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Beach ball problem iPhoto/M Lion

T

tkimages

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 3, 2013
4
0
UK
Hi, my wife has a 4th generation 20" iMac (2.4 Ghz intel core 2 duo, 4Gb RAM) running Mountain Lion and for most of the time it runs well. However, when she uses iPhoto (latest version of iLife 11) for importing photos from her phone, etc, the iMac starts to slow down, then the spinning beach starts to appear, then the beach ball appears and won't go away. We have to switch off the iMac and then start again.

I have reset the permissions once, and it seemed to be OK for a little while, but once it was used for more than 10 mins with iPhoto, the problem reappeared.

Compared to my 27" i7 iMac, the fans on the 20" are on a lot.

Any ideas please as this is becoming a nightmare, and the amount of use the 20" iMac gets doesn't warrant a replacement.

Thanks in advance.
 
S

shotts56

macrumors 6502
Sep 23, 2008
391
64
Scotland
Mine was the same, a 2011 iMac with RAM upgraded to 12GB, and iPhoto still caused the spinning beachball and it was appallingly slow. I put it down to a fairly large photo library (approx 60GB).

The solution was to upgrade to Aperture. I did, converted the library from an iPhoto library to an Aperture library (even though I didn't have to) and now all of a sudden it opens instantly and I can browse through my photos without any spinning beach ball.

iPhoto is a pile if *****, and I suspect its deliberately done that way and not updated to "encourage" you to drop the cash on Aperture.
 
C

canadianpj

macrumors 6502
Jun 27, 2008
496
406
shotts56 said:
Mine was the same, a 2011 iMac with RAM upgraded to 12GB, and iPhoto still caused the spinning beachball and it was appallingly slow. I put it down to a fairly large photo library (approx 60GB).

The solution was to upgrade to Aperture. I did, converted the library from an iPhoto library to an Aperture library (even though I didn't have to) and now all of a sudden it opens instantly and I can browse through my photos without any spinning beach ball.

iPhoto is a pile if *****, and I suspect its deliberately done that way and not updated to "encourage" you to drop the cash on Aperture.
Click to expand...

I have a library, larger than 60GB in size and have no problems at all. What I would do is run some maintenance (aside from just the permission fix) on the database, before needlessly going and buying a more expensive program.

First, ensure that you have a backup before doing any of this. While there should be no problems you can never be to careful with your photos.

Hold down OPTION and COMMAND keys and then click on iPhoto. This will bring up "iPhoto Library First Aid".

You should not need to use "Rebuild Database" as it specifies, try the other options first.
 
T

tkimages

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 3, 2013
4
0
UK
Thanks for the replies, I have just implemented the option-command 'first aid' and reset the permissions etc.

I will wait and see how if that has improved anything.

Once again thanks for taking the time and trouble to help, it's much appreciated.
 
R

RSL

macrumors regular
Nov 6, 2012
124
0
If the above doesn't work, you can try to downgrade to an older version of iPhoto which should have shipped with the iMac ('08 and '09 are stable and quick in my experience). For that you'll have to open the iPhoto library in the Pictures folder (right click -> show package contents and get the photo files) and re-import.
 
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