Issues with iPhoto not saving photos

If you go to preferences > advanced is "copy files to library" unchecked ?

My guess is, it is, and so what you are doing when you import a picture is merely setting up a pointer to it , rather than copy it inside the iPhoto library, and when you remove the source of the photo (is it perhaps on a memory stick?) the photo is no longer there (obviously).

 

Ouch ! Then something very out of the ordinary is happening, and it doesn't sound good at all.

Try a reboot, if that doesn't work, rebuild permissions. Also, how are you off for disk space?

 

Disk utility - (sorry my bad its repair not rebuild)

 

Many folks here do this every few months as a matter of routine. Its a recommended Apple fix to many errors. What could possibly go wrong

p.s I have no idea why iPhoto is doing this, your errors are absolutely symptomatic of "copy to library" being unchecked, so you could try ticking it off and on again.

 

I found quite a few folks had issues when their iPhoto library was NOT in the standard place, Home > Pictures > iPhoto Library

Also, there is a library rebuild you can do (google rebuild iphoto library) it involves holding down a key when you start up.Its more extensive than the rebuild permissions youw ere getting prompted for.

One other thing, if your library is broken, why not do a TM reinstall back from a time when you know it worked? I accidentally screwed up a lot of pics a couple of weeks ago and just did a TM restore of the entire library back from the previous day, took maybe 15 minutes or so because it just copied back the whole thing. It worked , though I didnt have the sort of corruption you seem to, it was strictly user error.

Finally if none of this works try the photo forum here maybe someone there knows, no one else here seems to have any ideas. Good luck.

 

Hi surfer, that would happen if you restored everything, but what you would do is enter Time Machine, navigate to your iPhoto library, click on that, navigate back to a time when you know its was OK and then select restore and from memory you will also need to select restore over current version.

With TM you can restore down to the level of of individual files.

EDIT; Trial it with an individual file that doesn't matter first. Just change a file you dont care about, then use TM to restore it as it was say 2 weeks ago.

 

Pick a time you think it was working. Restore from that.
Try it, if it doesn't work (eg same problem as before), go back whatever seems like a reasonable increment, say a week, or whatever works for you.
Repeat.

Did you ever try an iPhoto reinstall? Not the library but the program, you should check how to do that though I"m not sere. You should also check to make sure there are no updates for the iPhoto app. I dont recall any for some time but you never know.

 

As I said a while back, find a file you dont care about but that has changed (or change it now). Then, experiment with TM > go into TM and navigate back and forward in time. Its easier to do than explain. Then click "restore" when you are on a date you want to go back to.

Once you've got the hang of it, do that with your iPhoto library.

 

iPhoto /= iPhoto Library

You're restoring the wrong thing if you're even looking at the Applications folder. Your iPhoto Library is in ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library, where ~ indicates your home folder.

jW

 

Side Note: Permissions repair doesn't descend into the Users directory, so if there's permissions related errors writing to your iPhoto Library, permissions repair won't do a thing for you.

 

Yellow, what would work for them in that case?

Indeed, navigate to your home directory, then to pictures, then click once on iphoto library, then enter time machine so its highlighted when you are in there.
I'd expect your restore to take a fair time, mine took 20 minutes I think when I did it, for about 18Gb of photos

 

sudo chown -R shortusername /Users/shortusername

Where, one replaces "shortusername" with their short username, i.e.,

sudo chown -R yellow /Users/yellow

That will change POSIX ownership for everything under /Users/yellow to be owned by user 'yellow'.

 

Quit iPhoto. Try this in Terminal:

Enter your admin password when prompted. Try iPhoto again.

 

As yellow points out, this seems to be the root of your problems, e.g. you don't have permission to access the library, so that would presumably stop you adding new files.

Lets hope it works !

 

Assuming the iPhoto library is in your ~/Pictures folder. If you've moved it to say.. /Users/Shared, you need to change the command slightly.