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

It seems to be a common phenomenon with a lot of people facing same problem, so I guess more of a bug than rare failure.

Agree that having regular back-ups is the right thing to do.

Is anyone from Apple support team responding to these discussions?

I am eagerly waiting for a solution advice from team at Apple.

Thanks!

There does appear to be a signifiant bug that can cause this (but its occurrence is still rare) and most iphoto library issues after upgrade are eas=ily solved - to get specific advice you your specific issue you need to start new thread including all details of your system and you problem

As to "eagerly waiting for Apple" - good luck - Apple does not monitor these forums and does not comment here - several of us have tried to bring it to Apple's attention with no espouse yet - there may not be one - at this time the resolution to the apparent bug in iphoto 9.6 or Yosemite (or both) the only solution is to restore a backup

but again for most problems that is not the only solution

LN

Thanks Larry,

Appreciate your reply.

Best Regards

You are welcome

LN

The best contact the developer team would be to create a free developer account. Then you can access the bug reporter and submit details about your system to the developers. That would be more efficient than the feedback form:

Sign up here: https://developer.apple.com/register/index.action

We cannot submit the bug report for you, because we cannot access your system and extract details about the hardware configuration, take screenshot, look into your library. After submitting a bug report you will receive a notification, either that the report is redundant and the bug is known, or the developers may ask you to run additional tests.

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So I ran into this problem when iPhoto upgraded. My iPhoto library was on a Mac OS Extended Journaled EHD as recommended, but after the upgrade none of my photos show up. The original files are sitting in an "Old Masters" folder. I am now copying this entire folder over before I try to restore a backup. If there is indeed a bug, what's to say this won't happen again when I restore the backup? Scary stuff!

Unfortunately nothing since so far Apple has not addressed this in any way that we know of

however None of the power users here have experienced this - and overall very few have so it appears to be very rare - but a bad one when it hits

Do report to Apple - it is too bad they have not responded to this at all as it is very nasty for the few it hits

LN

If there is indeed a bug, what's to say this won't happen again when I restore the backup? Scary stuff!

As far as I have seen in similar cases, the "Old Masters" problem occurs, when iPhoto crashes during the upgrade of the library. We don't know why iPhoto has been crashing in the first place - perhaps bad media files (videos, corrupted images) in the iPhoto Library. One problem, that might have been the reason for iPhoto crashing, was lack of storage on the disk with the iPhoto library. After you restore your Photo library, make sure that it is sitting on a drive with plenty of free storage before you try to upgrade the library again.

There is a possible solution:

Starting over from scratch with new library

Start over with a new library and import the Originals (iPhoto 09 and earlier) or the Masters (iPhoto 11) folder from your original library as follows:

1. Open the library package like this.

2. Launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and, when asked, select the option to create a new library.

3. Drag the subfolders of Masters or Old Masters (whichever contains the image files) folder from the open iPhoto Library package into the open iPhoto window a few at a time.

This will create a new library with the same Events (but not necessarily the same Event names) as the original library but will not keep the metadata, albums, books slideshows and other projects.

Note: your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.

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

jdlarsen54 wrote:

WHAT? That's it? No solution?

Sorry - if you do not have a backup then when failures occur you lose things and there is no solution to that - in the future you must always have a current backup if your data has any value to you

If you have the failure described in this thread then you can only restore your backup or start over with only your original photos - no edits or other changes - there no other solution at this time

LN

So I had this problem as well - with my 245GB iPhoto library with some 68,000 photos that was living on a Thunderbolt2 external drive, and tried just about everything in the book to make it work. Nothing did. I finally gave in and after 3 hours on the phone with an Apple Senior iApps Advisor, the issue was resoled. What it entails is not for the faint of heart or the timid, as what you will have to do is a manual rebuild of the entire iPhoto Library. Here is what we ended up doing...

FIRST ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE A BACKUP OF THE ORIGINAL IPHOTO LIBRARY YOU WILL BE SAFEGUARDING!

1. Once you have that backup, which must be a version of the last known working library (or the last time you modified it before the issues with iPhoto 9.6 started), start with the iPhoto library that has gone through the "upgrade" and "rebuild" process that results in the library having the same number of files in the package and the same file size. Right click on it to Show Package Contents (see screenshot).

2. Switch the view to the detailed list viewing, then use the "View Options" from the "View Menu" or hit "⌘-J" to select the checkbox in the bottom area of the view tab to "Calculate all sizes". This will allow you to see the size of the folders as shown above

3. See if you have folders named "Old Masters", "Old Previews" and "Old Thumbnails". You might also have folders named "Masters", "Previews" and "Thumbnails" - they might be empty. Compare the "old" folders with the "new" ones - if you have more data in those than in the "new" ones, you can proceed from here.

4. Delete the "new" folders named "Masters", "Previews" and "Thumbnails". I didn't actually have these so I didn't have to do this step.

5. Rename the "old" folders by removing the "Old " part of the folder name so that they become "Masters", "Previews" and "Thumbnails".

6. Launch iPhoto 9.6 in the utility mode by holding down the Option+Command keys when you launch iPhoto. Select the last option in the list called "Rebuild Database" and click "Repair" (see screenshot below):

Let iPhoto do its thing - it may take a while. Once it's done, see if your photos are back. They might not be, in which case, you have to dive even further into the manual rebuild process. On to the next step, but first QUIT iPhoto...

