Should I reinstall iPhoto?

[Pomme]

I did a quick search of the forums, and I wasn't finding quite what I need. If this is a repeat question, I apologize in advance.

A few weeks ago, I went to open iPhoto--which I've used without problem before--and all I got was a "loading photos" message with the swirly icon. I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. Needless to say, it's all I ever get--ever, period--when I go to start up iPhoto.

In my search of the forums, I noticed a thread where someone mentioned they had the same problem. They said that reinstalling iPhoto fixed the issue. My question is this: how do I go about deleting and reinstalling iPhoto? Could someone give me a step-by-step synopsis of how I should go about doing that? I don't know much about my iBook G4 yet, and I'm not keen on screwing up the computer. But I would like to use iPhoto again.

Thanks for any help you might be able to send my way.

 

[syniac]

Well, go into your iPhoto library and check that your photos are still there. Poke around a bit, and see if you can re-organise them. To delete iPhoto, do a search in the Finder, so you can get rid of all its support libraries and stuff, and you can delete pretty much everything with its name that comes up (someone give a warning if this isn't such a good idea). To install a single app from the OS X install CDs you will need something like Pacifist… you can be downloading this while waiting for someone who has more experience to give you instructions on what to do with it (I've never had to use it) .

 

[Pomme]

Thanks for the help! I ended up wandering around in my iPhoto library for a little while, and I deleted a few pictures I'd stored in there that I hadn't imported directly from my camera, and deleted some of those mysterious "data" duplicate files... and presto! I was back in. I'm just glad I didn't have to delete the program and reinstall. All of my library seems to be intact, so I'm counting my lucky stars.

If anyone else has the same problem, I recommend wandering over to the Apple support forums and checking out the iPhoto discussion. It seems I wasn't the only one with this issue.