Unsupported library on Yosemite

Do you have a backup copy of the library with a title like this: iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary. That's the library you need or a backup copy of your original iPhoto.iphotolibrary.

If you don't have one of the above you'll be able to recover your photos from the Photo library you currently have but will lose all organizational effort put into them and any metadata, i.e. keywords, titles, etc., and projects.

Then you'll have to follow the instructions in my previous post above.

Yeah....the incompatibility in Photos Library formats between El Capitan and Yosemite is a major problem.

I upgraded one of my Macs to El Capitan and used Photos to access my Photos Library on my other Mac (still running Yosemite). The El Capitan Mac insisted it had to "upgrade" my library and converted it to a format that I can't open on my Yosemite machine.

It blows my mind that Apple made Photos in El Capitan (Photos v1.2) incompatible with Photos in Yosemite (current v.1.0.1)!!!! El Capitan insists on "updating" shared Photos Libraries before it will open then, rendering them useless and un-openable on any other Mac.

Moreover, the Photos app cannot presently be updated to v1.2 on Yosemite machines. This is so un-Apple behavior in terms of standardization and foolproofing things that I'm red-faced with anger. Now I'm forced to go through exporting everything from the El Capitan machine to the Yosemite machine and re-creating the Photos Library from scratch (or just never editing Photos on my larger machine at all until Apple gets around to synchronizing Photos versions).

W T H, Apple? Seriously. W T H ?

It blows my mind that Apple made Photos in El Capitan (Photos v1.2) incompatible with Photos in Yosemite (current v.1.0.1)!!!! El Capitan insists on "updating" shared Photos Libraries before it will open then, rendering them useless and un-openable on any other Mac.

It's always been that way with new versions of iPhoto and Photos. With iPhoto once upgrading a library from iPhoto 9.x to 9.y the new library would not be accessible by iPhoto 9.x. Backward compatibly in this apps have never been guaranteed.

@Old Toad:

Two things:

1. You're not correct in your iPhoto example. Minor updates to iPhoto in the past did NOT render the iPhoto library incompatible with the previous versions.

2. More importantly, you're TOTALLY missing a major difference between this situation with Photos and your iPhoto example. Apple generally allowed iPhoto to be updated INDEPENDENTLY of the operating system. Therefore, even in cases where your claim about iPhotos was correct, people using older versions of OS X could just update iPhoto on the older Mac. In contrast, the new Photos app is basically part of the operating system. People using Yosemite, for example, are currently FORCED to stay on Photos v1.0.1 (as of today) and CANNOT update Photos to the version built-in to El Capitan (v1.2 as of today). So your example doesn't apply (even if it were true).

Therefore, anyone who makes the mistake of opening a favorite Photos Library under El Capitan is forced to let Photos "update" the Library, which renders it UNUSABLE under any previous OS X using Photos, again, because Apple isn't offering a version of Photos 1.2 for anything earlier than El Capitan (as of today).

I'm actually very surprised a "Level 10" guy on here would post the response you did and fail to recognize the difference between the current Photos "fragmentation" problem and the iPhoto example you tried to use. You don't seem to understand the issue that I'm calling people's attention to.

Regards,

Bill

It's you that is wrong. Any time a library is opened with a newer version of iPhoto this message would come up and it is self explanatory.

This fact has been discussed many, many times by users who experienced the same problem, i.e. other Macs can't share the same library because they had an older versions of iPhoto. It's always been this way.

As for the differences between iPhoto and Photo in regards to it's reliance on the system, we're in a new paradigm and the rules have changed whether we like it or not.

difference between the current Photos "fragmentation" problem

I have no idea what you mean by fragmentation?

@OldToad: Actually, you're still mostly wrong. The point I'm making (which you continue to look past), is that iPhoto could be updated each time the app changed. There was little risk that an iPhoto Library would be "updated" by a later version and made UNUSABLE by an earlier version, causing major problems and lost time for the user. Why? Because the user could always update iPhoto on the older Mac and keep using the Library that had changed.

