IPhoto 6 crashed after rebuilding thumbnail cache

Question

I, too, have had trouble with iPhoto 6, but only when I finally clicked "ok" after the endless suggestions to rebuild my thumbnail cache. The result? A loss of all my thumbnails on my eMac. My elaborate structure of albums was there, but each one was empty. I gad to call Apple several times, as the solution seemed to work but didn't at first. I hunted everywhere, as 10,002 photos were seemingly lost, and eventually found the image files in the iPhoto trash. The Apple expert told me that my iPhoto library was probably corrupted (perhaps too simplistic an answer, or were all 10,002 photos somehow corrupted?) so the suggested solution was to rebuild the library after having made a copy of the old library just in case--knowing that the images were actually there in the iPhoto trash. Thank goodness I had just enough space on my hard drive to do this. This crisis occurred the very night before a vacation where I was planning to take a lot of nature photos, so when I returned 10 days later, my first task was to rebuild the library with a whole new album and folder structure. It took two days! Now I am getting the "rebuild your thumbnail cache" instruction again every time I open up iPhoto on my iBook that I use for work and my eMac, and I won't dare do it. Who has a thorough explanation of this problem and has any information on whether or not Apple has encountered this enough to address it? Thanks for weighing in on this.

Answer 1

Christina:
Did you check the file sizes of those files you found in the Trash? If you still have them check their size to see if they are truly the full sized files or just the thumbnails?
Does your current running library have the albums, slideshows, keywords, etc. intact? If so I suggest you try letting iPhoto Library Manager rebuild your library. It will create a new library and a new database file and copy the full sized files from the old library. I believe it creates new thumbnails. That might get you away from that incessant "rebuild thumbnails" message. Here's how:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button, navigate to your User/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the File->Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
Click on the Create button.
Note: It can take some time to create the new library if you have a lot of photos. One user reported that with a library of about 5,000 images it took about 12 hours so plan ahead.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.