7. Locate your backup of the iPhoto Library and bring up the package contents as you did for the working library file in step 2 above.

8. Now, expand the "Database" folder and select the "Albums", "apdb", "Folders", "History", "Places" and "Versions" folders from the backup package contents. Copy (via drag-and-drop or the copy and paste commands) these into the working iPhoto library package contents. BE CAREFUL YOU DON'T MIX UP WHICH IS THE BACKUP AND WHICH IS THE WORKING LIBRARY! Replace all the existing folders with the ones you are copying.

9. When the copy/paste/replace is complete (might take some time depending on the size of your library), re-launch iPhoto in utility mode again, and select the "Rebuild Database" option and click "Repair" as in step 6 above. Again, let iPhoto do it's thing and be patient!

If you are lucky and this works, you will be back to where you were before the mess started. IF THIS WORKS, IMMEDIATELY BACKUP THE NEW, WORKING IPHOTO LIBRARY!!!

NOTES: If you used the "Faces" feature a lot, then copy that one too.

From what I was told you don't need the other items. This is what worked for me and I wanted to share it with everyone. Can't promise anything but it's worth the attempt. I know how relieved I was and also how incredibly frustrated before it was resolved. Good luck and I hope this helps!!!!

Identical thing has happened to me; 90,000+ photos in a 800GB library. Nearly 10 years of personal and professional photos

I keep this on a LaCie ruggedidsed disk, with a protective cover and guard with my life.

Friday I prepared a slideshow for a major customer presentation.
Saturday I set up on stage and am presented with the question 'You will need to upgrade your iPhoto library to continue'

This is strange as I would NEVER accept a software upgrade (iPhoto) just prior to making a major presentation using it as a tool. My settings for 'auto updates' were 'ask first' (or so I thought. It turns out that part and parcel of the insane upgrade to Yosemite, the old software updater is removed and replaced with the deplorable AppStore; which - as you will guess - has 'automatically update software without asking user' set as the DEFAULT!)

Needless to say, I realised that this would take hours, so I scrubbed this part of my presentation. The following day, while standing idle for hours at an exhibition, I set the upgrade running so that I would be able to present my photos that evening. After 'repair permissions' and other issues exactly as described in the OP, it reported it was finished. Zero photos.

I have just returned to my office only to find that TimeMachine's last backup of the external disk with the iPhoto library (I of course don't keep this disk permanently attached to my USB-port challenged Macbook) is about a year old

What is especially frustrating is that apart from NEVER allowing automatic software updates, given the value of this disk, had I been at my office and not abroad trying to impress clients; I would have manually backed up the disk prior to any upgrade. I have just such a backup from the last time iPhoto had to 'upgrade' the database, about a year ago... I didn't happen to have a spare empty 1TB disk drive in the middle of this show.

Now utterly frustrated and distressed that all the material I had prepared could not now be displayed, I searched the web and found this thread.

Words cannot describe my feeling of rage and despair at this point. NOTHING I did was anything one iota out of line from Apple instructions and practice. The fact that I recently consolidated all my wife's photos from her iPhone to my photo library has only exacerbated this.

But the fact that this could be a KNOWN PROBLEM (at least from November) and STILL APPLE HAS DONE NOTHING TO WARN US, PATCH THE SOFTWARE or at the very lease ISSUE A STRONG STATEMENT AT THE START OF THE UPGRADE THAT A FULL BACKUP IS RECOMMENED is verging on software criminality.

I am about to pay an expensive IT consultant a lot of money to attempt to recover these photos. I pray for success, but To whom do I send the bill??

Angry Apple user (since 1982)

PS - Thank you zaxe, your response is the only thing giving me hope and will be my mission tomorrow...

Unfortunately Apple appears to simply have abandoned iphoto users after they introduced this major bug in Yosemite/iPhoto 9.6

Several of us have requested that the moderators of these ASC forums pass this problem on to development many times - we have received no answer and have no indication that they have passed it to development and no solution has been shown

the proposed solution in the post just above yours sounds logical although I have not and know no now who has actually tested it - I have not personally seen this issue but have only read about it here

As to backups - you should never update or upgrade software without backing up first - and if you only backup once a year you are 100% guaranteed to lose data sooner or later - next time it will be user error - or hardware failure - or another software bug - r ??? - But i will happen - you really must have daily backups if your data as any value at all to you - I runt TimeMachine constantly giving me hourly backups and do a daily bootable clone using Carbon Copy Cloner giving me anothr backup - plus an occasional off site backup

LN

This is not intended to kick you while you're down but I suggest you look for professional DAM (digital asset management) application to manage your photos since you're using them for business purposes. iPhoto is a home user app and not a pro grade app like Aperture is (but is in the end of life cycle like iPhoto) or other DAM.

My primary DAM app is Media Pro 1. I use iPhoto for special projects like books, calendars, etc. MP1 does have slideshow option but not the fancy themes that iPhoto has. It can do voice over however.

There's a demo version available to try. For those who want to convert an iPhoto library over to MP1 I've created a tutorial on how to get all of the metadata into the master files for use with MP1.

For other potential DAM apps visit The DAM Forum.