Unable To Upgrade iPhoto Library Fix...

[Mayo]

When my friend and I were recently working with iPhoto we found ourselves unable to access her iPhoto library after upgrading from iPhoto 5 to iPhoto 6.  At first I thought that it was a problem related to iPhoto Library Manager.  But my friend thought that there might be some locked image files in the library that might be causing the problem, even though logically this doesn't make any sense. (She got the idea because of the error message provided by iPhoto and the fact that folder permissions were set appropriately.)

As it turns out the problem was caused by locked image files... And while I expect that TSers inclined to upgrade to iPhoto 6 have already done so, I am posting the fix here Just In Case...  Who knows?  This may appear again in future upgrades...

(How did I find the answer?  I Googled the problem and the first couple of hits were for forums where the problem had been discussed.)


In certain situations, you may see a message that says "Unable to upgrade this photo library" the first time you launch iPhoto after upgrading to iLife '06.

There are two potential causes for this issue:
The current user does not have read-write access to some of the photos in the photo library OR
There are locked files somewhere inside your iPhoto Library.
Unlocking files in your iPhoto Library
When you don't know exactly where the locked files are, and especially if they are located in more than one folder, the easiest way to unlock them will be using the Terminal (located in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder). Follow these steps:

1. Open the Terminal.
2. At the prompt, type:
sudo chflags -R nouchg
Note: If you highlight the text above, you will see that there's a space following nouchg. You must type this space. Also, the "r" in -R must be uppercase as shown.
3. From a Finder window, drag your iPhoto Library folder onto the Terminal window. This will add its pathname to the command. When you're done, the command will look something like:
sudo chflags -R nouchg /Users/Your_Name/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library/
4. Press the Return key to execute the command. You will be prompted for your administrator password; type it, and press Return again.

[gunug]

Mayo - Thanks, this kind of explains a problem I was having with a shared "Photo Server" directory where up to 10 users accessed photos on a share (never 10 at the same time) and gradually things became inaccessible locally when I upgraded iPhoto on the server.  I "fixed" this via a brute force repair of all permissions using Mac Help Desk (?) and it worked but I wasn't comfortable with the solution.  

They've got a real server now and they don't try to access things "locally" so I hope I won't have to worry anymore!

[krissel]

Thanks Mayo. I'm starting to compile a list of very useful fixes or hints from other TSers and I will add this.

[kps]

Hey Kris, remember this one?

I know we exchanged a few private messages, but I don't remember the outcome. Did you ever find out what that directory was and more importantly, did you ever get rid of it?

[krissel]

Wow, I can't believe that was two years ago!  


I went through all the possible tricks in the Terminal and used every application I could find related to deleting things but nothing would remove that file. It wasn't recognized by the system so it was impossible to do anything with it.

So I just lived with it in the Trash for several months until I decided to reformat the drive and realign the partitions. Of course that got rid of it.

[Gregg]

Sounds like a job for Otohpi.

(Ok, no such program exists. Just a takeoff on the "kernal panic" thread.)