IPhoto causing 20-30 second hangs - spinning beach ball and music stops

Very often when I browse through my pictures, suddenly iPhoto will freeze, the beach ball appears and if I attempt to use other programs the entire system freezes. If I'm playing music in iTunes, it will pause and then restart after 20-30 secs when iPhoto and the rest of the system suddenly works again as if nothing happened.
Anyone else notices this? It happens as I said quite often, and I can provoke it by flipping through pictures very fast (for instance by holding down the left or right arrow on the keyboard).
I noticed that this message often appears in the console when I initiate iPhoto:
06/10/09 14.17.11 iPhoto[1023] ILLogger ILMediaBrowserPathWatcher: ** Error in ILMediaBrowserPathWatcher startFSEventStream failed to start for paths: (
"/Users/mikkeldrewsen/Library/Preferences"
I don't know if that's relevant, but there it is none the less.
I hope someone can help me!

Option 1
Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Choose to Rebuild iPhoto Library Database from automatic backup.
If that fails:
Option 2
Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. This will create a new library based on data in the albumdata.xml file. Not everything will be brought over - no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your albums and keywords, faces and places back.
Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.
Regards
TD

Similar Messages

  • Mavericks mail hanging (spinning beach ball)

    Since upgrading yesterday the Mail application is constantly freezing (spinning beach ball) and the only option is force-quit. Sometimes happend when I try to draft a new mail, sometimes when I read and email and sometimes on its own when I come back to my computer.
    I can make it happen 100% of the time when I try toselect  Mail > Preferences
    The dialog never comes up and I get the spinning beach ball.
    Date/Time:       2013-10-24 04:09:07 -0700
    OS Version:      10.9 (Build 13A603)
    Architecture:    x86_64
    Report Version:  18
    Command:         Mail
    Path:            /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail
    Version:         7.0 (1816)
    Build Version:   1
    Project Name:    Mail
    Source Version:  1816000000000000
    Parent:          launchd [233]
    PID:             5822
    Event:           hang
    Duration:        15.48s
    Steps:           15 (100ms sampling interval)

    Same problem. Tried everything. I've looked a lot of places and tried a lot of things- and logged nearly 15 hours of time with the highest level of Apple support and got nowhere. Even had them harvest my data logs and uploaded all of that.
    Then I found a post on another messageboard that did it for me. Take a look at your:
    username/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Accounts.plist
    Instead of being a few KB (as it should have been), mine was 40 MB with tens of thousands of duplicated Hotmail account entries.
    I knew all of my mail settings, so I just trashed this file and relaunched the app, then manually added back all of my mail account settings via the mail interface.
    Poof- no more issues. No Mail hang. No preference files launching and eating up enormous CPU and RAM. No problems whatsoever. Hope it helps you all too.
    Note: this does not eliminate messages, only settings. So the fix takes all of 5 minutes if you remember your mail server settings.
    Cheers.

  • I am having trouble with a LaCie 526 monitor working with my new Mac Pro.  When I boot up, I see the sign-in screen for a second, then it disappears, reappears with some of the screen pixelated and the spinning beach ball -- and then freezes. Any thoughts

    The LaCie is connected via DVI to thunderbolt adapter.  It had been working, and then when I switched off the computer and restarted several days later, I see the signon screen flash quickly, followed by nothing, followed by the signon screen and spinning beach ball and it simply freezes.  Any thoughts?

    When you have kernel panics, the pertinent information is in the panic report.
    These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
    Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
    ☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
    ☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
    ☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
    In the Console window, select
              DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION ▹ System Diagnostic Reports
    (not Diagnostic and Usage Messages) from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
              View ▹ Show Log List
    from the menu bar.
    There is a disclosure triangle to the left of the list item. If the triangle is pointing to the right, click it so that it points down. You'll see a list of reports. A panic report has a name that begins with "Kernel" and ends in ".panic". Select the most recent one. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste to post the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot.
    If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a panic, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.
    In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)
    Please don’t post other kinds of diagnostic report.
    I know the report is long, maybe several hundred lines. Please post all of it anyway.

  • Spinning Beach Ball and computer freeze

    Tonight I continually receive the spinning beach ball. The computer freezes and I need to do a hard shutdown. I have run repair permissions several times. I do receive the modified and no repaire messages. I have traced message lines on the forum and it does not appear to be a serious issue. However, it does not change the fact I repeatedly get the spinning beach ball and after some period of time need to do a hard shutdown. At first this took place in Aperture only, but it did he same thing in other applications as well.
    Any thoughts? What do I need to do to resolve the issue?
    Thanks

    Start with http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html

  • 27 ", late 2010, iMac won't boot after turning on. Spinning beach ball and white screen.

