Importer does not recognize already imported photos

Question

Hello,
I have a really annoying problem with Aperture 3.0.3. The importer does not recognize already imported photos and wants to import them again and again. This is true for photos from my iPhoneand also for photos from my Nikon. If I enable "Do not import duplicates" then some photos vanish from the importer, when I the iPhone view is open. In the Nikon view not even one photo is recognized as already imported.
Also very strange is that when I have the iPhone (iOS 4.1 installed) attached to the Mac, Aperture opens the importer automatically and shows all photos correctly - but strangely, both iMac CPUs are at 100% until I click either "Cancel" or "Start import" or I disconnect the iPhone.
I tried the following without success:
- Correct permissions on media library
- Repair media library
- Rebuild media library
Imports from my iPhone last very long and seem to hang most of the time. I have to kill Aperture to make it work again all the time.
To me, it looks like there is something really messed up at the base of this program.
I have about 20000 files in my library - face recognition is not turned off - most of the preferences are at their default, I think. Did not play around very much.
Does anybody know what to do? I don't want to lose all my Projects (sorted all pictures into their own projects). But I want to work with Aperture again. When its working, it's a great tool.
Regards
Alex

Answer 1

I've had the same problem. For some things, like videos and photos on my iPhone, I've found as many as 5 copies of the images despite keeping the 'do not import duplicates' checked.
I've also found a bug with the import function, where if I'm importing from folders on my hard drive, sometimes it finds no images at all (even if they don't exist in my library). Simply cancelling and going back into import and the miraculously appear (including images that have already been imported despite having 'do not import duplicates' checked.).
I've been going through my library deleting all the duplicates, and managed to free about 10GB of space.
Having moved from Lightroom the 'technical side' of Aperture seems very antiquated. For example, if I remove a duplicate video - then try clicking on that video in Aperture, it literally takes about 10-15 minutes of spinning disc before Aperture becomes responsive. It also often hangs up on the 'updating previews' when I quit.
Such a shame aperture is so bad. I really like the functionality - eg. having my photos automatically sync with my Apple TV, but it seems to be absolutely full of bugs.