Aperture Restore from Time Machine

trbutler · Aug 11, 2012

So, I restored my Aperture library from Time Machine, and I seem to be running into a problem I've found numerous other people reporting: all of my thumbnails are missing/corrupted. With 83,000+ photos in my library, the idea of rebuilding all of the thumbnails doesn't sound fun. When I look at my Time Machine drive, the library is the full size of the original it backed up (approximately 49 GB, since all of the images are referenced), so I can't figure out why when I restore it, it is only in the neighborhood of 4 GB. It is as if the thumbnail portion of the backup simply refuses to be restored.

Is there any way to force Time Machine to truly restore the Aperture library, including the thumbnails that -- going by file size -- are on the Time Machine disk? Even when I manually copy that 49 GB folder back to my hard disk, it shrinks to 4 GB. I'm puzzled.

(I do have a regular backup copy of my Aperture library, as well, but it is from a few hours before I cleared out the remaining managed photos in the library. Hence, if I go back to that, I need to figure out a way to sort out the fact that I have copies of some photos both in the managed library and in my referenced folder structure. I don't want "orphaned" images that were suppose to be referenced.)

Any suggestions on how to deal with either potential avenue for restoring my library back to the way it was would be welcome.

Thanks,
Tim

maflynn · Aug 12, 2012

Are you within aperture doing the TM restore or are you restoring your entire library from outside Aperture?

Did you try to repair/rebuild the library?

mdhwoods · Aug 12, 2012

I copied my library to an external drive. Did a clean install of ml. Installed aperture. Allowed aperture to update. Copied library back and seem to have no issues.

trbutler · Aug 12, 2012

I was having other issues that had led me to reformat my drive, so I did a Time Machine restore of my entire home folder. On TM, my library shows the size as if it had the thumbnails, but they are absent within the package almost as if TM intentionally excluded them. What is really odd is that incorrect file size for the package in TM, which led me to think it had successfully backed up everything.

I tried pulling thumbnails in from my full backup that included a 3.2.x library, but that didn't work (I presume that the structure of the thumbnail folder has changed). I could use that library in its entirety and upgrade it, save for the fact that then I would have files orphaned in my Referenced folder structure and I'm not sure if there's a good way to locate and eliminate those...

neutrino23 · Aug 12, 2012

Apple gives you three options to repair the library:

http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/index.html#chapter=27&section=10&tasks=true

I haven't tried any of these yet. Perhaps someone here can comment on these?

trbutler · Aug 13, 2012

neutrino23 said:
Apple gives you three options to repair the library:

http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/index.html#chapter=27&section=10&tasks=true

I haven't tried any of these yet. Perhaps someone here can comment on these?

Thanks. I don't think it is really a repair issue -- the library loads fine, it just needs to recreate 83,000 thumbnails, which takes a very long time (I'm estimating the better part of 24 hours). I'd love to avoid having to regenerate them, but unless I can figure out where they are on TM (or where they went), I'll be stuck recreating them.

rmn1644 · Jul 19, 2013

I am having the exact same issue. Migrating to new Mac, and whether I restore from TM or just copy it, there are permissions issues and all previews don't make it.

Anyone have a resolution on this? I'm not keen to rebuild my 50k library of previews....

rstreborg · Jul 19, 2013

Time Machine excludes Aperture thumbnails by design

Thumbnails make up a large portion of the Aperture library. Because thumbnail files can easily be recreated without adverse effect to the Aperture library these files are deliberately excluded from Time Machine backups.

See the article 10.5: Show files that Time Machine does not back up at Mac OS X Hints for information on how to determine files excluded from time machine.

ChrisA · Jul 20, 2013

trbutler said:
Is there any way to force Time Machine to truly restore the Aperture library, including the thumbnails that -- going by file size -- are on the Time Machine disk? Even when I manually copy that 49 GB folder back to my hard disk, it shrinks to 4 GB. I'm puzzled....