    Probably a relatively simple fix, or series of steps, that will return it to normal.

    BD,
    It's been a while, but I have since upgraded RAM to 12Gb and gone to Mavericks 10.9.4. Everything has run well until recently. Time Machine will not function on a new Seagate, 1TB GoFlex external HD,even though it was properly formatted and HFS journaled. Seagate techs said it seems to be a failing drive, yet it works perfectly on my laptop, a 15" MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion.  The drive completes less than 10% of the backup before it locks everything up on the iMac with the spinning beach ball and a gray screen.  Left it that way for two days and no change.  Removed the drive physically and the iMac works just fine. I am baffled and really a bit frustrated here and wonder if you, or anyone else, has an idea about correcting this? I am suspecting that there is something deeper in the system going on than I am seeing.
    I have run a verification of Disc Permissions/Repairs and keep getting this coming up:  "Permissions differ on “Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Resources/Safari.help/Contents/Resources/inde x.html”; should be lrwxr-xr-x ; they are -rwxr-xr-x ."
    That keeps coming up every time and is not fixed.  I don't know if that has anything to do with that.
    Baffled...

  • IPHOTO 11 causing spinning beach ball and freezing. help

    I have a mid 2009 macbook with 2.3 dual core and 2 gb ram. i installed iPhoto 11 after a very successful  10.7.3 install. all was well then i began to import my photos from a thumb drive that i downloaded from a macbook pro onto a thumb drive. after few hiccups i realized i had a file that was stopping the import as it cam eup with the error message. so i deleted that and then about 3/4 of the way through the laptop just choked up and the spinning beach ball started and wouldnt stop. couldnt get it to force quit etc..
    so after several days of attempts i gave up ended up having to do a safe reboot too  many times and have now deleted iphoto and all its contents. my mac is working alebit is a bit sluggishly.
    any help? is this due to just 2 gig of ram do i need more ram? i am at a loss and i really need to upload these photos but it just doesnt seems worth the hassle

    That shoots that theory down.  Try this:  launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and create a new, test library.  Import some photos and check to see if the same problem persists. If that library works without a problem your current library is suspect. 
    In that case if you have the space available on your hard drive and don't aready have a backup copy of the library make a temporary, backup copy (select the library and type Command+D) and apply the two fixes below in order as needed:
    Fix #1
    Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
    Select the options identified in the screenshot. 
    Fix #2
    Using iPhoto Library Manager  to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
    Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
    Click on the Add Library button, navigate to your Home/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: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments but not books, calendars or slideshows. The original library will be left untouched for further attempts at fixing the problem or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.

  • ITunes 11 hangs (spinning beach ball) in Mountain Lion

    Whenever I open iTunes, it hangs with a spinning beach ball for about three minutes. During this time, Activity Monitor shows iTunes (not responding) using 90–130% of the CPU.
    After a few minutes, the beach ball stops and iTunes works fine...for a while. Double clicking on any audio file on my desktop, sets off the spinning beach ball again for another three minutes, at which time iTunes becomes responsive again, but the sound file does not play.
    I've tried tossing the iTunes preferences and running Disk Warrior to no avail. I'm running 10.8.2 on my mid-2007 iMac. Any ideas/suggestions for troubleshooting?

    Okay, I think I've finally solved my problem. I moved my entire iTunes library from one hard drive to another, then I deleted everything from iTunes (selected all songs, hit delete key, but didn't delete songs from disk) and then reimported them by dragging my Music folder into iTunes.
    I'm not sure if moving the songs from one disk to another really helped, but deleting and reinstalling the songs definitely did.
    I actually let iTunes perform a "scan for music" to reinstall the tracks, but that never seems to bring in everything. I had to drag in all of my compilation disks and some other miscellaneous tracks. P.I.T.A.
    But, the good news is iTunes no longer hangs.

  • Spinning beach ball and slower performance

    I have been noticing that the performance of my iMac is becoming slower, with the dreaded spinning beach ball apearing whenever I change between applications to perform relatively basic functions. However, the worst is when I am in iTunes, where I experience the spinning beach ball for several minutes after connecting and choosing a device, and I typically cannot do anything else in other applications until it stops. As for other applications, I have nearly abandoned Aperture because anything from scrolling to adjustments will cause the spinning beach ball to return several seconds to minutes.
    My iMac is a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with nearly 30g's left on the hard drive. I have the memory max'd at 4GB. I am running OS X 10.7.2 with all apps completely up to date. Overall, I am doing basic functions in Bento, Pages, and surfing Safari on a daily basis with only the minimal applications needed open at once.
    Is there anything I can do to resolve this?

