library is not recognised.

iMac 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (Early 2009) with 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Ram, 1 TB HD.

Just installed OS X Yosemite and iPhoto 9.6. I didn't run iPhoto immediately after instal, but my wife did while I was gone. She told me later that iPhoto didn't work and that when she clicked iPhoto, it asked to fix the permissions and after a bit iPhoto became unresponsive so she shut down the computer.

When I opened it, it asked to upgrade the library to work with the new version of iPhoto. Clicked ok and let it run...it did not last more than 5 minutes. When trying to open iPhoto now, it pauses for a second, then it displays the initial first time use splash screen (yellow sticky that says how to add photos to iPhoto).

The photo library in the finder shows it to be 230GB which is about the size I remember it to be. Showing the package contents I can see all of the photos in the "old masters" folder.

I have tried the following:

- Re-boot

- Repairing disk permissions (from recovery mode)

- Reset PRAM

- deleted and re-installed iPhoto

- Utilised all the options in the iPhoto Library First Aid (all take about 1 second to complete)

- Ran iPhoto Library Manager to rebuild photo library (took under a minute)

I have another copy of the library in another folder as well as an online backup (but all have been updated with the problem library so I don't think that will help much). As we speak, I am doing a local backup of the photos to an external drive just in case something further were to happen or I need to do a clean instal (don't think I can wait to have all of that download from the online backup).

So if anyone can help me it would be greatly appreciated.

1. Is there anything else I can do to save the database before having to just pull all of the photos out of the library and losing all of the metadata?

2. If thats all there is to do, what is easiest and best way to do manually or automate this...and to retain as much of the metadata as possible?

OS X Yosemite (10.10), 4 GB Ram, 1 TB HD

Posted on Nov 8, 2014 4:18 AM

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Answer 1

Yer_Man

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162,308 points

Nov 8, 2014 4:53 AM in response to mrkelley

Was there any error message when you ran iPhoto Library Manager's rebuild?

Showing the package contents I can see all of the photos in the "old masters" folder.

What version were you updating from?

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Answer 2

mrkelley Author

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Nov 8, 2014 4:59 AM in response to Yer_Man

Nothing other than it couldn't open iPhoto again (it just took too long, after it came up it continued with no further errors), looking at the log...it went through the process of loading keywords, faces, events etc...all 0 like it was a fully functioning empty library..

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Answer 3

mrkelley Author

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Nov 8, 2014 5:03 AM in response to Yer_Man

I don't remember what version specifically, but I keep all the apps updated (looking in app store purchase history it was done in october 2013)

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Answer 4

Yer_Man

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162,308 points

Nov 8, 2014 5:09 AM in response to mrkelley

Can you list the names of the folders inside the Library Package. (None of my updated library have an "old" masters folder and I'm wondering if the update failed to rename these or something.

Where is your Library stored?

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Answer 5

mrkelley Author

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Nov 8, 2014 5:23 AM in response to Yer_Man

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/AlbumData.xml

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Apple%20TV%20Photo%20Cache/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Attachments/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Auto%20Import/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Backup/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Before%20Restore/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/com.apple.iPhoto.plist

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Contents/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Data/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Data.noindex/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Database/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/iLifeShared/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Info.plist

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/iPhoto%20Selection/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/iPhotoAux.db

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/iPhotoAux.db.bak

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/iPhotoLock.data

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/iPhotoMain.db

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/iPhotoMain.db.bak

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/iPod%20Photo%20Cache/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Library.data

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Library.iPhoto

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Library6.iPhoto

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Masters/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Modified/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Old%20Masters/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Old%20Previews/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Old%20Thumbnails/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Originals/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Previews/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/ProjectCache/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/ProjectDBVersion.plist

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Projects.db

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Recovered%20Photos/

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/ThemeCache

file:///Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/Thumbnails/

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Answer 6

léonie

Level 10

194,743 points

Nov 8, 2014 5:41 AM in response to mrkelley

//Users/Shared/iPhoto%20Library/

Have you been sharing your library between two user accounts?

Storing an iPhoto Library in /Users/Shared is not supported in the newer iPhoto versions, if you want to share the library between users. It will result in permission problems for the internal library files and folders.

If you are sharing the library, move it to an external drive, formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled).

See Apple's recommendations: iPhoto: Sharing libraries among multiple users

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Answer 7

mrkelley Author

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Nov 8, 2014 6:06 AM in response to léonie

That was my intention when I originally put it there, but have not shared it with anyone else. When I put it there I followed all the instruction out out by Apple and have never had any issues with permissions. Looking in terminal, the library on the shared has my account as the owner of all folders. But either way, after updating and getting these problems, I copied the library to my user directory and will do it that way in the future (but will probably just use Photos).

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Answer 8

goldueli

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Nov 23, 2014 12:36 PM in response to Yer_Man

updated to Yosemite as well (no proposed update of application outstanding) and after couldn't start iPhoto anymore. the system suggested to install another version of iphoto, what I did. it took me a while to understand that the upgrade progress is shown in the launchpad. When done, I started iPhoto and it displayed a message that the library need to be prepared, which only took a couple of minutes (for a library with a size of ~130 GB). the result was the screen with the sticky notes, yet no faces, no images. the library contains the originals. As I didn't find some suitable solution in the net I restored the library from time machine to the desktop (it took about 10h to restore) and started iPhoto while double clicking on the library, the same as explained above happened.

a real disappointing experience which I hadn't expected to apple. I hope that I didn't loose all the work to map faces and other information for all my photos.

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Answer 9

Dec 13, 2014 6:06 AM in response to mrkelley

I have this exact same issue and I've been trying to fix it for days. Did you find a solution?

I have done the iPhoto Library Manager route and it doesn't think there are any photos in the library.

Showing package contents I can see, what I think, are all the photos in "old masters" but I would rather fix this library somehow to preserve all my editing rather than the last case scenario of re-importing from "old masters" Did you find anything on this that worked?

Thanks!

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Answer 10

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,308 points

Dec 13, 2014 7:11 AM in response to brianwpetersen

If you don't have a back up there is no repair, I'm afraid.

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Answer 11

Dec 13, 2014 5:52 PM in response to mrkelley

Having the same exactly same troubles/problems after upgrade and (auto) upgrade to iPhoto 9.0.... Library's are there and iPhoto shows nothing...***, Apple?! Seriously - I have 1000's of photos that I have to ?....

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Answer 12

Dec 13, 2014 5:53 PM in response to Yer_Man

WHAT? That's it? No solution?

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Answer 13

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

Dec 13, 2014 6:40 PM in response to jdlarsen54

the solution is to restore your backup of the iPhoto library from before you upgraded to iphoto 9.6 and do the library upgrade again - something went wrong last time - which is why you always make a backup prior to updating or upgrading - to protect against rare failures

LN

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Answer 14

Dec 13, 2014 7:11 PM in response to Yer_Man

Thankfully I did have a backup, it was just 8 months old -- time machine from my laptop isn't very consistent. So I restored from backup and then pulled the last 8 months from the "old masters" folder in the corrupted library. Took some time, but at least I have everything.

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Answer 15

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

Dec 13, 2014 7:13 PM in response to brianwpetersen

Good - I suggest you start running Time Machlne all the time - if you are having issues there is a TM forum

LN

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