Aperture 3 Hanging after upgrade and possible solution

Question

In advance, sorry for the long post:
As many have reported already, I was also a user of Aperture staring at the beachball and finding my computer hanging completely up to the point I was ready to give it flight lessons for free. I might have done this to my MacBook Pro if I was not leaving for an overland trip to Capetown from the Netherlands in a Toyota Land Cruiser in 2 days. If you want to read about the trip: www.africaminded.com.
How did I solve the issue in my case? I hope it helps some of you.
*My aperture setup*
Before you go through all the steps below let me explain how my Aperture workflow was set up:
1. Projects in Aperture correspond to folders on my harddrives. The project folders in Aperture contain reference files to the fils on my harddrives. The folders on my harddrives have the same name as the projects in Aperture. Using the same name does not really matter much, except I find it easier to find images from aperture back on my harddrive without having to use aperture to find the images.
2. I do not have the images imported into an Aperture library because this alllows me to access the images with other applications than Aperture (Photoshop etc).
Preparations:
*Actions I took before I started with a clean Aperture:*
1. Launch Aperture with holding the shift key. This defers Aperture from processing images in the library. Tip from Apple website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3805
2. Show Keywords HUD and export the keyword list in a separate file onto the desktop
3. Create folder on desktop called "Exported Projects"
4. Drag project by project to the just created folder. Yes this is a painstaking long process and one I would have liked avoided but I did not find any other solution and needed one. Luckily I only had 44 projects to go through.
5. Close Aperture
6. Delete the user preferences
1. Quit Aperture if still running.
2. In the Finder go to ~/Library/Preferences. (The tilde "~" represents your Home folder).
3. Remove the "com.apple.Aperture.plist" file from the Preferences folder.
7. Move the user created presets, keyword lists, and so on...
1. Quit Aperture.
2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Application Support/Aperture.
3. Move the contents of this folder to your Desktop
8. Delete your old Aperture Library or move it to another harddrive. If possible do not empty the bin of your computer (just in case you need the library again - I did not after following all steps below).
9. Reinstall Aperture; Note: Make sure that you have your installation discs nearby before starting this.
1. Open the Applications folder.
2. Drag the Aperture application to the Trash.
3. Insert your Aperture installation disc and install Aperture.
4. When finished, choose Software Update from the Apple () menu to update your software to the latest version.
*Now your computer has a clean install of Aperture*
1. Launch Aperture
2. Show Keywords HUD and import the keyword list that you saved in a separate file on the desktop
3. Move the following files back into ~/Library/Application Support/Aperture:
1. Adjustment Chain Presets.plist
2. FileNamingPresets.plist
3. Metadata Presets.plist
4. MetadataSets.plist
4. Close Aperture and go to
Following the steps below allows you to keep all you metadata and rating as well. It is possible in Aperture 3 to read and import sidecar files containing metadata but this will not include the rating! So if you want to keep your metadata and your ratings, follow the steps below:
(*A) Importing Project*s
1. Launch aperture
2. File > Import >Library / Project
3. After selecting the exported project you want to import, confirm you want to merge the project
4. Which library should be used when a conflict is detected? Choose current library (and not the library/project you are importing).
5. Let Aperture take its time to merge the projects (depending on the size of the project you import this can take longer and you might see the famous beach ball for a few seconds). In the beginning it will look like Aperture does nothing or hangs again.
6. After merging the libraries are completed Close Aperture.
7. Launch Aperture and immediately select Window > Show Activity from the menu. Let Aperture process new previews (this should start automatically after opening Aperture). Show activity will give you an idea how far Aperture is when processing the images so you don't have to stress and stare at the spinning wheel in the bottom left corner.
8. After the processing has finished Close Aperture again to save the new previews and share them with iLife and iWork.
9. Repeat the above until you have imported all your projects. Remember to keep repeating step 6 to 9. This allows you to find out which project contains corrupted images or is corrupt and to deal with it separately. Importing all projects at the same time and then processing all pictures at the same time does not give you the opportunity to figure out how to get rid of the beachball!
*(B) What to do when images are corrupted in a project?*
In case you imported a project that was corrupted or contains corrupted images that causes Aperture to hang completely and slow down your computer to a complete halt:
1. Force quit aperture
2. Reopen aperture and immediately press the shift key after launching the program. Pressing the shift key stops Aperture from rendering/processing the images you imported from the "corrupted project".
3. Select the last imported projected (the one that contains 1 or several corrupted images and gave you the beachball again).
4. Delete the project and empty the trash in Aperture as well. Do not delete the master files associated with you referenced images.
5. Move the corrupted project into a folder called "Corrupted projects". Do not throw the corrupted project away - we will deal with this one later. Just make sure they are not part of the main library you are building.
6. Quit and launch aperture. Aperture should not be processing any images anymore as you already completed that with step 8 above.
7. Complete the importing of your projects following the exact steps above, skipping the corrupted project.
Ps. In my case I found 1 project with corrupted images.
*(C) What do you do with the corrupted projects?*
1. Make sure that Aperture is not yet running.
2. Double click the corrupted project and press the shift key to defer the processing of images. This will launch aperture and treat the project as an individual library.
3. Select all thumbnails and export masters to a new folder and select "Create IPTC4XMP Sidecar File" in the pulldown list where it says "Metadata" in the export window. You should now have all master images of this corrupted project and the sidecar files containing the metadata of these images in the same folder.
4. Quit Aperture
5. Press the Alt-Key/Option-Key and Launch Aperture. Aperture should now ask you which library you want to open. Select your Main Library that contains all the projects you imported following step 1-9 above.
6. Create a new project for the images you are going to import from step 3 of section C.
7. Import the images and move them to where you want them to have. Aperture should import the non-corrupted images including their metadata (as the sidecar file of these images is in the same folder as the images). All you have lost in this case is the rating and possibly the adjustment of these images. The IPTC data will be imported by Aperture in step 9 Section C. You could survive having to redo the rating manually. Redoing the adjustments is a bit of more work, sorry.
8. Quit Aperture.
9. Launch Aperture with pressing the alt-key or option-key and select your main library as in step 5 and select "Show Activity" from the menu. You are now back into step 7 of section A. Complete step7, step 8 and 9 of section A.
*D. Congrats*
1. When all projects have imported correctly delete the projects from your harddrive to gain space.
2. Delete the temporary Aperture library created in section C step 2.
3. Re-install plug ins that you might have moved in the preparation phase (if possible 64-bit versions if available)
Congrats. You now have a completely new and well functioning new Aperture 3 library that offers you all the new features and is very fast I should say. My machine: MacBook Pro 2.93GHz with 4GB Ram.
After you think you can trust Aperture again empty your bin to gain space on your computer.
How long did this take me? All in all about 3 days but not full time luckily. How many real corrupted images? None - something else in the project data was messing everything up.

Answer 1

WOW!
I'm REALLY impressed by your exhaustive and detailled description!
How long did it take to write? Sure longer than the import itself...
Thank you so much. I got a working import of Ap2 lib before but your description have me various hints for handling problematic or faulty projects.
Matt