    Hi Todd, thanks for the reply.  Actually, I do have CS6 via my Creative Cloud membership but I'm having to work in 5.5 on this particular client's system for a project. 
    I was hoping that the above solution would be the answer I was searching for but alas, that is apparently not the case, since the issues have returned and the spinning beach ball continues to churn... (nothing like the elation of finding a solution only to later feel crushing defeat as the problem returns...)
    The issues were resolved for a while, so perhaps this post may still be able help someone.  I'd rather be working in CS6 right now, and I'm pushing for this client to do the upgrade as well.  Considering how much time is being wasted waiting for the Mac to continue after hanging every other keystroke, I'd think the client would be anxious to make the change!

  • Spinning beach ball and frozen spotlight on iMac

    I cannot use spotlight. The window opens and I cannot type in it because I get a spinning beach ball when the cursor is moved to that area. No matter what I do, it won't go away. I have run disk utilities, zapped the pram, run tech tool pro. Searching on this subject did bring up discussions of cache cleaner, but it appears it is no longer available for Snow Leopard (even though it appears you can download it from several places, it is really Lion Cache Cleaner). Relaunching the finder does not help. Restarting the machine doesn't help either, as soon as I try and use spotlight, the same thing happens. In fact, the whole right side of the menu bar causes the cursor to turn into the spinning ball. Any ideas?
    thanks,
    Joe

    I think it is definitely related to indexing. I am attaching a screen shot. I think that the application I have open in the menu, which I cannot remember what it is called, nor can I turn it off because my cursor is a beachball, may be part of the problem. While I was trouble shooting, a menu dropped down show that my computer was being indexed. At the same time spotlight opened by itself and it said  "Indexing". I tried relaunching the finder, which would not happen. I had to hit the power switch to shut down. Do you recognize what that program in my menu bar is?

  • Spinning beach ball and no Finder icons

    I am trying to troubleshoot this problem:
    My brother was trying to move a lot of JPGs (3,500 of them!) by dragging from one folder to another, but he missed the target folder and they started appearing on his desktop. The only way he could think of to kill the process was to Restart.
    After restarting, the system seems to load normally EXCEPT all the icons on his desktop are missing (including the ones for his hard drives) AND the Finder cursor is the spinning beach ball.
    Mail, Safari, etc, will load and function normally, but he can't use the Finder. Activity Monitor shows the Finder using high 90s of %CPU.
    So far we have tried: Restarting in Safe Mode, Repairing permissions, and running Disk First Aid from the Install DVD - with no problems found and no helpful results.
    Any suggestions?
    Thanks,
    gw

    HI Gary,
    Besides trashing the Finder plist file which would have been my first idea first also, try deleting this one too: com.apple.desktop.plist /Users/YourName/Library/Preferences. Open the Preferences folder, locate that file and drag it to the Trash, empty the Trash and reboot. Your Mac will create new pref files for you.
    Also.. thought of something else. Go to a clear space on your Desktop so it says Finder in the Menu. Now click Command + Option + Esc on your keyboard. A Force Quit window will open. Select Finder in the list and click Relaunch.
    *** Performance tip: Keep the Desktop clutter-free (empty, if possible) ***
    Mac OS X's Desktop is the de facto location for downloaded files, and for many users, in-progress works that will either be organized later or deleted altogether. The desktop can also be gluttonous, however, becoming a catch-all for files that linger indefinitely.
    Unfortunately - aside from the effect of disarray it creates - keeping dozens or hundreds of files on the Desktop can significantly degrade performance. Not necessarily because the system is sluggish with regard to rendering the icons on the desktop and storing them in memory persistently (which may be true in some cases), but more likely because keeping an excessive number of items on the Desktop can cause the windowserver process to generate reams of logfiles, which obviously draws resources away from other system tasks. Each of your icons on your desktop is stored as a window in the window server, not as an alias. The more you have stored, the more strain it puts on the window server. Check your desktop for unnecessary icons and clear them out.
    Keeping as few items as possible on the Desktop can prove a surprisingly effective performance boon. Even creating a single folder on your Desktop and placing all current and future clutter inside, then logging out and back in can provide an immediately noticeable speed boost, particularly for the Finder.
    Carolyn
    Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

  • Spinning beach ball and e mail ****.

    Often I can't open e mails.  This can sometimes be corrected by closing out of the account and reopening.   Today I cannot open e mails, and I am getting that spinning beach ball. Won't go away, I can't access anything. Frozen like my 13 yo PC.

    From the Mail app choose Mailbox, then Rebuild. It may take a little while, but see if that does it.

