Hi Matt, "iPhoto Library Matt": Was this Library ever on an external drive? Do you know what version of iPhoto it was previously opened in?
> Yesterday I tried to open the "iPhoto Library Matt" in iPhoto and the screen > stayed black and I received the spinning grey wheel. I switched to the other > two Libraries and they both worked okay. Then I realised that maybe I should > not have done the back up, even though everything was working well! I suspect the Upgrade of the Library database did not complete. Normally the upgrade takes quite a long time, especially if the Library is large it can take an hour or more to complete. Did you see "Upgrading Library: Scanning Library” …. and let the process continue until the upgrade progress bar was displayed? For very large libraries, iPhoto ’11 may appear to be inactive for several minutes before the progress bar is displayed — you must not force quit the application during this period. It is strongly recommended that you do not force quit the application during the update process. If you force quit iPhoto you will risk data loss! When you mention - > and I opened iPhoto... Does this mean iPhoto did not remain open after upgrading the Library? What happened after the Library was updated? If the Library Database has not updated post back and I will give you instructions to 'allow' iPhoto to update again. With not having a good backup of this Library is a worry as I cannot give any guarantee. All iPhoto Libraries should be in Users/Matt/Pictures Cheers, Ronni On 06/07/2012, at 11:48 AM, Matt Falvey wrote: > Hi, I have been busy importing a few images into iPhoto and I have multiple > iPhoto Libraries. I have been using iPhoto Library Manager to switch between > the Libraries, (as I hadn't been aware that I could do it by pressing Option > and launching iPhoto). > > During the time I was importing the images I noticed on iPhoto Library > Manager a Library I had not seen before called "iPhoto Library Matt" (My > other two are called "iPhoto Library" & "iPhoto Library Mon"). I clicked on > it and had iPhoto open it and was greeted with the request to update the > photo library so it could be used on iPhoto 9.2.3, I ran the update (I backup > every month and it would have been backed up monthly for years without me > knowing), it ran for a short while, seemed successful and I opened iPhoto and > found and viewed some priceless photos of my Mom's 80th birthday. > > I closed it down and finished off the importing of the images to another > Library and when that was all completed, I did my monthly backup. > > Yesterday I tried to open the "iPhoto Library Matt" in iPhoto and the screen > stayed black and I received the spinning grey wheel. I switched to the other > two Libraries and they both worked okay. Then I realised that maybe I should > not have done the back up, even though everything was working well! > > I had a look on the web for help. 1) make sure iPhoto is closed. Then press > and hold COMMAND + OPTION and click to launch it again. > When you do, you'll get options to "repair" the iPhoto library. Select them > all and sit back and wait for it to finish. When done, see if you can access > the photos again. > > I tried this and I still had the Spinning grey wheel and nothing really > happened. > > Then - FINALLY: > If NONE of the above works, we may need to do a little rescue and recovery! > But, thankfully this is pretty easy - although you will lose most of your > ratings, keywords, photo edits, etc. > 1) It will be best to work from a copy of your library that we know was good, > so go ahead and restore it from Time Machine once again as you did in above. > 2) Now we need to open up that library so we can get to the photos, so Right > Click the newly restored library and choose "Show Package Contents" > 3) When you do, you'll see a number of folders. Look for the one called > Originals. > NOTE: Under iPhoto 11, Originals is an Alias that points to a folder called > Masters. If you open the library and see that Originals is an alias (look for > the little arrow), then instead look for Masters. I'm pretty sure iPhoto 08 > used the name Originals. > In any event, Originals (or Masters) holds all your original, unmodified, > images! > 4) Now COPY Originals (or Masters) to the Desktop. > 5) Next, move the iPhoto Library out of the Pictures folder. We no longer > need it because we're going to build a new one. > 6) Launch iPhoto and it should not only launch, but also create a new, empty, > iPhoto library. > 7) With that done, within iPhoto click File > Import to Library, and then > select that Originals folder you placed on the Desktop. > iPhoto should now import all of the old photos. Again, this is a "last ditch" > effort to recover things because all of the personal settings, edits, etc > will be lost ... BUT you will still have your photos. And that's the most > important thing. > > I haven't been brave enough to try this yet and thought I would get some > opinions before I set off down the rocky road. In the first instance I can't > work from a "copy of your library that we know is good" as thanks to the back > up they are both identical. > > I have had a look at the contents package and the Original/Masters and can > see that quite a lot of photo's are gone, where I do not know, Mom's amongst > them. > > So in short, after a very long prelim, is this the best way forward now or > has anyone any better ideas? > > One overriding question will this work and not interfere with the two other > Libraries? > > > Finally, and I bet you are saying thank god, I did notice that one of the > Libraries "iPhoto Library" is for some strange reason located not in the > Normal > /Users/matt/Pictures/ but in /Volumes/matt/Pictures/. Now I had to do a > search to find where that was and it is a "directory at the root level of my > system that stores my hard drives". That I can access via Finder>Go>Go to > Folder and in the pop up window I put in /Volume, it comes up with my hard > drive and then "matt" and I can find the "iPhoto Library" from there. > > As this is a really weird location, is it possible without wrecking things to > move it to /Users/matt/Pictures/ ? It has a unique name after all. > > Sorry for being so long winded. > > Take care. > > Matt -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
