I've been using Aperture without problems for about 8 months. I edited and emailed a version of an image yesterday morning with no problems — and then went out for the day. About 9 in the evening, I tried emailing about a dozen images to my nephew at his request (I hadn't used Aperture between about 8 in the morning and 9 in the evening) and got the message: “Versions with unavailable master files cannot be emailed. The selected master image is either offline or not found. Please reconnect it and try again.” Got the same message when I tried to print.
I then searched through the Support/Discussions on Apple and elsewhere and see that others have had similar problems — similar but not the same. I haven't renamed my hard disk; I haven't changed my computer; etc. Somehow, something seems to have become corrupted. This is where I came across your website.
Probably rather stupidly, I upgraded from 3.0.3 to 3.1 this morning as part of the usual weekly Software Update from Apple, thinking that whatever the problem was, Apple had worked it out and all would be fine — only to find that it has upgraded/altered the library so that it can't be read by my laptop (which still has 3.0.3 — and an uncorrupted file on it).
I think (!) I have a more or less updated library saved on an external hard disk (which doesn't cover the work I did over the w/e sifting and junking hundreds of photos.
Have you any suggestions as to how I might recoup the lost Master files (they seem to be there/somewhere only Aperture doesn't appear to know where to find them).
I would be very grateful for any suggestions.
Stanley Waterman
OK … and thanks. The eBook was interesting and shame I didn’t know about it in April of this year when I started using Aperture. But no good crying over spilt milk.
I now think that I have reconnected most of the versions to their masters although it seems to have played havoc with where things are located but I guess that can be fixed.
However, I take delivery of a new computer next week to replace an ageing iMac. If I simply copy over the Aperture and iPhoto files from the old machine to the new one the whole messy collection that I now seem to have is going to migrate with me. So, (and I don’t think I picked it up from the 15 tips unless in Tip #1) is there some way that I can reorganise the whole library completely either before or after the migration so that the names of the images and their locations in the library begin to resemble the ideal structure that you outlined? I guess there’s no real quick way but is there a slow one?
S
Stanley,
The easiest and cleanest way to do what you’re asking (as far as I understand it) is to consolidate all master files into the Aperture library (meaning you’re moving them from Referenced to Managed), move the (now massive) Library to your new Mac, and if you still want to work Referenced, relocate the masters back outside of the library, using a layout that makes sense to you (for example, the YYYY / MM / DD format that I prefer).
The only catch is that the drive where the Library currently resides will have to be big enough to hold all the masters as well. And even if the Masters are already on that drive, but just scattered around, you may need that much space again just to do the consolidation. It has to do with how Aperture moves the files, and its requirement to have significant temporary free space to do so. But Aperture will warn you when you try if there isn’t sufficient space.
The command I’m referring to, Consolidate Masters, is located under the File menu.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Re the “format you prefer i.e. YYYY/MM/DD. Suggest that you do not use the “/” between values, just the numbers: 20151026_subjectMatter. This allows any finder program to sort on date very easily.
Bill Booth
Stanley,
You mentioned a laptop with 3.0.3 and “an uncorrupted file” on it… does that mean you have a duplicate library on a second machine? I’m not quite sure what you’re telling us there.
Good to know that worst case, you do have a slight-older backup on another drive.
As far as fixing this library… connections to masters get lost when moving files, renaming hard drives (as you read), or even simply disconnecting a drive (but it would reconnect when you plugged the drive back in). I need to know more about your setup. Where are (or should be) your master images? Are they on an external drive, or on the internal drive? You must be working referenced or you wouldn’t have run into this issue in the first place, and usually if you’re working referenced the masters are on another drive, so it could be an issue with that hard drive.
One user here reported that their external drive, which had been set to ignore permissions (set by Getting Info on the drive in question; look for the permissions checkbox), had spontaneously had that turned off (so permissions were enabled) by applying the latest update. Of course your problem started before that, but it’s something to look at.
Can you locate the master files on your hard drive, and manually direct Aperture to them? You can select a missing file in Aperture and use the Locate Referenced Files command to reconnect them.
Let’s start with that…
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Thanks.
Problem appears to be on the internal HD. Does not seem to be an issue with permissions.
I have located some of the originals/masters and reconnected them individually. Can’t find a way of selecting >1 file per folder so can’t seem to be able to make a batch change even within a single folder/project.
