Aperture Died on me

[t0tor0]

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My Aperture library file just died on me!

 

Tried to start it a few times but it says that the database is corrupt and will need to restart Aperture and fix it.

 

Restart several time but still not fixed. Anyone have this problem before? Managed to savage the file?

 

Thanks.

 

Anyway, as much as I like working with Aperture, it is very slow. Especially when the library file becomes larger and larger.

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[Eoin]

Hmm!, when you say you restart Aperture are you restarting it while holding down alt and apple keys? This forces Aperture into a library rebuild mode and may take some time to complete depending on the number of images in your Library.

 

Try this and let me know if it fixes your problem.

[t0tor0]

Hmm!, when you say you restart Aperture are you restarting it while holding down alt and apple keys? This forces Aperture into a library rebuild mode and may take some time to complete depending on the number of images in your Library.

 

there will be a window that will prompt me to restart with a "restart" button. u mean hold down alt and apple keys while i click this button?

 

will give it a go.

 

thanks

[Eoin]

No, close aperture fully, then hold alt and the apple key down and click the Aperture icon, it should ask you if you want rebuild now or later, click now!.

[t0tor0]

No, close aperture fully, then hold alt and the apple key down and click the Aperture icon, it should ask you if you want rebuild now or later, click now!.

 

oh. ok. will try that.

[Eoin]

The forum seems to have been down and your last post is missing,

 

That error you are now getting is a little more specific. The Alt+Apple won't work for this situation, we need to force aperture to do a library rebuild.

 

You don't say if your library is on an internal HDD or external and if your using Aperture to store your masters or your using referenced masters.

 

Quickest way to fix this problem is

 

1. Make a copy of your Aperture Library, it normally located in Users/your username/ Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary. Copy and paste this library providing you have enough HDD space, you should end up with a Aperture Library Copy.aplibrary

 

2. Go back to the original Aperture Library and right click or Ctrl Click the library and select show package contents. Inside this folder you'll see a folder callled Aperture.aplib and a file called ApertureData.xml Trash both of these and clear your trash.

 

3. Re-start aperture, it will be forced to do a library recover and may take some time depending on the amount of images you have inside.

 

One thing to note however is any vault you had before will no longer be available, Best thing to do is once aperture is up and running again is to create a new vault and back up aperture to that, It will again take some time.

 

This will (should) get you back up and running again. when everything is working to your satisfaction don't forget to delete the Aperture Library Copy.aplibrary file we created at the start

 

 

Good luck:cool:

[t0tor0]

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thanks.

 

i am running on an external RAID 5 connected with firewire800. I reference my masters.

 

this will be fun. just tried duplicating the file. my library file is 11+GB! and I am using Vault.

 

estimated time for duplication, 4 hours!!!

 

so will post and see how it goes later.

 

wish me luck:)

[leonpro]

Good luck. I'd like to know as well for future reference so I can use the same technique if and when it happens as I'm using Aperture for my photo management.

[Eoin]

thanks.

i am running on an external RAID 5 connected with firewire800. I reference my masters.

this will be fun. just tried duplicating the file. my library file is 11+GB! and I am using Vault.

estimated time for duplication, 4 hours!!!

 

A FW800 RAID 5 would not be MY choice for any application, but YMMV. RAIDS at the best of times are fussy and I would only trust their operation to dedicated RAID controllers and either SCSI or SATA interfaces.

 

Some things I've read suggest that in referenced masters type libraries Aperture holds the volume serial number in the library as a method to point to the original referenced master, moving masters in this situation from volume to volume can cause problems. I'm not suggesting this is the case here but more just for your own future info. Also given the fact that your RAID is external and FW based I would suggest it good practice to repair permissions frequently .

I can't understand why it'll take 4 hours to copy 11GB even across a FW800 Bus. Seems to slow even allowing for the RAID 5 overhead, what's the performance like in the Aperture application like?. Strange, very strange!.

 

Anyhow, good luck, I'm sure this will fix your immediate problem, but given your comments & problems I'd be uncomfortable with the RAID in it's current form and performance level, but then I'm ultra cautious about such things.

[t0tor0]

Thanks for all the tips Eoin. How did you know about this??? Luckily you are around else i will have to redo everything again.

 

Just feel that it seems faster than before.

 

Took me about 2 hours to duplicate the file. All projects in less than an hour. What kind of speed should I be expecting here?

 

I run on a macbook pro with 2GB ram. U r right, i do feel that my RAID5 is not preforming as it should be but just could find out what is really wrong. maybe my RAID 5 system is not so mac compatible. Not sure if it is the laptop or the RAID system. I am using a Stardom SR5650.

 

http://www.stardom.com.tw/sohoraid%20sr5650wbsb.htm

 

Got this as it has USB 2.0, FW and also an eSATA. however, I am unable find a long eSATA cable to connect it to my laptop from underneath my table. All eSATA cables are like 1meters only!!! I need about 3m. I also have some issues with my eSATA PC Card so stuck to FW800

 

I keep the Aperture Library file on the RAID5 Systems as well as all my files. I organize my photos in folders according to year and events. Usually import photos into Aperture using "Store flies in the current location".

 

Tried importing DNG and other RAW files but slows down Aperture too much. So now I do C1 conversion into JPEG 1st, store in whatever folder I want, then import into aperture.

 

Any better recommendation to this? What is YMMV?

 

Do you think Aperture performance will be better if imported into the Aperture Library itself? Then the library will be huge right?

[t0tor0]

oh one more thing.

 

while my main library was down, i created a new library and did some stuff.

 

i guess i can just go into "show package content" of my new library and "drag and drop" these new projects into my repaired library right? it should still build the database of it on when i start wouldn't it?

