I have a 2008 aluminum uni-body MacBook with 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3 memory, running Mt Lion, with 367 GB available on the hard drive. For various reasons, I recently completed a clean install of Mt Lion after backing up via Time Machine.
The first thing I re-installed was Aperture, downloaded from the Apple Store. I didn’t put much else back on the laptop because my first priority is getting the pictures back. I also checked for software updates.
For a week now, I’ve been fighting with Time Machine to get my 133.75 GB library restored. I kept having permissions errors or unable to reinstall errors or, when I tried copying the individual folders (show package contents) I’d get the thumbnails as if they were the actual pictures. Frustrating!
I’ve tried several different methods, techniques, recommendations, attempts to restore, including going into Time Machine and pressing restore (or double-clicking the library and opening Aperture that way). I finally deleted everything that had been placed on my computer related to Aperture, including the application, any “bad” libraries, and the file in Application Support for Aperture. I re-downloaded Aperture, opened using the Option command, switched to the Time Machine library, and then restored the permissions.
After a certain amount of nail-biting agony, I had the first correct view of my library in more than a week!
Then, I began to stumble again because I couldn’t figure out or remember how to restore this now agreeable library to my fresh installation of Aperture. So, I created an empty library in Aperture, then merged the corrected Time Machine library using the Import Library function.
19 hours later, Activity Monitor shows that Aperture still has activity, but Aperture's monitor bar is stopped at probably 9/10 of the way and has been like that for 13 hours. The library on my hard drive has grown from nothing to 87.75 GB.
1. Is this normal to have hours and hours for a large library to merge?
2. Should I give up and Force Quit (even though I’ve read that causes damage to the library), and then try to restore via Time Machine?
3. If this merge library action actually works, will my backup be ruined? Or, better said, if this merge library doesn’t work, will my backup be ruined? I have another one I could use, but it’s a bit older.
4. If I get through this with a usable Aperture library, will you direct me to information regarding backups using something other than Time Machine? I’d be interested in step-by-step how-tos.
Thanks so much for any help you can provide.
Regards,
Alison in Sunny Florida
Alison,
Your original message is over 24 hours hold now, so where are you at with the merge?
Large libraries certainly can take a very long time to merge. My main library is around 175k images and merging even a small library into it can take hours. It’s something I usually will kick off before finishing for the day so I don’t have to deal with it.
Your backup shouldn’t be affected by this merge, no.
Personally I employ multiple backups, and this sort of experience is yet another reason why. I do both Time Machine and Backblaze, and I also create Vaults which are backed up again by Time Machine and Backblaze.
All that said, clearly you shouldn’t be having issues with Time Machine restores of Aperture libraries. Yours isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this so it’s disconcerting for sure :(
@PhotoJoseph
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I gave up at 22 hours and hit Force Quit via Activity Monitor. Then, I opened Aperture.
My library is set up and organized in date order - the name of an event is, for example, 2012-04 Easter Sunday, which is then filed by month and year. Therefore, I was able to see that I had stopped importing at the end of May. My Faces / Places and keywords were in tact, however. Hooray!
Fortunately, I had uploaded a lot of this year’s pictures to Dropbox (both by actively uploading and by Dropbox passively pulling them up when the camera was plugged in to the computer). Some were organized, most were not, but it was a simple trick to copy them to my desktop and then import from there. I still have to complete Faces / Places / Keywords, but that’s a small task when the pictures were taken this year. And also fortunately, my husband and I are both fanatical about ensuring the camera’s date is accurate.
One of my Dropbox events was massive; over 500 images. I tried importing as one big project and Aperture crashed, requiring the library to be rebuilt. I learned very quickly to batch import and clean up once inside Aperture.
The stress this caused was horrible but I’ve learned quite a bit about Aperture. At one point, I thought I had rebuilt the library and opened with iPhoto. That worked adequately to see the pictures but didn’t truly restore my library. It was enough of a reminder, however, that I still really like Aperture for the cataloguing it provides.
So…that’s my story. There has to be a better way, methinks.
Regards, Alison
Alison,
Glad to hear it’s all sorted, and sorry it was such a nightmare. Good argument for multiple, multiple backups though isn’t it!!
As far as better ways, if you have’t yet, do look at this article on Vaults titled “Aperture Vault’s File Extension Secret”. Knowing that makes restoring a heck of a lot easier.
@PhotoJoseph
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