So it looks — at the moment — that it will have to be a one by one effort. However, as you noted I have an apparently uncorrupted Aperture library updated to August 31 on my laptop and can always fall back on that. However, because of the 2 days’ work reclassifying and trashing, would prefer to resuscitate this one.
I also see that the Aperture Library isn’t found by the Desktop/Screensaver preferences in “System Preferences” and only SOME of the images from among the folder in which I reconnected some of the pictures now appear in the Photo Library in the Mail program. Prior to that, NOTHING at all was visible and it searches for the Aperture Libary but can’t find it.
S
Is there any way this can be fixed more than one image at a time????
S
Stanley,
The Reconnect All button Referenced FIle manager will reconnect everything that’s in the same path. So if you had a bunch of pictures in /Pictures/Hawaii/Monday/ and some in /Hawaii/Tuesday/ and none of those were moved, then the Reconnect All button should fix everything that’s on a relative path at once.
You haven’t answered the question of where your Master files are located. Are they all in one place (i.e. Pictures folder) on your hard drive, or are they scattered all over the place? Are they all on the internal drive, or are they on multiple drives?
Your references to Screensaver and Mail mean that the iLife/iWork sharing isn’t working right. Perhaps it got disabled? Check that in the Preferences under Previews. If it is on, turn it off, quit Aperture, relaunch and turn it back on, then quit again. If that doesn’t fix it, we can rebuild that sharing from scratch but let’s see if that fixes it first.
In my mind something else has changed, but you’ve been clear that nothing else did.
I would make a backup of your Library in its current state as well, so you have something else to come back to, then try a rebuild as well. Hold down command-option on launch and select to repair permissions, then see if any problems got fixed, and if not do it again but do a full rebuild.
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph:
OK. Thanks again. The Reconnect All button works fine.
However, “works fine” appears to mean that although I am now able to edit versions again … to answer your next question …
As far as I understand it, the Master files should all be on the iMac’s Hard Disk. I certainly didn’t direct them elsewhere. But looking at the locations of some of them when I reconnect, it appears that some are NOT on the HD but on the back-up disk. Moreover, in terms of where they are located on the HD, well, they are frankly all over the place. And, if I can even begin to understand what is happening, when I reconnect multiple files, they appear ALL to be redirected along whatever path the individual file I choose to locate is on. In other words, I have no idea what is really happening!
So is there some way that all the Masters can be relocated along a single path to one destination, leaving all the versions in the event folders they are currently in?
In other words, I have done it again. After 23 years working with Macs, I take a piece of software, learn to use the basics, don’t read the manual thoroughly and when things go wrong, don’t quite understand what I am supposed to know — even when someone explains it to me.
So I have learned something from this episode. As I am changing computers in a fortnight, I think I may just start from scratch. That means I read the Aperture manual first then import all the images as individual pictures and reorganize from scratch. Or would I using my time inefficiently by doing that? — Really what I would like to do/to have done would be to copy the contents of one HD to another!
Stanley
P.S. Re Screensaver & Mail: I followed your suggestion and now see that Screensaver and Mail are seeing the iPhoto library but not the Aperture library.
P.P.S. As far as I can see, the Rebuild didn’t do anything
Stanley,
I’m gonna recommend that you read my “15 Tips on File Management” eBook (click the Store in the toolbar). It will explain everything about how files are stored and suggest file storage strategies, helping you figure out what’s best for you. The “In Depth Getting Started” would be good for you too, and while I normally refrain from the “hard sell” in my own forum, I’m having a 50% off sale today, so there’s no time like the present :)
If you check my tweets (from @ApertureExpert) you’ll find the discount code. But it’s only valid to midnight tonight EST.
As far as the screensaver/sharing problems, sit tight for a bit. Others are having the same issue and we’re all trying to work through it.
Cheers,
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Hi Joseph, I seem to be having a similar issue, however my files were all managed by aperture. I have two main libraries, one on my laptop and one on my desktop. I moved to China recently and am switching to lightroom because of apple discontinuing updates for aperture. Before I moved I copied the “Aperture library” file to a external hard drive as Well as imported the library to my laptop library. Now as I am trying to switch I figure out what that little yellow triangle means. My entire laptop library is fine, but the section that contains my desktop library, only ~8000 of the ~18000 photos has masters. Although the library is 90+gb. I even have my backup drive with me that has backups from my desktop and it has the same problem. So I am very confused. The size seems to indicate that they are all there, any help?