iPoto will never stop updating thumbnails

Question

Level 1

140 points

iPoto will never stop updating thumbnails

It's now been weeks that I can't access my photos because iPhoto says it must update thumbnails, but it never finishes, hitting "finish later" does nothing... so I am starting to panic a little. The library is over 30GB and the same thing happens when I try to open a different library. (I manage my photos with multiple libraries)

See screen shot:

I have let it run all day, all night, even for days on end, but it just stops at the point shown,

help!

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Sep 17, 2015 7:11 AM

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Answer 1

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,984 points

Sep 17, 2015 1:17 PM in response to kbastian

Where is your Library stored? On your internal disk or on an external? If on an external, what format is that?

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Answer 2

kbastian Author

Level 1

140 points

Sep 17, 2015 3:06 PM in response to Yer_Man

Thanks for the reply, all my iPhoto libraries are in Photos under my user account, where they "should" be. Backups are all I use external for. I have a 3TB HD so it has plenty of space. I was able to open another Library with the option feature, that was smaller, and could see the one that is going so slow is 300GB not 30, it was on a different Library than I thought. (when open, you can't tell which Library it is, the only way to tell is when you use the option option, the one marked Default is the Library last opened.

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Answer 3

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,984 points

Sep 18, 2015 1:45 AM in response to kbastian

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

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