  • Spinning beach ball and black screen on my new macbook pro

    After great anticipation, I just updgraded to a new macbook pro from an ibook G4. For the most part, I am thrilled and applications open and web pages load quickly. Occassionally, though, I get spinning beach balls...with more frequency than I did with my ibook and in OS X native apps...such as Safari.
    Another problem I am having is in Front Row playing movie trailers: the screen goes black before the end of the trailer, but the audio continues.
    Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
    macbook pro 2Ghz, ibook G4, imac G4, power mac G4   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

    That is the automatic ambient light sensor doing it's thing.
    Depending on what machine you have, try turning the screen brightness all the way up. It will buttons on the top row, usually the F-1 for dimmer, F-2 for brighter
    Also you can go to sytem preferences>display and un check the automatically adjust brightness for ambient light.
    Hope this helps

  • IMac - spinning beach ball and freezing problems

    I've had my white-screen Intel processor iMac for almost two years and its run incredibly well up until the last couple of weeks. Now whenever I switch applications, click on menus, play videos, etc the spinning beach ball appears on the screen for up to two minutes at a time. In some cases it gets so bad the computer needs to have a hard shut down.
    This seems to happen in every application so its not only occurring when I'm doing certain tasks. When the beach ball appears it even pauses a song if its playing in iTunes.
    I've already done a Command-S boot and also tried disk utility and both are telling me there aren't any hard drive problems.
    Is anyone else having this kind of trouble? thanks

    I'm having the same problem, but on my MacBook Pro... just started today. I'm even having a hard time filling out this web form.
    I've run the UNIX maint scripts, repaired permissions, rebooted, everything simple... plenty of free ram, plenty of free HD space (53GB), no CPU usage (2-5% background stuff), no network traffic... just trying to use my Intel MacBook Pro...
    Help!?

  • Spinning beach ball and a restart

    During the past two days, I've got three spinning beach balls that just won't quit. So I had to resort to pressing that little button on the fron of my G4 tower for a restart. After that, everything is back to normal. Each time it happened when trying to either open or close a folder (different each time).
    The console logs this:
    Oct 30 08:46:19 (xxx)s-G4 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/ATS.framewo rk/Support/ATSServer: FSFindFolder failed for domain -32762: 0x-43. Now relying on persistent store for said domain.\n
    I tried googling but couldn't find anything useful. Does anyone here know what it means?
    Message was edited by: jofima

    Do you mean a physical problem?
    I don't have DiskWarrior, and Disk Utility says there are no problems. I purchased the HD just this week, and before installing anything onto it, I erased it using DiskUtility's "zero out" option.
    Just an hour ago, I had another problem with it. The computer had gone to sleep, and when I awoke it, the mouse cursor could move alright, but nothing happened when I tried clicking on things.
    Anyway, I've sent a mail to the seller, and am awaiting a reply. It's Friday afternoon, so I probably have to wait till Monday. In the meantime, I'm re-migrating the system back to the old HD.
    Message was edited by: jofima

  • Spinning beach ball and MPEG Streamclip

    I've downloaded MPEG Streamclip to transfer some Video TS files from a DVD. The files are copied to my desktop and I've tried to open the files using MPEG Streamclip and all I get is the spinning beach ball.
    Any ideas on how to get these files to open?
    Cheers,
    D

    I'm afraid that it might be copyrighted material, though I was told that it wasn't.
    I tried opening up the two VOB files together, the ones Streamclip highlighted, and continued to get the beach ball, then I opened the files individually. One file gave me timecode break warnings but eventually opened up as the title menu. The other file gives me the spinning beach ball.
    Cheers,
    D

Maybe you are looking for

  • Order status no longer shows any items

    The order status area of my account no longer shows any items even going back 18 months. I've placed about 6 orders in that time frame including one last week. I followed the link to Pre-sign for the shipment but the order never appears, even after 5

  • How do I MOVE my installed Thunderbird on Windows NT to a second physical hard drive on the same machine?

    On my wife's computer, her current hard drive is filled with digital junk to such an extent that I am unable to free up enough space to do appropriate cleaning and maintenance. Using Thunderbird, she has years of email and is the recipient of tremend

  • Can selected items in time Machine be removed?

    Is there any way to remove selected items from time machine backups?

  • Thunderbolt issue vga dvi

    On the new mac mini with Thunderbolt, problems with monitors like macbook. Thunderbolt - Minidisplay to VGA - screen not activate, diferent screens. HDMI > DVI - Eizo screen S2202W, switch from vga to dvi, screen 3 sec snow before right image. VGA an

  • Batch fetch optimization for lazy collections

    Hi, I feel like this question must have been asked by somebody already but couldn't find any answers in the forum. We're trying to evaluate migrating from Hibernate to KODO JDO. One feature we use extensively from Hibernate is the "batch fetch optimi