iPhoto Problem: only frames displayed instead of photos

[micmex]

Didn´t found something when searching the forums...

Using iPhoto 6.0.6 with OS X 10.5.1 my photos aren´t displayed any more. I only can see a white dashed line like a frame for each photo. Scrolling in the photo library all photos are displayed for half a second but are replaced by this frame immediatedly.

Maybe this is a really stupid question, but I don´t have any idea what to do

Thanks for each hint...

 

[Mydel]

Try to rebuild library.

 

[micmex]

Thanks for the quick reply, MyDel. How I can rebuild the library ?

 

[Mydel]

Hold down cmd+option when you launch iPhoto. You will see a window with options. (Sorry can show you picture cos I use Aperture and dont have iphoto on my MBP). But once you chose what you wanna do, click continue and should help.

 

[micmex]

ok, done. But nothing changed, cant see any photo

 

[Mydel]

After rebuilding library do you see thumbnails in your main iPhoto window or still nothing?

 

[micmex]

no I dont see thumbnails, still the dashed white line like a frame around nothing.

Seems that each photo is displayed as this "frame", so Im seeing around 1600 of those frames while scrolling through the whole stuff.

Opening the iPhoto library with Finder and chosing FrontRow I can see each photo, so for me it seems that the original files aren´t damaged.
Only iPhoto refuses to display them.

 

[micmex]

AFter rebuilding the library and the thumbnail-cache several times all photos of 2006 are displayed, but not those of 2007.
My library contains 200 photos of 2006 and nearly 1400 of 2007. Maybe the amount of pictures is a problem ?
Thanks for each hint - I really would be happy to see my photos again...

 

[skybolt]

Try doing a manual rebuild as described at the bottom of this document: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107947

You may end up with multiples, but at least you would have your photos back.

Now, as to what caused the problem -- what was going on before the behavior you experienced? Were you doing anything to the photos from the library in finder? Or? You should try to figure out what was happening that caused the problem so it can be avoided in the future.

 

[micmex]

T H A N K S !!

Skybolt, thanks!!

The manual rebuild and import of all photos from Finder worked, at least partially. As you said now I have multiples, but this more than have nothing

In addition, the import told me that 999 files could not be read because of "invalid characters".

All in all the result for me seems to be

- instead of about 1700 photos before now I have nearly 5000, including multiples (some of them only twice, some of them in seven versions)
- 999 photos are missed because of obviously damaged files
- all detailed information to each photo that has been successfully imported (film-number, date, keywords) are lost

Next days I´ll spend in deleting the multiples and in trying to remember the keywords

What happened before: I deleted a lot of 8kb-text-files left by iSync that had fill up my mac-HD until only 10GB where left. I´m sure I only deleted txt-files from the sparebundles-folder but that´s all what happened before iPhoto refused to show what I expected.

So still I don´t understand what has going on but I´m happy that most of my photos are recovered. Feeling remembered of my worst windows-experiences, thought after changing to mac I´d have lucky days from now on... obviously I was wrong

Anyway: THANKS a lot for your help!!

Michael

 

[micmex]

Recoverd 100%

Latest news, several hours later:

100% recovered! I recovered the original files from TimeMachine into Finder, imported them to iPhoto, eliminated duplicates, and now all photos are there My girlfriend will really be happy and so I am...

Skybolt, thanks!

What´s left are the keywords... but I´ll really sleep well this night