My son uses Aperture on his Mini and recently, whenever he opened it, the Library started to 'Repair' itself. Clearly the repair wasn't working, because it did it every time.
I tried all 3 of the startup repair steps and none of them worked. It ended up with multiple copies of the same images and was a total mess.
So I decided to try repairing it on a different Mac.
First thing I noticed was that some of the multiple copies had disappeared … huh?
Next thing was that after a single rebuild, all the multiple copies disappeared and the library was absolutely fine.
I copied it back to my son's Mac, via ethernet and it continues to be fine.
This to me points to permissions problems and not the file corruption I had initially imagined.
So … the bottom line. If you have a Library that won't repair, or that has continual problems and you have another Mac with Aperture installed, try copying it across and repairing it there. (Just the act of copying will repair permissions).
Grant
Hi Grant
I think that is what Joseph call the Magical Fix. I think it is a a form of defraging. Ive read about that back when I was trying to go from AP2 - AP3. I now have my Library on separate volume so I can use “idefrag” if needed. Also it means that only AP moves or places files on that volume, thus minimizing fragmentation. I think that coping the Lib to a clean newly formatted or defraged HD helps put all the files back in order. and if you can defrag the space its going back to then all the better. Cheers
davidbmoore@mac.com
Twitter= @davidbmoore
Scottsdale AZ
This is actually a little different than my tip. In mine, I suggest importing a Library into a new, empty Library. It seems to rebuild the library in a more thorough way.
This fix is very interesting and I’ll add it to the FAQ. You’re right I think that it has to do with permissions. Did you happen to run Disk First Aid permissions repair before moving the file? I wonder if that might have fixed the issue as well.
God sleuthing though. Always nice to have another suggestion under our belts!
-Joseph
@PhotoJoseph
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Love the ‘God sleuthing’ Joseph. ;)
Yes I did repair permissions previously. More than once actually, because sometimes permissions stick a bit.
David,
defragmenting would only happen if I had copied the library to a newly formatted drive. Clean and empty.
FWIW, you really have no need to go through the slowness and riskiness of idefrag. All you need is to keep your Aperture library on its own drive, with nothing else on there. Every so often, when you want to defrag, you would then copy your library somewhere else … reformat your Aperture drive, then copy it back. That’s all you need to do. The point being, that anything copied to a clean drive, is copied ‘contiguously’. That means that every block is copied in order, instead of the OS finding space wherever it can.
Grant
Agreed that is the safest. Thanks
davidbmoore@mac.com
Twitter= @davidbmoore
Scottsdale AZ