[Eoin]

YMMV = your mileage may vary.

 

Link to 6ft eSATA cable 6ft. SATA II eSATA External Shielded Cable Type I to I eSATA to eSATA

eSATA card SeriTek/2SM2-E Serial ATA ExpressCard/34 for MacBook Pro and PC Notebook Computers

eSATA card Sonnet: Tempo SATA Express 34 - SATA Express34 Card for MacBook and PC Notebooks

 

I'm rushing out the door to work , I'll reply later, but one quick question, why are you and what are you converting to in C1, What's in aperture, Tiffs, Jpgs or dng?.

 

Also if you close aperture and click on the temp library you were using when yours was down aperture will open that library, the do file export project for any project you want to bring into your fixed Library.

Then close aperture, navigate to your original fixed library double click it and when aperture starts do file import project and your good to go

[t0tor0]

thanks for the link.

 

i probably will get one from them.

 

i shoot RAW. so after shooting, i open C1, adjust my images in C1, convert them into JPEGs and import into Aperture.

 

1. Aperture seems to slow down significantly if I import RAW into it.

2. C1 gives me more flexibility when working with RAW file. I can use JHR profiles, etc...

3. All photos in Aperture are JPEGs.

 

So most of my images after converting from C1 are pretty much fine already. Aperture can do some minor tweeking also. but mainly, i import into Aperture just for organization purposes. ie... creating albums, sorting out pictures, etc...

 

i wish i can do everything in Aperture but it is way too slow. i see the rainbow circle spinning all the time... more than I see my pictures!

 

export then import for Aperture library? ok. I'll do that. I just though the 'drag and drop' might be a lazier method:)

 

thanks

[Eoin]

Just to let you know I'm also using a Macbook Pro 2.16Gh Core Duo with 2Gb ram. I have the 17in. the key here is the graphics card and video memory, I'm running a Radeon X1600 with 256MB. If you click on the apple top LHS , about this mac, more info and have a look at the graphics / displays it will tell you very quick if we have the same platform.

 

I have no problems with spinning beach balls. even if I use FW800 external drives. I have just installed a new 160Gb 7200k Hitachi Travelstar to replace the Seagate momentus 100Gb 7200k that was in the MBP, it was a painless operation, just put the old drive into a 2.5in external sata II enclosure and installed OSX on to the new drive then it asked me if I had another mac I wished to transfer data from and I just pointed to the FW drive. All data & apps were copied across without issues. Hitachi even have a 200Gb version out now.

 

Apart from the Graphics Card, assuming they are both the same, I can't understand why your getting bogged down even with 3-5Mb jpegs in aperture. I can understand why you've found the need to have a RAID with C1 which is a HDD resource hog 10MB for the DNG and 10MB for the preview image. I do however agree C1 does the best conversion of M8 files period but in reality for printing up to 10X8 or web output I see little or no difference in Aperture.

 

If it were me in your situation, I'd scrap the FW800 interface and use eSATA, I'd even go as far as scrapping RAID 5 in favor of RAID 1 and test for the best performance with stripe sizes. I'd import all my DNG's into the aperture library and use export master function to work on images that require the extra detail extraction C1 can give.

One very nice feature of Aperture is if your storing your DNG's in a predefined folder structure like you describe, you can do a file, import folders as projects which will bring the images into the chosen project and automatically create albums for each of the sub folders, very sweet!.

 

Unless you are sharing images with iLife iWeb or iDVD I would switch off "new projects automatically create previews and share previews with iLife & iWork in the preference panel. And remember once you import images into aperture there will be a slowness until aperture builds all the thumbnails. You can see this process running in the window, show task list

 

I am still very concerned for your copy and rebuild times, times reported are way to long even for FW800 IMO.

 

Anyway I'm delighted your back up and running, I hope you get your performance issues sorted and if I can help let me know.

 

Cheers

 

Eoin

[t0tor0]

Just checked. It is the same.

 

I have no problems with spinning beach balls. even if I use FW800 external drives. I have just installed a new 160Gb 7200k Hitachi Travelstar to replace the Seagate momentus 100Gb 7200k that was in the MBP,

 

Could be the hard disk that is giving you an extra run here. I think mine is the default 5400RMP model. In my previous laptop, i changed from a 5400rpm model to a 7200rpm model. make alot of difference. and my battery time also shorterns big time on the other hand. the 200GB 7200rpm looks good.

 

But then again, I am running on FW800. So this shouldn't be as well.

 

As for DNG in Aperture, I know the quality is not significant. But can you imagine... I can't even slide the temperature slider without the rainbow ball spinning!!!

 

Let me try importing into Aperture Library and see if that makes a difference.

 

One more thing I suspect is that I am running my system on vault. Do you think this makes a difference in speed?

 

I tried turning it off but guess what I see?

 

 

Is this normal?

 

anyway, I will try and put all my images into aperture library and use eSATA too see what I get. will post something when it's done.

 

Thanks for helping out.

[Eoin]

4076.0GB Free space required:eek: My god that's 4TB, what size is your RAID and how much free space do you have.

 

I think it's time to shrink your raid, copy the info to a non FileVault partition and start all over again. I'm not up to speed with file vaults, but possibly the 128bit encryption is where the problem lies.

 

You've gone beyond my ability here with filevaults and I'll bow out gracefully. Perhaps someone else can advise you?. I'm now not so concerned about your speed issues with copy and library rebuilds, this encryption with RAID 5 overhead and FW800 is IMO where the bottleneck is. It's amazing how the info comes out in dribs and drabs, LOL, Good Luck.