IPhoto 5.0.4 has just destroyed 5 hours of work!

Question

Dear all,
my girlfriend had just been using iPhoto 5.0.4 (latest version) for 5 hours on our brand new iMac G5, creating a nice book that was supposed to be ordered as printout, when the application suddenly decided to crash.
The catastrophe came clear when we restarted iPhoto: All work was gone, the book was back at its initial state as 5 hours ago.
Even worse: Since iPhoto doesn't provide an explizit way to "save" the work (which accordingly we assumed it would do by itself in the background), everything was now gone. iPhoto quite obviously hadn't saved anything and didn't even realise it had crashed, let alone try to restore the data (as most Microsoft applications do after crashes)! We searched through the filesystem with Finder but couldn't find anything that looked like a simple ".bak file". Isn't that the LEAST you could expect from an application like iPhoto???
Therefore I kindly ask you to let us know if there is ANY way to restore the lost data. MacOS is using a "journaled" filesystem. How can the filesystem be accessed. Where and how does iPhoto store the data for books at all?
I am hoping to get a quick answer since if there is no way to restore the data, I will return the computer to the dealer I bought it from. We still are in the money back period. A simple Windows based freeware to organize our pictures will crash, too - but cost much less than an iMac.
Thanks for your quick help in advance!
Kind regards
Christian Krenner

Answer 1

I have immediately tried Command-D and it works great. Strangely enough, it cannot be done through the menus.
Command D is listed in the Help file list of available commands. Although listed by the iPhoto Help as Duplicate a Photo, in many situations in other applications, Command D means duplicate whatever is highlighted. You will often find there are far more shorcut keys than are listed in the menus (plus you can set your own).
Anyone here from Apple who can confirm this hidden switch? Why is this VERY USEFUL option hidden and not accessible from the user interface?
Apple seem to have a very different view of how applications should work. It is in some ways rather like some phone operating system, which seems to extend it to the point where you can neither save nor even close applications. Apple deliberately hide complexity from the new user. They don't stop you using it, but they certainly do not make it obvious that you have a potential preference available.
I moved from Windows 20 months ago, and I still find new things about my Macintosh that surprise and often delight me.
Of course, if I'd just lost 5 hours work, I would also be infuriated. The reports I have seen make me think the changes Apple made to iPhoto 5 have NOT been as bug free as I would normally expect from what is nominally an older application. However it feels to me as if Apple are still feeling their way with iPhoto. It had major changes in how it handles information between versions 2, 4 and 5 (I don't think they had a 3). With Spotlight Smart Folders able to do more and better searches of photos than iPhoto can manage, it seems to me iPhoto is in one of those transition areas to a different way of handling photos. Plus it seems likely Apple's photo experts were working on their new pro photo application that was recently released.
The files iPhoto uses for Book information is in each iPhoto Library. Book printing is not available here, so I have no real hints on it, but one obvious trick with any program is simply to close it from time to time if you are not yet sure it is stable. You could then check the file times in iPhoto Library to see which ones iPhoto uses. You might later on like to make a script to save a series of breakpoints of your projects. I also like the idea of running a separate iPhoto Library for each project I am working on. Just hold down the Option key while you start iPhoto for a choice of Library.
Good luck with your computing, whichever way you decide to go.