Continual iPhoto crashing

Question

Hi,
I have read from other comments that I am not the only person for whom iPhoto regularly crashes.
I have a Mac mini with 3500 photos (3gb) and 3500 songs (13gb) and an 80 gb hard drive (512mb ram).
I thought that Macs were supposed to be media based computers. I don't see the point in having a computer with a big-ish hard drive if you can't even use a small portion of it without it crashing. I have now tried to make a book 3 times using iPhoto, losing large chunks of the work each time it crashes.
Is there another piece of software that I can use for my photos or for making books? I am not a professional photographer, but music, photos and video is what Macs are meant to be best at. If I can't do that, maybe I should revert to a PC.
Sorry if this is coming across as a rant, but it is more frustration that something simple is becoming such hard work and wasting so much time.
Any advice on what to do much appreciated,
Charles

Answer 1

Charles:
When did the crashing begin? Did you run any updates shortly before it began and if so, which ones?
Some general tips/maintenance suggestions: first run Disk Utility and repair disk permissions. Next manually set the permissions for your iPhoto LIbrary folder as follows:
Setting Permissions for iPhoto Library Folder
1 - Select the iPhoto Library folder and type Command-I.
2 - When the Info window comes up go to the Ownership and Permissions section and make sure You have Read & Write permission and that the Owner and Group have Read & Write also. Others - Read Only.
3 - Then click on the "Apply to enclosed items..." button.
Also since you seem to have a newish Mini I'm assuming you have at least 15% or 10G free space on the HD. I'd be surprised if you didn't because it takes a while to fill up an 80 G drive. If you don't have that much that could be part of the problem.
OT