iphoto 9.5.1 orphaned most of my photos

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iphoto 9.5.1 orphaned most of my photos

I run iphoto 9.5.1 on 10.9.5 and have no good backups. (Please don't be judgmental, I know I should have upgraded and backed up...). Is there a way for me to get my events, edits, titles and other metadata back?

2 days ago iphoto crashed, and could not restart. When holding option-command while starting iphoto did not find the library (much less prompt to rebuild) I installed iPhoto Library Manager which found the library without even an error message but only found a fraction of the photos (about 1500 out of 6000). Photos seemed to be missing out of every event, movies were truncated. The most recent event was missing.

I checked in the filesystem, Pictures/iPhoto Library.photolibrary/Masters/2014/05/10/... the photos were there and seem to be grouped reasonably, probably by import. A subsequent iPhoto Library Manager recover with scavenge orphaned photos got a lot of photos back, I suppose all that were in events plus what was in the trash. (Even after deleting duplicates I have way more than before.) They are in daily folders now, I have almost 500 instead of 90 and lost titles and most edits.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 3, 2016 1:27 PM

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Answer 1

léonie

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Feb 3, 2016 1:37 PM in response to wailuasonja

When holding option-command while starting iphoto did not find the library (much less prompt to rebuild)

Have you tried to hold down the option and command keys while double clicking the library you want to rebuild? Try to direct iPhoto to the library this way.

Where is your iPhoto library? On an external drive or on your system drive?

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Answer 2

wailuasonja Author

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Feb 3, 2016 10:21 PM in response to léonie

Thanks for the reply! The library is on the file system, in ~/Pictures

I'm pretty certain that I tried control option double clicking the damaged library, for sure I tried dragging the library to the iphoto icon while holding the keys, and control-clicking the library and then switching to command-option and selecting open with iphoto.

If I try it now iphoto attempts to repair the rebuilt library and then to import the damaged library into the rebuilt one. I have found no way to detach iphoto from the rebuilt library, other than creating a new one, and it reacts the same with the new one.

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Answer 3

léonie

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Feb 4, 2016 1:44 AM in response to wailuasonja

You cannot and must not import an iPhoto Library into another. You can only switch between libraries. Importing a library into another library will create a mess of a mixture of originals, previews, thumbnails. If you want to merge two libraries use iPhoto Library Manager - the full version - to move photos between libraries.

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Answer 4

wailuasonja Author

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Feb 4, 2016 2:22 AM in response to léonie

Well, of course I did not try to import one library into another. But this was the effect of doing what you suggested to rebuild the damaged library:

Have you tried to hold down the option and command keys while double clicking the library you want to rebuild? Try to direct iPhoto to the library this way.

As soon as I realized it was trying to import I cancelled.

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Answer 5

léonie

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Feb 4, 2016 2:33 AM in response to wailuasonja

wailuasonja wrote:

Well, of course I did not try to import one library into another. But this was the effect of doing what you suggested to rebuild the damaged library:

Have you tried to hold down the option and command keys while double clicking the library you want to rebuild? Try to direct iPhoto to the library this way.

As soon as I realized it was trying to import I cancelled.

Something went wrong, when you tried that. Perhaps you dragged the library a little bit or did not hold down the key combination option-command long enough and firmly enough. Try again:

Select the iPhoto Library.
Hold down the key combination option-command and keep holding down both keys.
Double-click the iPhoto Library, while holding down the keys firmly, until the First Aid panel opens.

What are you seeing when you try that? Which message indicated that iPhoto is importing the library?

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Answer 6

wailuasonja Author

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Feb 4, 2016 2:53 AM in response to léonie

I tried 3 times. Selected in the finder window, held down the option-command keys (got the right ones), double clicked (fast enough and in the right place), got the First aid panel (on the library that is open already, but I can not see this yet). Selected repair permission twice and repair database once. After less than 3 seconds it starts importing the damaged library, and I hit cancel. (here I can actually check which library)

It happens because iPhoto has a library open already, and it does not recognize the damaged library as a library at all. So it treats is as a folder and tries to import the contents.

There are files missing here, for sure the folder Contents and the lock file:

Sonjas-MacBook-Air:Pictures sonjakass$ cd iPhoto\ Library.photolibrary/

Sonjas-MacBook-Air:iPhoto Library.photolibrary sonjakass$ ls

AlbumData.xml Database Previews Thumbnails repairOnLaunch

Attachments Info.plist ProjectDBVersion.plist com.apple.iPhoto.plist

Auto Import Masters Projects.db iLifeShared

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Answer 7

wailuasonja Author

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Feb 4, 2016 3:07 AM in response to wailuasonja

Oh and I forgot:

Which message indicated that iPhoto is importing the library?

"Import: Preparing to import..." and after cancel: "Unreadable files... ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library.photolibrary/.LSOverride"

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Answer 8

léonie

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194,691 points

Feb 4, 2016 4:27 AM in response to wailuasonja

and it does not recognize the damaged library as a library at all.

What does the damaged library look like in the Finder? Does it show the correct icon, the fan of pictures? Does the "File > Get Info"panel in the Finder show the correct filename extension ":photolibrary" and does the Infopanel show "Kind: Photo Library"?

If the filename extension is not correct, change it to .photolibrary.

iPhoto 9.5.1 has a terrible bug - if it crashes while upgrading the library, the library can be left in an inconsistent state, where the library cannot be repaired at all. Check, if the iPhoto Library (the version before you repaired it with iPhoto Library Manager) contains a folder "Old Masters" and not not only "Masters". if you are seeing "Old Masters" or "Old Previews", you have been bitten by that bug, and without a backup is no hope to revert to the previous version of your library.

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Answer 9

wailuasonja Author

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Feb 4, 2016 9:55 AM in response to léonie

I checked all that right when it happened, it is .photolibrary. It shows the fan in the icon, and on the error message I used in my last post and the terminal window path in the previous you can see that it is .photolibrary.

"Import: Preparing to import..." and after cancel: "Unreadable files... ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library.photolibrary/.LSOverride"

The rebuilt library does not contain an "old masters" folder, at least not after a savaged the orphaned photos. I did not run an upgrade on the library, and it crashed while running faces.

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Answer 10

wailuasonja Author

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Feb 4, 2016 10:00 AM in response to wailuasonja

Accidentially marked as solved, it is not.

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