Now, however, Apple is simply not allowing Photos on anything older than El Capitan to be updated to the El Capitan version. Therefore users, including me, are allowing Photos to update their Library to the v1.2 format on shared drives, not realizing they won't be able to open it anymore on their older Macs running Yosemite or older OS's. It's a MAJOR problem for people using family sharing and shared drives across multiple Macs. It's a fundamrntally different situation than the one you described for iPhoto. You don't seem to want to acknowledge the difference OR the seriousness.

BTW, 'fragmentation' is a software industry term used to describe situations when different users are forced to use different versions of the same software For example, many Android devices cannot be updated to later versions of the OS. It's for this reason that Apple iOS fans often refer to Android as suffering from a "fragmentation problem" across the user base. It leads to many other problems and incompatibilities. It's a very good analogy to what Apple is doing by "fragmenting" the versions of Photos and not allowing pre-El Capitan users to update Photos. I'm surprised you haven't heard the term before....

Also, I still think that some updates to iPhoto did NOT render Libraries unusable by older versions of the app. Only certain ones did.

I have the same huge problem with Photos, with one notable difference – I have not upgraded to El Capitan at all. Even so, for the past week or so Photos, which was always fine, won't open anymore with the same message that gnu_swiss reports. But El Capital was never on my machine, so how can Photos give me this nonsensical message about "UNSUPPORTED LIBRARY The Library Photos Library.photoslibrary is from a newer version of photos..." There is NO NEWER LIBRARY anywhere on my machine and has never been and I never copied anything over to my computer from another computer that had El Capitan running. The only thing is that the App store automatically installed a new security update on my machine but that should have nothing to do with Photos. So now I am locked out of my Photos and can't work on them anymore, but at the same time I can't upgrade to El Capitan just yet because I have other projects running on other apps (that will automatically upgrade with El Capitan) that I need to finish first (in case El Capitan makes a hash of my half-finished projects in Yosemite). Plus there is no guarantee that the Photos error message will disappear if I upgrade. I'm so fed up with Photos that I don't like to use it anymore even if it starts working again.

Just came across your post and have similar issue...trying to downgrade from El Capitan back to Yosemite. I have two files in Pictures folder on the Mac with Yosemite: iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary and Photos Library2.photoslibrary. The second file was created on the Mac with El Capitan when I opened the iPhoto library into Photos. I brought both files over to the Mac with Yosemite...and when I try to open the iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary file into Photos in Yosemite I get the error message about needing to upgrade Photos.

Is there something I can do here since I seem to have the iPhoto Library file you mentioned?

Thanks.

What version of iPhoto are you using in Yosemite?

Afraid I don't know the iPhoto version was used...my daughter's computer, I'm just local tech support.

Old Toad,

I stumbled across this article yesterday, I'm having the exact same issue as cnu swiss

What I want to know is, can I not just extract the data from the package contents in the version 1.2 and then place that data inside the package contents of the version 1.0.1?

I don't backup my photos through Time Machine, I do it manually and save my pictures on an external hard drive using the photo app.

I hope there is a workaround, I don't mind manually importing my pictures back into version 1, that would be way easier that upgrading to El Capitan again.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks

Dan

What I want to know is, can I not just extract the data from the package contents in the version 1.2 and then place that data inside the package contents of the version 1.0.1?

The library is a complex environment of databases, links and other interactive files. Just replacing components from one into another will kill the library.

If you want to import the photos in your 1.2 library into your 1.0.1 library you can do the following;

1 - go inside the 1.2 library package and move or copy the Masters folder to the Desktop.

2 - launch Photos 1.0.1 and open your 1.0.1 library.

3 - drag the subfolders from the 1.2 library's Masters folder into the open window of your 1.0.2 library. That will import the photos into that library. If there are any exact duplicate files Photos should give you this warning:

Click the Apply to all duplicates checkbox and then the Don't Import button.