Hi All
I am having the same problem.
Here is a list of what I have done so far.
I re-built my Aperture 2 Library, moved it to an external drive, then created a new Aperture 3 Library and imported via the import option.
I have applied all updates and have followed the step of opening in 32 bit mode. I have removed the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Aperture.plist file and have re-built the library.
I am still having the issue as listed above from Jonathan and am really starting to get frustrated.
I am not an expert in any way and really need some advice as to what I should do to try and fix it.
I have thought of un-installing Aperture 3 and re-installing it but not sure if that will help.

I tried to send my Aperture Database file to someone at Apple, when I went to load it to my public folder in iDisk and synchronise I was presented with an error in one of the folders, however I am not sure if I can simply delete it.
Also my creation of a Vault is also freezing, I suspect at the same bad file/s.
My other issue is I cannot see all images in iLife, however I suspect this may sort itself out once I sort out the library.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Joseph
Thank you for your reply.
Yes I can still open the Library in Aperture 2.
Do you recommend I delete the Aperture 3 Library, create a new one and try it again?
Just wish it did not take days to see if it would work.
My wife and I are going to be going to hospital in the next day or two to have our second child, might be a good time to try it.

Chris

Jonathan,

I feel your pain! I’m just starting, after many, many hours, to see the light at the end of the tunnel with Aperture 3. I think A3 offers some great options, and is a diamond in the rough – very, very rough, even in v3.0.1.

But I think I have some VERY USEFUL TIPS for you here (again this is after a lot of learning by pain… 4 different attempts to “upgrade” my A2.1.4 library (42K images about 200GB of images).

1st, and possibly most importantly the “SHIFT” key is your friend. You can use it when you restart A3 to stop the endless processing loop that A3 would fall into every time I upgraded or imported my library to A3 (or 3.01). All you need to do is hold down the “SHIFT” key while restarting A3, this should top all previously stuck processing as you upgrade your library. So use this tip after you first upgrade/import your library, if the processing bug hits. Then you have to be patient and go though your library and figure out where the problem files are (Apple has done a LOUSY job in not identifying what specific images A3 is processing in the “Activity Window” – Let Apple know if this really bugs you)

2nd, at this point you will need to systematically go through your library and figure out where the “problem” files are and “fix” them (in my case all of these worked just fine in 2.1.4 - go figure). I would start by generating thumbnails for all of the images in a project, one project at a time (I had 150 some in my library). When you get stuck in the “processing” loop again, you can restart A3 using the “SHIFT” trick, and maybe just try a chunk of images within that same project until you find where things fail again, and until you can get to the offending image (if it’s a problem you won’t be able to generate a thumbnail for the image – and A3 will go into endless “processing” mode)

3rd, this sound like a horribly tedious process and it is. But I can offer you some useful tips. In my case, and others as well apparently, a lot of the offending files are 16-bit PSD or TIFF images, especially if they had adjustments applied in A2.1.4. In my case I had fewer than 50 of these, so I exported an original and a jpg for each of these files. I re-imported the jpg and deleted the PSD/TIFF from A3 (I kept the exported original for future use). These files would then generate thumbs without endlessly processing. The other type of file that I ran into problems with were stitched panoramic images (often over 30MP) that I had applied adjustments to in A2.1.4. I simply removed the adjustments and the generated thumbs for them (worked like a charm).

4th, download some good podcast, music or audiobook… this will take a long time.

Cheers, and look me up in FaceBook I started a group called “Apple Please Fix Aperture”

Hi All
I have great news.
I deleted the original A3 Library, and am now in the process of watching A3 generate previews for all of my images.
I have taken Pablo’s advice as above and will at least be able to track if there are problem images this way.

This is also populating iWeb which was also another issue I had.
BTW also downloaded Joseph’s Getting Started Guide which I read over the last couple of days whilst in hospital with my wife. She gave birth to our 2nd daughter. ‘
This guide is worth avery cent I paid and a really great read, I recommend it to everyone.

Thank you
Chris

Jonathan, I had some similar issues. Go into your utility folders and start Activity monitor. (it may be worth putting it on your Dock until you have completed your Aperture update.) This will show you what is using Real and Virtual memory. When Aperture gets stuck you often find that the virtual memory usage has gone high. You can try quiting Aperture process from here. If it does not respond then select Force Quit. Restart Aperure and it will hopefully continue. If it sticks again then repeat the process.

If it continues to be a problem then you can try starting Aperture in 32 Bit mode. When it has completed the update of your old Aperture library then you can switch Aperture 3 back to 64 Bit mode.

It will take several hours to process those 29k files.

Good luck.
Trevor.

Because of the problems I had importing my Aperture library I thought I would break it up into smaller chunks. HOW?
My aperture 2 library was organized by year into seperate folders so…
Make a copy of your A2 library and rename it say A2 Master.aplibrary
Open you original A2 library with Aperture 2.
Delete all folders except 2009.
Exit A2.
Rename your new Aperture library to say A2_2009.aplibrary
Make a copy of A2 Master and then rename it Aperture Library.aplibrary.
Now delete all folders except 2008.
Exit A2.
Rename your new Aperture library to say A2_2008.aplibrary
Make a copy of A2 Master and then rename it Aperture Library.aplibrary.
And so on until you have covered all your folders..
Now you should not have a folder called Aperture Library.aplibrary.
Open Aperture 3. It will now create a new blank library.
Go to File > Import > Library/Project.
Select your A2_2009.aplibrary file and Import.
Allow Aperture 3 to import and update etc.
When it is complete then repeat with A2_2008 etc.etc until all have been imported.
If any get really stuck then at least you will be able to narrow down the troublesome file.
You may need to move your project folders around once you have them all imported but that is easy.
This is really time consuming and you will need some disk space but it worked for me.
You will need to adopt this method to your own file structure within your library.

Trevor.

http://www.jflphotography.com/images/processing.png

I’m seeing the same problems too. Switching in & out of 32-bit and several library rebuilds don’t help.

What’s worse is that this blocks exporting of images which is terrible!

This happens after every import now. Essentially I need to rebuild the library after each change it looks like - paaaiiiinnffullll!