Aperture 3 loses photos?

Question

I've just noticed that thousands of photos have disappeared from my Aperture 3 library. Projects now have 0 photos in them. Also when I download new photos into Aperture they simply don't stay or if they do they are useless because I can't export them, I get, "No Reference Files" ' The selection doesn't have any referenced files'. Is this problem being encountered by anyone else? Have I wasted my money? Will I have to take down Aperture & find a reliable programme?
If anyone can help, PLEASE DO DO. Thanks. Pete.

Answer 1

Hi Pete
I'm really sorry to hear that the library first aid failed for you, even after working through all three steps.
I haven't had the question of why this has happened under Aperture 3 answered.
For a fair bit of the last 20 years or so, I've done IT support, ranging from sitting beside users at their machines on their desk to remotely diagnosing problems over the phone or by email. Without access to your system, and without being able to watch over your shoulder for a while to see how you operate your system (with respect, you might have 'bad habits' which are not apparent when our only channel is email), it's impossible to say with absolute certainty.
But here's my reckoning about your problem, for what little it might be worth to you. Your Aperture library file was corrupted at some unknown point. Ongoing use made the problem worse. Then it got to the stage where you began noticing empty projects, but by that stage, it was too late. Even then when you ran the first aid routines, the damage was too deeply into the library file for recovery to be possible.
Although it appears to be a single file, the Aperture library file is actually a complex hierarchy of folders and files - just the same as in, for example, your home directory. But Apple have a little 'switch' that can be flicked that makes the hierarchy of files and folders appear to be a single file. These special data structures are called "packages". (The great majority of the programs in the Applications folder are packages. The iPhoto library and the old Aperture v2 library are packages. iMovie project files are packages. Pages (iWork) documents are packages. They've been around a long time and they're widely used - and not just by Apple.)
Packages in general can be very complex internally. Aperture packages definitely are. My own Aperture library with approximately 5,300 images uses referenced masters - ie the original JPGs and RAW files are stored external to the library file. Even so, there are currently just under 41,000 objects inside the package. (If I was using managed masters, ie master images stored inside the library file, the figure would be more like 46,000 files.) There are several database files for different aspects of the application, and thousands of smaller images and related files. For example, all the thumbnails and previews are stored in the package. There are also special text files (these are XML data files) which store data to do with Places, Albums and lots of other aspects of your photos. In short, there's a heck of a lot going on inside your Aperture library file and one primary database is at the heart of it all. All it takes is for a pointer in either the main or one of the supporting databases to get knocked out of sync or maybe a rogue corrupt image to 'sneak in' and you've got the seeds sown for bigger trouble down the road. Problems might not show up initially. A problem might be in an area of the application that you rarely use. But sometimes these problems have a way of growing until they bite you in quite a significant way.
In your case, there might have been a pre-existing problem in your Aperture v2 library file which came through the upgrade to v3. Or you might have incurred a corruption from early v3 crashes. We'll never know for certain but, without getting too technical, that's my reckoning.
In spite of that doom and gloom, there are still a couple of avenues which have not yet been mentioned in this thread and I believe that they are still worth pursuing. Especially if, as seems to be the case here, you don't have any backups of these images and are faced with considerable image loss. I know you're really hacked off about this just now (and I don't blame you), but let me know if you'd like some assistance in trying to recover your 2,000 missing images. I can't guarantee success, but I'm willing to give it a try. The ball's in your court. On the off-chance that you will get back in touch, I have to say that the only important thing for now is to keep your library file intact.
Regards,
Gary