iPhoto suddenly not launching! :(

[Earendil]

So I go to launch iPhoto, for the million time since I've had my computer, but instead of popping up, it crashes while loading the library.

I tried to start it a few more times before giving up. I did a re-login, that didn't help. Restart entire comp, that didn't help. I reinstalled the "application", and didn't touch the library. Still, it won't start up.

So what can I do next?
I would assume that something in the iPhoto library is corrupted, and causing the crashes. But what?
I have over 3300 pictures, or 1.5 gigs. I really would like to retain as MUCH information as possible. Reloading and resorting all 3300+ pictures is going to be a very, VERY last resort.

Please, if anyone has any ideas, please share!

btw, it's iPhoto 4.0 if that helps. And no, the 4.1 update doesn't help

Tyler
Earendil

 

[crees!]

Try repairing permissions first. It also could be a corrupt photo that's bringing it down or it could be any one of the preference files. I don't know which ones but from what I get from everyone else is step one, repair permissions, step to trash the prefs. I'm sure other people with have other suggestions too.. good luck.

 

[Earendil]

Try repairing permissions first. It also could be a corrupt photo that's bringing it down or it could be any one of the preference files. I don't know which ones but from what I get from everyone else is step one, repair permissions, step to trash the prefs. I'm sure other people with have other suggestions too.. good luck.

Though I didn't repair permission after the problem, I have repaired in recent history, maybe a week ago. And I did trash the prefs located in user/library/iphoto to no avail
I'll give the permissions a try, but the fact that it always crashes after 2 seconds into loading the photo library really makes me suspect something in the library is corrupted.

It could be a photo, but I doubt it. All the photos that go in there these days are straight off my camera. Probably one of the many files that keeps track of the photos, but I don't even know where to begin...

Tyler
Earendil

 

[jxyama]

several things you might want to try...

first, make a duplicate copy of the entire iPhoto library. this way, you have a hope of retaining everything while you mess around with other things.

use iPhoto Library Manager and see if pointing to a different directory would help. try launching iPhoto pointed to an empty library and see if it's iPhoto or the Library that's being problematic...

other than that, i'd repair permissions... then remove pictures in the library (this will be messy because iPhoto organizes the library in a very non-straight forward way) from the most recent to see if it's a particular batch of pics that are corrupting the system.

good luck.

 

[jeremy.king]

This may be far fetched, but disable any new fonts you may have installed recently. A while back I added some fonts to font book and my iApps (iTunes, iPhoto, Safari) were crashing on startup. Disable the newer fonts fixed my problem so I offer that suggestion to you.

 

[Earendil]

This may be far fetched, but disable any new fonts you may have installed recently. A while back I added some fonts to font book and my iApps (iTunes, iPhoto, Safari) were crashing on startup. Disable the newer fonts fixed my problem so I offer that suggestion to you.

Thanks for suggestions all.

To add to the list of things I know and have tried.

Permissions didn't fix it.

I backed everything up well before I started deleting and updating things
Just tell me what to delete or modify and I'll give it a shot!

Nothing new installed on my computer, and no one else touches it. I normally keep iPhoto open all the time, so the number of new photos could be a fairly large amount, or small, I don't know when I started it last.

Forgot to mention that the last time iPhoto was "quit" was when my computer auto shutdown due to overheating (hehe, my bad there...). I don't know how violent a shutdown that is, but after that iPhoto wouldn't start. Everything else is running fine though.

I'll give the iPhoto library trick a go next. At work here, so doing things when I can

Assuming it's the library, anyone know what I should start deleting first?

Tyler

 

[Earendil]

It's definitely the iPhoto Library. Thanks jyxama for the application to use.
I started up with a brand new empty library just fine.

Because the last 1500 photos have all been pulled from the same camera, I doubt it's a picture that is crashing the library.
That, and the fact that the last time iPhoto was quit was possibly a bit violent, I'd say it's one of the files that keeps track of pictures in the iPhoto Library. Any ideas as to which one?

Tyler
Earendil

 

[Earendil]

No one knows how to repair a corrupted library aye? Anyone? Please?

Perhaps it would be better to start a new thread now that I know what the exact problem is...

Tyler
Earendil

 

[sobelizzard]

Try deleting the Thumb32 and Thumb64 data files in your iPhoto library. Make backups first of course, but these files will be regenerated when you launch iPhoto again.

Should fix the problem...

 

[Earendil]

Not sure what I did, but for the sake of anyone else that may have this problem, I'll tell you what I did.

After (of course) making a backup of the entire library, I went through and started taking files out of the library folder. I figured out that either thumb32 OR thumbJPG would cause the program to crash. Problem was, after starting it up without those, iPhoto would tell me I had no photos in any of my albums, or in the library.

I now that I knew who was the blame, I recopied all the files I knew to be good to the library from the backup and started it up. This time around it generated thumbs for everything in the library, but iPhoto still thought that there wasn't anything in any of the 25 albums I had created. So I quit iPhoto once again and copied the "albums" folder from the back up over to the Library. This time when I fired it up everything was as it should be.

Now I don't know why it didn't work the first time, and regenerate the thumb32 and thumbJPG, because the backup file was created AFTER the the problem started. Yet I still had to replace a few files to get everything back!

Thanks for the help guys!!

Tyler
Earendil