In order to slim down my library on my primary drive, I moved all my images over to another hard drive. That part, I think went fine. For about a week, it worked really well to have the library on the primary, and referenced files on the secondary. But, I wanted to slim down the library file even more and read somewhere I could do so by right-clicking my library, choosing “Show Package Contents,” and then deleting the Thumbnails folder. At the time, that folder was something like 15GB.
Well, I then discovered that this was a bad move. I thought it would just re-generate the thumbnails for images I opened. What it has done is not only removed the thumbnails (resulting in the dotted-line in place of the image) but when I try to locate “Referenced Rile,” or “Generate Thumbnails” commands, nothing happens except I'm told no file exists. The referenced files are in fact on the secondary hard drive. I've tried repairing permissions, repairing the library, etc.
I'm preparing myself for the reality that I might have to rebuild by three year-old Aperture library from scratch (as the images are still on the secondary hard drive.) I just dread though losing all my adjustments and ratings.
Hi Joseph,
Thank you for responding. When toggling the metadata, I don’t see any of the badges you mentioned–which is weird, isn’t it? Back when my library was working, I was able to see the “referenced file” badge on them. Now, there’s nothing except the title of the photo and a few flagged photos with the orange flag on them.
Now, if I glance over at the metadata tab, I do see the yellow triangle badge indicating that it’s missing. But like I said above, the yellow triable badge is not on the actual photos.
When I tell Aperture to locate the referenced files, I get the error message saying: “No Referenced File: The selection doesn’t have any referenced files.” I have definitely selected the files and have even used this tactic before in resolving issues, so I find this error message to be the most puzzling piece of the puzzle.
Thanks again for thoughtfully responding to my post.
~Rick
Rick,
The yellow triangle not showing up on the thumbnails could simply be the the metadata view was toggled to not show that. While U toggles the view on and off, Shift-U will change the view.
Try dragging a single project out of the Library to the Desktop, which will make a new Library for it. See if you get any farther in working with that new Library.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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@mr kgoo, You know, you could be right. Around that time, I moved the secondary hard drive (the one with the “missing” files) to a different bay. What did you do to resolve the issue?
From doing a quick Google search, it looks as though UUID issues can be resolved by using the “Locate Referenced File” command. Unfortunately, that option doesn’t work for me. I get the “The selection doesn’t have any referenced files” error.
Rick,
There is some info on UUID resetting on this post: User Questions > Versions with unavailable master file cannot be exported — search for the text “UUID” and you’ll see a post by Jacques S that may be of help.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Rick,
As noted, my issue is slightly different. I had cloned my internal drive and replaced it. This of course lead to my UUID being different in the aperture database for my referenced files. It still recognised them being referenced though, just that I couldn’t get to them to relink (the bug with being unable to navigate to the iphoto library was still present). I fixed it by going into the SQL database and changing the uuid on record. Note, I did have loads of nightmares later with time stamps changing, and the uuid reverting when I rebuilt.
I eventually re-resolved the problem by doing something drastic like moving my referenced photos into another location, renaming the source folder or something, and relinking, before renaming back. It was complicated and only an issue becuaause it was an iphoto library I was referencing.
Before messing with the uuid, I suggest just looking to see if uuid are matching or not first.
Dove on in and followed Jacques’ steps. Unfortunately it didn’t resolve my issue.
Rick,
Curious, deleting the AP.Minis, AP.Thumbnails and AP.Tinies should be OK. I’m not quite sure about deleting the entire folder, but I’m surprised that mattered. Actually come to think of it, the file structure has completely changed in Aperture 3, and while that was OK to do in previous versions, I haven’t checked it out in Aperture 3.
However obviously things aren’t going well.
If you toggle metadata on and off in the Thumbnail view (tap the U key) are you seeing any icons on the dotted-line “thumbnails”? If so, are you seeing the curved arrow (reference badge) with a red line through it (offline) or a yellow triangle (missing)?
If you have the Metadata tab open, do you see version name, file name (master on the HD), and/or an other metadata related to the file?
What happens if you select an image and choose File > Locate Referenced Files?
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Hi Joseph,
I get the same bizarre symptoms when dragging a project to the desktop. Nothing but blank thumbnails. I right-click one, choose “Locate Referenced File” and it then tells me the selection doesn’t have any referenced files.
~Rick
Rick,
Sounds pretty bad. Let me see if I can come up with anything else.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Rick,
In preliminary tests, what you’ve done (deleting the thumbnails folder) should NOT have broken the library. It should have done exactly what you intended.
Can you think of ANY other steps you took, intentionally or not, along the way? I feel like I’m missing something here that’s at the root of the break.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Sorry if this sounds really dumb, but can’t you just go into Time Machine, open the Finder, and go back to a previous version of your Aperture library from before you were playing inside the package contents?
@Joseph: Sorry for my long response time. This is a really busy season for me.
The only other thing I can think of was removing the “iPod Photo Cache” folder. But again, that shouldn’t have done this level of damage, right?
I think I stated this earlier, but in a different way. It strikes me as strange that when I double click on a dead thumbnail, the main viewer window goes completely grey and Aperture behaves as if I’ve just zoomed in on the photo. If I click in the middle of that greyness, and then drag and drop onto the desktop, it copies the preview version of the photo upon the desktop. Aperture functions just fine except when the task involves the actual master image. I can even see all the photos when I’m using the media browser from within another application. I assume that’s possible because Aperture still has my previews all in tact.
@Gavin, Unfortunately, I hadn’t noticed the issue until a week or so had passed, in which Time Machine removed those previous versions of my library. (Reason being that I have a couple Macs backing up to just a 1TB Time Machine, so I’m only able to scale back a week or so.) In fact, I think I would have been able to save it had I recognized it a day or so earlier. Super frustrating.
Life lesson learned here: never tinker inside the package contents.
By the way Jasaon, I read up on your history and saw that you were a part of the Aperture Marketing team. Did you ever present at the Chicago Michigan Ave Apple Store? I worked there for a couple years and remember a team from corporate coming out to present on it.
Thanks again for responding to my quandary. If I find a solution elsewhere, I’ll be sure to report back.
@Gavin: Oh, and the reason why I didn’t notice for a week or so is that I keep the photos of my current projects on my primary drive. My problem only involves projects in which the images have been moved to the secondary drive.
Rick,
I don’t find that behavior all that strange. Your library is essentially intact, but the relationship between the library and the master has gone bad. It’s probably more good news than bad that your Previews are still there.
Who’s “Jasaon”? I assume you mean me… and no, I never did visit the Chicago store, sorry. When my team visited retail stores it was more for “spot inspections” than anything else ;-)
cheers
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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BTW… being Thanksgiving weekend, it may be a bit before any more responses come through, sorry.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
Hah, my bad. I have gotten my brother, Jason, for Secret Santa this year and have been thinking of him a lot. Sorry, I was definitely addressing you.
Thanks for the good news. I’ll keep you posted as to what solution I hopefully find.
~Rick
Is this a matter of hard disk UUIDs?
I had a different kind of problem when I replaced my hard drives and having images that were referenced break the link because the library database had recorded the images being on a different hard disk, even though the name was the same. Obviously the issue is slightly different here (my problem manifested as not being ble to find the referenced files, yours is like not recognising they are referenced at all), but it might be worth investigating.