Gray Boxes in iPhoto

Question

Gray Boxes in iPhoto

My daughter uploaded some pictures to iPhoto from her digital camera but they only appear as boxes with grey dotted lines around them. Interestingly when scrolling, you can view the photos for a split second and then they dissolve into a box with grey dotted lines around it. She may have run out of disk space when importing but if that's the case, why can I see the photos for a split second? I can't find the files thatr correspond to the boxes with grey lines so I'm wondering if anyone knows how to recover these photos?

Thanks!

iBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Mar 24, 2007 5:07 PM

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Answer 1

sag

Level 2

275 points

Mar 24, 2007 5:35 PM in response to William Truscott

William,
It sounds as though the thumbnails have lost their connection to your library. Has anyone altered,moved, or deleted photos in the iphoto library folder in Finder? If so,that's a big problem.

iPhoto should always be used through the icon or application.

First try to rebuild iphoto by holding down option (alt) and command when starting iphoto. Then select the first three options and see if your library rebuilds properly.

You mentioned a possible disk space issue. How much free space is on the hard drive?

Good luck,
Scott

MacBook Pro,MacBook ,Powerbook G4 1.33 14,,isight Mac OS X (10.4.9) Canon D20,ipod 30 GB,Adobe Photoshop

MacBook Pro,MacBook ,Powerbook G4 1.33 14,,isight Mac OS X (10.4.9) Canon D20,ipod 30 GB,Adobe Photoshop

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Answer 2

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,308 points

Mar 25, 2007 12:18 AM in response to William Truscott

William

As Scott says

The ! or ? turns up when iPhoto loses the connection between the thumbnail in the iPhoto Window and the file it represents.

The most common cause of this is User Activity in the iPhoto Library Folder. Have you altered, moved or renamed anything in the iPhoto Library Folder?

If you haven't, then try rebuilding the database. Hold down the apple and option (or alt) keys and launch iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild.

The reason you can see the photos for a split second is because they ae cached images.

She may have run out of disk space when importing..

How big is the HD and how much free space is on it? You know that OS X needs a bare minimum of 10% of the HD for temporary files, virtual memory etc. Without it you will get apps crashing, corrupt files and slowdown.

Regards

TD

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