Just let it run overnight. Actually why care if the preview are there. Aperture will recreate them as required and it will re-build them in the background as you do other things. You do NOT need to wait until the process is over.

Notice you can set the size of the images in Preferences. So now is a good time to decide what size you like.

Have you been using Aperture's "Vault" system? It works well but you need to pull all your image files into the library. Aperture really works best that way.

flynz4 · Jul 20, 2013

ChrisA said:
Just let it run overnight. Actually why care if the preview are there. Aperture will recreate them as required and it will re-build them in the background as you do other things. You do NOT need to wait until the process is over.

Notice you can set the size of the images in Preferences. So now is a good time to decide what size you like.

Have you been using Aperture's "Vault" system? It works well but you need to pull all your image files into the library. Aperture really works best that way.

Chris,

Regarding the bolded section. My understanding is that you can specify the sizes of "previews"... but not those of "thumbnails". Thumbnails are always 1024X1024 (or maybe just 1024 along the longest dimension. From what I understand... Aperture generates these automatically, and you get no control.

By contrast, you control the size and quality of "previews". The previews are what are shared outside of Aperture into iLife, iWork, or through other interfaces into OSX. Creation of Previews is optional automatically, and if not present, then Aperture will generate them on the fly as needed.

Regarding vaults. I used to generate vaults onto a rotated set of HDDs. Since I had spare space... I also used CCC to make a complete copy of my Aperture library as well. Finally, I questioned why I needed the vault at all, since I had the whole library... and I stopped generating the vaults. I asked around in a few places, and I never got any feedback that I was making a mistake by not generating vaults.

Now I have TM & Crashplan backups of my entire system (including the Aperture library)... and I have a CCC clone of my Aperture library on a rotated set of HDDs. One of those is always offsite, in my corporate office.

I agree 100% with your suggestion of just letting Aperture regenerate the thumbnails. I never realized (before this post)... that TM did not back up thumbnails. I guess it makes sense, since Aperture will regenerate them. This is similar to TM not backing up caches as well.

/Jim

ChrisA · Jul 21, 2013

flynz4 said:
Chris,

Regarding the bolded section. My understanding is that you can specify the sizes of "previews"... but not those of "thumbnails". Thumbnails are always 1024X1024 (or maybe just 1024 along the longest dimension. From what I understand... Aperture generates these automatically, and you get no control.

I thought tht were the same thing. THe text in the preferences dialog box seems to say they are used for BOTH perposes and you get to pick a size. You might try an experiment and set it to something easy to recognize like 100 x 100 and see if you get tiny pictures in both paces.

It says they are used then the original is off line and in other applications. And, I think also when you turn on those yellow borders in Aperture, I forgot what that mode is called. I think these are all the same

flynz4 · Jul 21, 2013

ChrisA said:
I thought tht were the same thing. THe text in the preferences dialog box seems to say they are used for BOTH perposes and you get to pick a size. You might try an experiment and set it to something easy to recognize like 100 x 100 and see if you get tiny pictures in both paces.

It says they are used then the original is off line and in other applications. And, I think also when you turn on those yellow borders in Aperture, I forgot what that mode is called. I think these are all the same

Chris,

I was confused about this until I did some more research. Here is a great article by Joseph Linaschke over on Aperture Expert: http://www.apertureexpert.com/tips/...-at-thumbnails-previews-and-more-in-aper.html

Summary:

Thumbnails: Always 1024X1024. Aperture will display these if your originals are off-line, and you have previews turned off

Previews: User selectable size/quality. Used to share with OSX programs... and also will be used if previews are turned on and originals off-line

Originals: Never modified, never touched.

When loading a picture (according to this article), first the thumbnail is loaded... and then immediately following, replaced by the preview. This happens so fast that you usually will not notice. Then, the original will be reprocessed with all edits and the preview will be replaced. Depending upon quality/size of the original, this last step could be visible with the "loading" progress bar in sight.

Read the article. It is good.

/Jim

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