Tag Archives: Photography

Manually Change Aperture Referenced Files Volume

If you have had issues with Apple’s Aperture using referenced files then this post may be of some help.  In my previous posts here and here I detailed the issues that I have been experiencing and some of the steps I tried to get back working.  If, like me, you are still banging your head against the wall, you may want to consider manually updating the Aperture Library Database file.

The process described below is for more advanced/daring users.  I’ve tried to recount everything I’ve done, but may have left some bits out.  Please be careful and understand all the steps below before proceeding.  As always YMMV. Continue reading Manually Change Aperture Referenced Files Volume

Aperture 3.2.1 Referenced Files

So the Aperture 3.2.1 update did not fix my issue.  The images stored on my NAS device still would not show as online in Aperture.

I was able to get it all fixed and working, but the solution isn’t what I had hoped it would be.  I had originally just wanted Aperture to work as advertised and be able to use the files on the NAS like it is supposed to.  Unfortunately life had other plans for me.

I’ll start by telling you that I now have all my images back on my internal HD, managed by Aperture, stored in my library.  This was a bit of a process which I will get into later.  I’ll now tell the sad story of how I ended up with this configuration.

The most recent development in my troubles is that when I went to troubleshoot my library some more the NAS share was offline.  I tried to connect with no success.  I went out to the garage where I found that the NAS was having issues.  It turns out that at some point the device just died and would not boot up any longer.  So now all of the stored images on the devices are inaccessible.  The drives are OK, so in a worst case scenario I could boot into a Linux OS and move all the images.  Luckily for me I’m a backup FREAK and have all the images available to restore without too much trouble.

Now I have to figure out a new solution.  I decide to upgrade the internal drive on my iMac to be able to hold all the data.  The size of the drive is the reason I had images stored on the NAS in the first place.  I get a 2tb drive and have it installed into my iMac.  Once it is back up and running I transfer all of the images to a temp directory on the iMac.

Once all the files are in the temp location I fire up Aperture.  I tire the reconnect referenced files and Aperture STILL will not let me complete the process.  As before the interface simply will allow me to click reconnect all.  After a good deal of messing around and Googling I find a post that talks about how to manually update the image location in the database itself for iPhoto.  With this information I start poking around in the Aperture files and find the database file.

Long story long, I was able to manipulate the Library.apdb file and change where Aperture thinks the files were.  This was successful, and Aperture seems to be running fine.  I was then able to ‘Consolidate Masters’ so that all the files are managed by Aperture and stored in the Library file.  So now I’m back to fully operational and all my images are usable again.

In a following post I’ll describe the steps I had to take to edit the Library.apdb file.  Stay tuned!

 

[UPDATE]: 11-4-2011 – Check my post for how I solved this issue in my setup.

Aperture 3.1.3 Referenced files

I’m having a really frustrating issue at the moment.  I have a modest sized photo library that I’m running in Aperture v3.1.3.  I have a nicely underpowered iMac with fairly small drive for storae, and as a result I have to store some of my master image files on external storage.  I have a Mybook World NAS that has plenty of mirrored storage, so I keep a lot of my oldest files there.  There are some features in Aperture to facilitate moving master files to external storage, and I’ve been running in the fashion for quite some time now.

Yesterday I was working in my Library and was having trouble connecting to some of the images.  I ensured that the NAS volume was mounted and I was able to browse the folder structure as expected.  The problem is that Aperture isn’t properly seeing the volume and is insisting that the referenced files are ‘offline’.   I’ve tried using the ‘Locate Referenced Files’ feature in Aperture, but when I’m browsing for the files the ‘Reconnect’ button never activates for me.  It remains greyed out, and if I select the checkbox to only files not found then i get no files to reconnect.  The windows says that all my files are ‘offline’ but zero ‘not found’ and therefore wont let me reconnect.

I’ve restarted Aperture, and rebooted of course making sure to reconnect the NAS volume before loading the library again.  Still nothing.

In looking at Apple’s forums, I’m not the only one experiencing this issue, and it looks like people have been complaining of this issue for months with continued radio silence from Apple support.

 

If anyone has found a fix for this or had a different experience let me know in the comments!

 

[UPDATE]: 11-4-2011 – Check my post for how I solved this issue in my setup.

http://www.kevinnoall.com/blog/2011/11/04/manually-change-aperture-referenced-files-volume/