When I use the command-q shortcut to quit aperture, the color wheel appears for several minutes, and I notice my RAM usage going way down to 8MB. (I have 4GB total). However, when I quit using the mouse pointer to select quit in the drop down menu bar, I exit instantaneously. Please advise.
Mark,
Whoa, that’s a new one to me.
Try trashing your Aperture preferences located at
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Aperture.plist. One of the things this will reset is your custom keyboard shortcut selection. Assuming Command-Q works after trashing the prefs, if you’ve been using a custom keyboard shortcut set, go back to your custom one and try again. If it breaks at this point, you know where the problem lies and we can go from there.@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
Upon more noodling, almost every key stroke used in Aperture 3 causes a hangup on my MBA. CPU drops below 8 mb for about 2-3 minutes. I am afraid that frustration has set in and I am forced to use LR3 (LR4b) on my MBA and abandon Aperture 3. No issues with LR3 on my MBA.
Mark
Mark,
Have you tried reinstalling the OS? Obviously this is not an Aperture-only issue. Clearly something else is wrong.
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
Thanks for the response. I wish I could agree with you that it is not an Aperture-only issue and that clearly something else is wrong: All software that I am currently running on my MBA have no issue with keyboard shortcuts or any other issue for that matter. Only Aperture running on my MBA exhibits the keyboard shortcut issue. Based on this, I fail to see the need for re-installing the OS.
Mark
Mark,
I think if you went to an Apple Store and talked to a Genius, or called AppleCare, you’d get the same advice. My point that it’s not just Aperture is stated because Aperture isn’t behaving this way on your other system, or anyone else’s system on this site, or we’d have heard of it. There is something unique to your system that is causing the conflict. It could be something else installed that Aperture isn’t liking, or it could be a corruption in the OS, but unless you really do want to just ditch Aperture on that Mac, then I think it’s worth hunting down. You never know where this conflict might otherwise rear it’s ugly head.
I was about to suggest booting into Safe mode and running Aperture, but unfortunately Safe Mode disables Quartz Extreme, which Aperture requires to run.
Reinstalling the OS is really no big deal, and is outlined here: support.apple.com/kb/HT4718.
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
O.K. You have twisted my arm and I am saying uncle. I do not want to ditch Aperture, so I will try the OS re-install. However, I want to insure a quick and save path back to what I have. Am I correct in assuming I can configure a USB jump drive (16GB) using the disk utility and download Lion onto it, allowing me to boot my MBA from the jump drive? If this is the case, I am ready to try.
Mark
Mark,
Yes but I don’t know how, I’ve never done it. However it’s not necessary (at least in theory) since Lion created a hidden partition that allows you to boot from that without needing a USB drive. And if you’re on a newer MacBook, or if you had a recent firmware update like my MacBook Air had a week or two ago, you can actually do a netboot off Apple’s servers for an install. It’s pretty amazing, actually. All that info is in the support page I posted above.
Good luck. I really, really hope this works :)
You really can’t think of any other software that’s installed and always running that could be causing issues? Have you tried quitting every non essential process in Activity Monitor?
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
I re-installed the OS per the info you gave me. No change, command-q still hangs in Aperture. I also checked the Activity Monitor when Aperture was running. Only Finder and Activity Monitor were active processes with Aperture. I have about 30 additional processes running on my iMac in comparison. I also compared the Preferences settings between my MBA and iMac, no differences.
Mark
I’m about to give up on this one Mark… I’m so stumped.
Give me a few days to see if I can come up with any other ideas.
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
I booted up my MacBookPro and started Aperture 3. Also started Aperture 3 on my MacBook Air. I went into the Aperture 3 preferences and assured myself that both machines were set the same. Did the command-q thing on both, no hang on the MBP but hanged on the MBA. I opened the Activity Monitor on both computers, and compared the process list. I noticed that there was a root user (besides myself, Wattfly) listed for several processes on the MBA, but no root user on the MBP list of processes. I am out of ideas…
Mark
Mark,
That’s certainly curious. I’m not enough of a unix hack to know how to remove extraneous root users, but that definitely doesn’t sound good. Do you know how to remove that extra user?
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
Sorry, false alarm. The root user seems to be normal, just didn’t have the proper view turned on.
Mark
Joseph,
Ha! No sign of that file in ~/Library/Preferences. Maybe I need to get one?
Mark
Mark,
Hmm, I’m not sure how that’s even possible. The preference file is created automatically as soon as Aperture is launched. If you delete it, a new one will be made.
Are you sure you were looking in the user Library folder (not the System Library)? Also be sure you’re looking for the full name, starting with com.apple… — it can be easy to miss as there’s lots of com.apple preference files.
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
So sorry, attention to detail issue (lower case a). I pasted your line after rm at the bash prompt, deleting the file. Started Aperture, did a pointer file/quit, exit just fine. Re-started Aperture, did the command-q, same old hang time issue.
Mark
Mark,
OK let’s create a new Library (and since you rm’d the preference file, it’s gone, which is too bad… you’ll want to look in your Aperture preferences to set everything up again as expected).
Actually before that, do me a favor and look under Aperture menu for Commands and make sure it’s set to Default [screenshot].
Assuming that it is, create a new Library. Go to menu File > Switch To > Other/New… [screenshot] and create a new Library. It’ll switch to that, quit by the mouse (just to be sure we don’t crash on the first run), relaunch (new Library will be active), and command-Q.
Another thought… do you have anything set up in the System Preferences under Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts for Aperture? [screenshot]
Let’s go from there
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
O.K. set to default, created a new library, quit by mouse fine, then by command-q and same old hang. Nothing is set up under application shortcuts.
Mark
Crazy weird. I know you’d have told me but I have to ask… no other app is doing this, right? :)
Did you check your prefs to ensure that everything had been reset? Just asking since you used a bash command to rm the prefs instead of the old-fashioned drag-and-drop method.
Where did you get the app? If from the App Store, can you delete and re-download? Or delete and reinstall from the disk? I really can’t see how that’d fix anything but this is just crazy weird.
Have you tried fixing permissions on the disk (Disk Utility)?
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
No other apps have this problem. Prefs have been reset to those I use on my iMac. (Aperture on my iMac doesn’t have the command-q problem). I ran disk utility and performed repair and verify permission as well as verify disk.
I installed Aperture on my MBA from the Apps site. I used a disk install on my iMac and MBP. I didn’t have this command-q problem before. I just don’t recall what changed.
I did turn off photo stream however because I was concerned about connect time with my iPhone hotspot at work. I turned it back on just now with the new library. Still hangs.
I am very reluctant to delete Aperture.
Mark
Mark,
Deleting Aperture won’t delete the Library. It’s safe to delete it and reinstall, and at this pint I think that’s a good option. Here’s a guideline on how to completely uninstall Aperture depending on how it was installed on support.apple.com.
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
OK. I deleted Aperture from my MBA and re-installed from the App Store. Same hangup on command-q.
Mark
Mark,
Well, crap. Reinstall the OS? I’m really at a loss at this point.
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
Thanks for your help. I will continue to noodle on this.
Mark