iPhoto '08, dates on photos changed/mixed up. Why? Plus... how to restore?

[Miss Terri]

Hi Folks,

I've searched the web and the forums here, but have not found anything that addresses my problem. Possibly because it's not an easy one to come up with definitive search terms for.

I'm not exactly sure where/when it went wrong either. I'll try to keep this post to a minimum, but I'd be happy to add more info once we get going. I just don't want to overwhelm you with information.

So, I recently migrated to a new Macbook Pro. It's a bit of a saga that started with my old Crackbook dying (2008 Macbook). Then I briefly had a Macbook unibody, then a defective MBP, and now the "final" MBP (all since November). I'm not quite sure when this problem occured, but things were fine on my Crackbook. Subsequent computer(s) were migrated to starting from the Time Machine backup I had on the Crackbook.

I'm running Snow Leopard now (10.6.4) but the Crackbook had Leopard. I elected to keep iLife 08 as I'm not sure I like Ilife 11 as much. So I erased the new MBP, did a clean install of Snow Leopard (but not iLife) and then migrated over. So my iLife 08 came over through Migration Assistant.

The problem is that the dates on many of my photos have been changed, causing them to be all out of order. I normally just keep all my photos in one big running chronological order. So now they are all mixed up. If I sort by Event, they go back into "original" clumps (so now photos that used to all be, say Jan 5, 2002 are now a clump of all kinds of dates and years, because iPhoto has changed them).

What makes it worse is that when I first got into digital photography back in 2001, with my brand new iBook, I had a new camera that was not set to the right date for the first few months. Also, during the first part of a major trip, I didn't have a camera, and a friend burned a disc now and then to give me photos, and so those all came into iPhoto with the disc-burning dates. So things were ALL mixed up. BUT, a couple of years ago, I laboriously went through everything and changed the photo dates (through iPhoto menu at top of screen) to make them all correct and so everything was in perfect order if I ordered by date, which I did.

Now, with the dates all changed, it's not that they have reverted back to what they were before I changed them (which would be a drag but at least they would still be with their brethren); but instead, the dates have randomly been changed.

So....

1) What might have caused this? I have searched online and many people say there is no problem running iLife 08 with Snow Leopard (even Apple's "head genius" at the Apple store said it was fine). I thought that might have caused it.

2) This probably sounds stupid, but I'm not sure how to fix it. Is there some command within iPhoto that will fix things? Since I don't know how or why it "broke," I'm not sure.

3) I have my Time Machine backup where everything was fine, but it's the backup I made from my old Crackbook which had Leopard (same Ilife 08 though). Can I use that to restore?

4) Just so I don't sound too stupid, I did make a brand new Time Machine backup on this MBP (on a different backup disc), but I noticed this problem right away after migrating, so I'm pretty sure my new MBP Time Machine backup also has the messed up photo library.

5) Although I have the TM backup from the Crackbook (have not added any new photos to iPhoto since then so it matches in terms of number of photos etc.), I don't know how to use it I have the "Missing Manual" book, and I read that plus looked on Apple's page about TM, and I gather I go into TM through iPhoto for this, but I don't understand how exactly.

I'd sure appreciate any help you could give me. My photos and the order of them are like my life journal, so having them all mixed up is horrible!

Thanks,
Miss Terri

2010 MBP, 2.4 ghz, OS 10.6.4, iLife '08

 

[Brian33]

I wish I could help you more, but...

1) I use iLife '08 on Snow Leopard, too, and haven't had any problems with iPhoto.

2) I doubt there's a command within iPhoto that will fix your problem...

3) I think you can use the backup from your old Crackbook/Leopard to restore, and I think this is probably the course you should pursue.

4) You don't sound stupid at all.

5) I'm not sure how to use your backup either, but I think you might want to restore the entire iPhoto library from outside of iPhoto. That is, restore "/Users/username/Pictures/iPhoto Library" from the TM backup.

Oh, and if you don't get any more responses here, maybe try posting in the Mac Applications and Mac App Store forum?

