I read 'Emptying the Trash in Aperture 3—What Really Happens?' but still need some help. To make a short story long I just had about 1k previously deleted (or so I thought) files reappear throughout my library.
I was working with some old files which were imported as RAW+JPEG (I shoot almost exclusively RAW now). I did a batch 'Set RAW as Master' and am going to go back through these files with some editing techniques learned from the Training Catalog here. After the batch edit the Activity Monitor showed thumbnails and some other processing taking place. Aperture got hung up on one file and would not continue even after restarting, deleting the file, etc. I ended up having to option/command/start and repair the database the get everything back normal.
However now these 1k+ zombie files have reappeared! This has happened to me once before. I likely contributed to the problem by not deleting correctly. I have been assuming that command+delete, then empty trash would totally get rid of a file. Maybe this is incorrect for these old RAW+JPEG pairs? I have now mapped a keyboard shortcut for 'Delete Master Image and all Versions', which I will use going forward for files I want to completely trash.
I have two questions:
- Why did the zombie files reappear (am I on the right track with my assumptions above)?
- Is there any way to get rid of them beyond painstakingly going through my entire library to weed them out? (I tried to see if there was a way to search and isolate the files with no success.)
Thanks in advance for your help?
Stephen,
I don’t think the zombie files have anything to do with the RAW+JPEG pairs, but I could be wrong. Those files are hard to split apart once imported as a joined pair, so I don’t think that’s what happened.
If you deleted only a version previously, not realizing you’d left the master elsewhere, then yes that could be the problem.
I think what’s disconcerting is that you said they “reappeared”, meaning what exactly… they just showed up again in a location where you knew that they were deleted from? That’s definitely not supposed to happen :)
These zombie files; are they managed or referenced? Are they online or offline?
Is there anything unique about these files that have reappeared? I’m looking for a way to help you find them with a search.
@PhotoJoseph
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Well, I did figure out how to locate and isolate most of the files fortunately. I was able to sort by badge in list view and about 850 of the 1k+ zombie files were badged with a ‘j’. However they had all been deleted some time ago (I regularly empty Aperture and desktop trash). I was able to isolate them because everything else in my library is either just RAW or showed ‘R’ badge from my aforementioned batch change I just did. I’m not sure where the other 200 or so are, but I am sure I will come across them as I review pictures over time.
To answer your question, there really wasn’t anything unique about the zombie files or my Aperture library in general. It is a managed online library (about 11k images). When I say the zombies reappeared, yes they showed up again in projects they were previously deleted from. It is strange and a bit disconcerting. Is there a way to tell if I have hidden Masters in my library somehow?
My gut is that the database repair triggered the zombies somehow. As I mentioned, this happened once before after some kind of option/command repair to the library. At this point my main focus is making sure more zombies don’t appear and my workflow is tighter going forward. I am assuming using ‘Delete Master Image and all Versions’, going forward will help? I am about to migrate the majority of my images onto RAID and transition to a largely referenced library, so I suppose it was Murphy’s Law for this to come up now!
Stephen,
If you relocate all masters outside of the Library, you can then open the Library package and ensure there are no more loose masters in there. Back it up before you do that though.
As far as the “delete master and all versions”, if you’re deleting a master to begin with, it will also delete the versions (and it warns you so). I think the only time this command is useful is if you are looking at a version in an album and want to delete from there AND everywhere else, without having to go back to the master in the project to do the same.
The “J” images; did you try flipping those back to RAW to see if they were still a pair or not?
-Joseph
@PhotoJoseph
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