murianer

Q: Pictures lost in photo app after print order

Hi

(please excuse my simple Englisch, since it is not my mother thong)

My work environment

I am working with iPhoto since years and since a couple of month with the new photo app. Upgrade to photo from iPhoto worked fine (German versions are used). my iMac is quite old (2009) but running the news version of El Capitan 10.11.2 using 4GB RAM, 2.66GHz i5 and a ATI Radon with 512MB

I import all pictures (from my local internal hard drive from a temporary folder) into the photo mediathek and leave the original files on the iMac hard drive (no storage optimization is activated). The original pictures are stored on a NAS and copied to the iMac to be used in projects (Photo app).

 

What happened?

I created several projects to order prints (100 page books). Everything worked fine until the 3rd book.

All pictures from the 3rd book have disappeared. The layout and the text I have written is still in the book layout.

The last 8 pages from book 2 have disappeared although I have ordered it already an the final (paper based product) was delivered including the last 8 pages.

The pictures are not in the mediathek any more. I re-imported some of them - filled them in the last 8 pages of book 2 and after a while they disappeard again. The folder "last import" is empty (that cannot be from my understanding). Book 3 is still missing all its pictures.

iCloud is activated, but I cannot find the missing pictures in iCloud - but I am not quite sure if this is not even correct

 

Summary

  • pictures from exiting (finished projects get lost)
  • so re-import does not work (they disappear again)
  • iCloud does not contain the missing pictures
  • the print order was already delivered correct to my home without missing pictures
  • the project (book2) was not changed since the order and still some pictures are lost
  • the other projects kept its layout and text and lost all pictures
  • pictures are even not in the folder "last import"

 

what did I do wrong? I cannot continue to use the photo app until I am sure not to loose my work again

Many thanks for any help

 

murianer

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2), hardware end of 2009

Posted on Jan 16, 2016 7:30 AM

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Q: Pictures lost in photo app after print order

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jan 16, 2016 8:37 AM in response to murianer
    Level 10 (106,821 points)
    iLife
    Jan 16, 2016 8:37 AM in response to murianer
    iCloud is activated, but I cannot find the missing pictures in iCloud - but I am not quite sure if this is not even correct

    Are you using iCloud Photo Library on other devices? Your iPhone, your iPad?

    Is it possible, that the photos could have been deleted from iCloud from a different device?

     

    How is the Photos > Preference > General > Importing set?  Is it set to "Copy items to the Photos Library"? Or are you importing as referenced?

  • by murianer,

    murianer murianer Jan 16, 2016 9:42 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 9:42 AM in response to léonie

    Dear Leonie - thanks for the quick response

     

    We use iCloud photo library on different iPads, but I do not have published these projects (see above) in any other channel, therefore I do no think that the photos can be deleted from an other device.

    The setting in Photos > Preference > General > Importing is set to "Import Objects to mediathek" -  therefore through my understanding the photos on the temporary import directory can be deleted after the import since the app copies them into the mediathek.

    Is there a way to "look" into the mediathek directly (not through the photos app)? I think in iPhoto this was possible - but I forgot how.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jan 16, 2016 11:13 AM in response to murianer
    Level 10 (106,821 points)
    iLife
    Jan 16, 2016 11:13 AM in response to murianer
    Is there a way to "look" into the mediathek directly (not through the photos app)? I think in iPhoto this was possible - but I forgot how.

    Yes, you can, but be very careful not to modify anything inside. And it is difficult to find specific photos.

     

    Select your Photos Library, then ctrl-click the Photos Library and select "Show Package Contents".  In the Finder window that will open, look for the folder "Masters".  It contains the original image files you imported, in subfolders grouped by the date of the import. Year > Month > Day.

  • by murianer,

    murianer murianer Jan 16, 2016 11:28 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 11:28 AM in response to léonie

    thanks - I found everything, but only the iPhoto pictures are in the master directories

    I could not find the imported pictures - that is strange - any suggestions what might have happened? I am now totally confused. There is also only one mediathek from the photo app. First I thought may be by accident I generated a new one - but on the other side the projects are still there inlcuding layouts and texts - just the pictures are missing. Therefore it must be the right mediathek.

    Is there a chance to see what happened to the mediathek - any kind of log-file?

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Jan 16, 2016 1:06 PM in response to murianer
    Level 10 (106,821 points)
    iLife
    Jan 16, 2016 1:06 PM in response to murianer
    - just the pictures are missing. Therefore it must be the right mediathek.

    Did you run any applications that are trying to save storage by deleting duplicates  or similar? Some of the "meaning" applications are very  dangerous, because they are removing original image files from your photo libraries.

    Is there a chance to see what happened to the mediathek - any kind of log-file?

    I don't know of any log files.  Do you have a backup that you could use to restore the library?

     

    I could not find the imported pictures - that is strange - any suggestions what might have happened? I am now totally confused. There is also only one mediathek from the photo app. First I thought may be by accident I

    Are you sure that you did not enable iCloud photo library accidentally and delete photos using other devices?  Or did you perhaps delete the photos from the moments after you added them to the projects? Adding to a project does not duplicate the photo, you still need to keep it in the moments.

  • by murianer,

    murianer murianer Jan 20, 2016 12:15 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 20, 2016 12:15 PM in response to léonie

    thanks for the suggestions

    I did not run any optimization software - so this cannot be the reason that pictures are lost

    I have backups (time machine) but there are two days missing - exact the period, when the "failure" happened. I backuped the version before and now every thing ist OK again - only one day of work lost (instead of many ;-)

    Before I did so I could not find the pictures und "all fotos" but when I opened the project and then tried to add pictures they appeared - I could add them again to the project but also had to position them again in the book.

    So I stopped with further experiements and installed the backup - cross fingers, that it will not happen again

    If you have further suggestions what might have gone wrong please let me now

    thanks for your support anyway - I really appreciated it

  • by tangrams,

    tangrams tangrams May 18, 2016 8:30 PM in response to murianer
    Level 1 (9 points)
    May 18, 2016 8:30 PM in response to murianer

    For what it is worth, this exact same thing happened to us.  My wife and I worked on a Photo Book.  We finished and saved.  When we came back, the photos for many of the placements were gone.

     

    I was able to restore from Time Machine, and we ordered our book.  The book came through fine.

     

    Later, we opened Photos.app again, and went back to the book project, and many of the photos disappeared again.  I actually watched them blink away as I scrolled down - they were there momentarily, and as I scrolled, the display changed and they were gone.

     

    This is clearly a bug with the software.