Regards,
Brian33

 

[Miss Terri]

Brian,

Thank you so much for replying! I was starting to wonder if I had made some horrible forum faux pas and that was why no-one was responding

I know we're not supposed to post in two sub-forums with the same problem, but maybe I will see if I can have this moved to the app section. That does sound like it might be better (I also saw the digital photography forum, but that didn't look quite right.)

I have the book "The Missing Manual," and in it's Time Machine section it mentions that for iPhoto you go into it from iPhoto and not finder or etc. so that's where I got that. But they don't go on to talk about anything "unusual" like needing to use an older backup or whatever. Some of these really basic things I don't know how to do! I guess that's because mostly my Macs have just purred along.

Miss Terri

 

[Brian33]

I'm pretty sure you can do the restore either from Finder or from within iPhoto. I went into Time Machine both ways to check it out. It looks to me like the iPhoto way is intended more as a way to restore individual photos or events, but there is a big "restore all" button along the bottom of the screen that would presumably restore all the events. Unfortunately, iPhoto '08 crashed on me when I exited Time Machine (via the Cancel button)!

Do you have enough disk space to have two copies of your iPhoto library at the same time? Then you could do the restore and check out the results without deleting your existing photos. It should be pretty low-risk. Here's what I would do:

1) Assuming your username is Terri, use Finder to go to Terri->Pictures.

2) Rename "iPhoto Library" to "iPhoto Mixedup" (or something).

3) Enter Time Machine (use the icon on your menu bar if it's there, or find the Time Machine.app in your Applications folder and double-click it).

4) Navigate to Terri/Pictures. Since TM first shows you the current situation, I expect you'll see "iPhoto Mixedup" there, but not "iPhoto Library".

5) Go back to the date and time of the known good iPhoto library. (This is probably the trickiest part, and maybe this is a reason to do the restore from inside iPhoto...)

6) Select (highlight) the "iPhoto Library" and click the "Restore" button in the lower right corner to restore it to its default location. (Right-clicking will allow you to restore it to a different location, but we don't need to because we re-named the current one, so it won't get overwritten.)

7) Wait for the restore to finish, then start up iPhoto '08 and check the events/photos for the expected results.

8) Once you're sure you've got what you want, delete "iPhoto Mixedup" to regain that disk space.

If for some reason didn't work or messed something up, all you have to do is rename "iPhoto Mixedup" back to "iPhoto Library" and you'll be back where you started.

What do you think?

Regards,
Brian33

 

[Brian33]

... I guess that's because mostly my Macs have just purred along...

I know what you mean!

 

[Miss Terri]

Okay, so I finally decided I had better just try this on my own. Here is how it has gone so far - perhaps it can help someone else with a similar question:

1) I have no idea what/why it happened (which kind of bugs me, but... okay).

2) I hooked up the external USB drive that contained the Time Machine backup from my previous laptop, the 2008 "crackbook" to my new 2010 MBP which had the messed up photo database on it.

3) I opened iPhoto (08) on my new MBP and from within iPhoto went up to File ---> Browse backups in the menu bar.

4) After this I don't remember the exact wording but I got a message saying something like "we can't recognize your Time Machine backup*, would you like to use on of these other, odd, totally strange looking backups," and there was my other TM Crackbook backup as one of the choices. So I chose it. (*Of course it did not recognize it because I did not have the MBP's own TM backup plugged in.)

5) I chose the other TM backup (Crackbook backup) and then got the starry futuristic screen, which at the bottom of the gradient bars on the right showed August, 2010 and then Now. There was a Restore All button at the bottom of the page but it was greyed out.

6) I figured out I had to choose a time/date and chose "now" but that did not work, so then I chose that last date in August (which was when I last backed up the crackbook right before it died).

7) Now I could click on "restore all" which I did. I got a greyed out (but functioning) progress bar and a beachball (for the WHOLE time the restoration was going on - not on the whole computer, just in the backup function).

8) About 20 minutes later it was done.

9) I have not yet analyzed each and every photo, but things look pretty good. Certainly not as messed up as before I did this and maybe even just fine. Let's hope!

Miss Terri