Hey all:
I am kind of new to the whole cloud back-up thing, so I am on a 15 day trial. One of the things I wanted to do was to make sure I could restore my aperture libraries should I ever need to. So, I gave it a try.
I am trying to restore an aperture library on my IMAC that I have backed up with Backblaze. I received the restored file in my email. I downloaded the restored file and it unzipped as it was loaded. I then clicked on the restored file and aperture asked if I wanted to “rebuild the library.” I said “ok.” The new library was built but now I can only see black boxes. No pictures are showing. I can tell that the pictures are there somewhere, as they have the number of pictures that are inside each project down in the bottom of the box and the file number of each picture at the bottom of each box, but I CAN NOT figure out how to get the actual thumbnails restored. I know it has something to do with getting the “complete package” to load into Aperture, but I can't figure out how to do that.
Has anyone tried to actually restore their aperture libraries from Backblaze. Has it worked of you? Am I missing a step. And, in case you are wondering, I contacted Backblaze TWICE only for them to tell me TWICE that this is not a Backblaze problem, but an Aperture problem. Ugh…. so much for customer support.
Thanks for any help you can give me!
Maureen,
I wanted to let you know that I have tested a complete backup and restore of a managed library, and it worked perfectly fine. I do believe that your original backup was never completed. That makes the most sense to me.
Please let us know what you find!
@PhotoJoseph
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I think you are absolutely right. I have been beating my head against a wall and the problem all along is that I don’t have a complete backup yet. THANKS so much for your help! I have learned a lot from this forum!
Maureen,
Glad to hear it :)
-Joseph
@PhotoJoseph
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Maureen,
Sorry to hear about the problem. Some questions:
1. Is this a managed or referenced library? If referenced, are you confident that the images are reconnected to the masters?
2. Assuming the images are actually connected/online… you said you have black thumbnails, but how about the viewer? Are you seeing the image there, or just black there, too?
3. Have you tried regenerating thumbnails? Photos > Generate Thumbnails
4. If you export a version of a photo, what do you get?
5. Have you tried another rebuild? I know that it did it on open (which is actually a little weird, I think), but did you try doing it again?
@PhotoJoseph
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Per your questions:
1. I am embarrassed to admit that I don’t know the difference between a managed and referenced library. I can’t figure out how to tell which one it is? I keep my aperture libraries on a separate hard drive to save space on my desktop. Does this make a difference? I believe they are referenced libraries as I only use them in Aperture.
2. They are black in the viewer too.
3. I have tried to regenerate thumbnails. Nothing happens. I tried to relocate masters, but says no masters can be found.
4. Can’t export a version as the master can’t be found.
5. I have tried several rebuilds, nothing works.
NOTE: When I click on one of the black boxes that is supposed to be a picture, and then click on the Metadata it gives me all of my photo info, date, name, f/stop, shutter speed, etc., etc. HOWEVER… what is weird is that my original library has my photos as RAW photos, but this “regenerated” library from the back-up has all of the pictures as JPEGS. I didn’t even have any JPEGs in my library. I am assuming when they are backed-up, they are backed-up in a JPEG form.
I thought this cloud back-up was supposed to be easy cheesy…. so far, I am not impressed. However, I really need a secondary back-up so I need to figure this out. I have an appointment for one to one session with my local Apple dealer but that isn’t for another 10 days (nothing available before then). I don’t have high hopes of them knowing what to do since the last time I was in there they didn’t even know how to export an aperture library to an external drive!
If you have any more ideas, please let me know. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME!
Maureen,
Briefly, managed means that Aperture stores your master files in the Library itself, and referenced means they are sitting elsewhere outside of the library. Usually that means on a separate drive. If you don’t know, chances are you are managed. That’s the default. However the rest of your answers make me think maybe not.
The rest tells me that either you were referenced and need to reconnect to the masters, or if you were managed then somehow the entire library either wasn’t backed up or wasn’t downloaded. Your’e 100% sure that the backup was complete? How large was the recovered file you downloaded, and how many photos are in that Aperture library? Come to think of it if you’re only 15 days in, chances are that’s exactly what’s happening — that the complete library wasn’t yet backed up.
You’re running a test here right, and this isn’t an actual lost library? Compare the size of the library in the Finder to what it says it is on backblaze.com and see if the whole thing is there. Then of course compare to what you downloaded to see if they all match.
@PhotoJoseph
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