[Photo] Files disappear/missing

I had some of my .NEF photo files highlighted and something happened to where over 100 of them disappeared (even images that were not highlighted). They are not in the trash. I searched some of the specific file names and they are not showing up in the search engine. I tried to view files opened & modified today [to see if they had somehow saved under another file name] and they are not showing up there either.
It appears my laptop does not even recognize that they even existed.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated in regards to file recovery. [Time Machine has not been used]

first you need to sahare information
what version of iPhoto do you have
where did yoyu have these photos highlighted - and what do you mean by highlighted? have you looked in the iPhoto trash?
I tried to view files opened & modified today [to see if they had somehow saved under another file name] and they are not showing up there either.
Exactly how did you do this?
a couple of general statements
1 - Never go directly into the iPhoto library for any reason - it is not supported, is dangerous and there never is any reason to do so
2 - you are making a giant mistake by not having a backup - computers, disks, software and people fail - with no backup you are 100% guaranteed to lose all of your files including your photos sooner or later - if you have any thing on your computer that you want then you must absolutely always have a backup - Time Machine is a good starting place
LN

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Photo files disappearing when touched by iPhoto

In my workgroup, a common iPhoto library has been shared by all our users (about three of us) for years, served via AFP by Mac OS X Server 10.3.9.
In the last few weeks, one of our users has reported this same problem: She tries to drag the photo from iPhoto to her desktop, but gets the not permitted cursor. When I go to look at the damage, I see that either the photos are missing from the Library file structure or there is a stub of a file left of about 12K. This is really frightening.
I posted this message originally Oct. 24 without any replies. Anyone's help would be greatly appreciated.

I will answer your questions in order.
1. No files were touched in the iPhoto Library folder until I did some investigating, and even then I didn't move anything. Also, as a troubleshooting technique, I rebuilt the library (through iPhoto, of course).
2, 3, & 4. Everyone in the workgroup belongs to the same group, and everyone's NSUmask is set to 2, so every file gets created with permissions 775 (read-write-execute by owner and group, read only by other people) regardless of the program writing it. Naturally, every file and folder in the hierarchy is readable and writable by everyone who needs to.
Thanks for asking!

Missing Horizontal Photo Files - Thumbnails visible

I was going back through my iPhoto Library and came across a strange issue. It appears that a vast majority of my horizontal photo files are missing starting in July of this year and going back to 2005. The thumbnails show up but when I doubleclick I get the dreaded exclamation point. When I search for the file, it is not on the harddrive. Fortunately I have a backup from August that appears to have the pictures in it, I started using a Time Capsule in September and it only has the corrupt library on it.
1. How do I get these pictures back, where did they go?
2. How do I restore from the backup harddrive? I cannot go through thousands of pictures, write down the file name and restore them one by one?
3. Doesn't this seem odd that the files for the vertically aligned photos are OK?
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sareddie
Your files should be perfectly safe...
iPhoto (like iTunes) is a database but unlike most databases which hide the data away from the file system, it stores the data in plain sight. So rebuilding works on the files that track the pictures, rather than on the pictures themselves.
Here's how the iPhoto Library Folder is structured: In this folder there are various files, which are the Library itself and some ancillary files. Then you have three folders
Originals are the photos as they were downloaded from your camera or scanner.
(ii) Modified contains edited pics, shots that you have cropped, rotated or changed in any way.
This allows the Photos -> Revert to Original command - very useful if you don't like the changes you've made.
(iii) Data holds the thumbnails the the app needs to show you the photos in the iPhoto Window.
So that explains why the Modified Version of a pic is present, but begs a question... where have your missing pics gone? And how did they get there?
Rebuilding a database would try to recreate the link between the thumbnail in the iPhoto Window and the file, but if the file is missing, it obviously cannot do it.
Is there any possibility that you - or another user - might had accidently deleted or moved these files? Are they in your trash? If you have a file name try Spotlight for them.
Regards
TD

I get error message: "An error occurred with the publication of album...Authentication with server failed...whenever I open a facebook file in my iPhoto. In each file, most of my photos have disappeared. What do I need to do?

I get error message: "An error occurred with the publication of album...Authentication with server failed. Please check your login and password information" whenever I open a facebook file in my iPhoto. In each file, most of my photos have disappeared. I am hoping I can retrieve these "lost" files. What do I need to do?

Message was edited by: leroydouglas
better yet, try this solution:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12351186#12351186

IMac 20-inch on OSX 10.7.4 running iphoto 11, my photos from my iphoto library have been deleted. I have time machine but the iphoto library file is missing when I access time machine, help please.

I have an imac 20-inch Late 2006 model on OSX 10.7.4 running iphoto 11, somehow the application ccleaner has deleted my photos from my iphoto library. I have time machine but the iphoto library file is missing when I access time machine.
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Hi Barry
Thanks but as mentioned all is intact, even at step 3 I can see the current library in Home/Pictures/iPhoto Library which has no photos, but when I access time machine any point before the NOW option the iphoto library in Home/Pictures/iPhoto Library is missing from the finder window.
As you can see here it is
and now its gone. I have no explanantion.
How do I go about moving this question as you suggested.

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Sounds like you have two problems. 1) Unable to load LR onto the second system (laptop) and 2) the hard drive with original system files has a corrupted file system due to motherboard failure and system crash.
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http://reviews.cnet.com/data-recovery-software/
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http://www.robrode.com/yabb/

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Hi,
I have a very troubling problem going on right now and I don't know how to handle it...
I am running itunes 10.1.2 on a 10.6.6 macbook. I have a large itunes library (20,000+ songs) stored on a portable hard drive, which I have directed itunes to. A week or two ago, while scrolling through my library, I noticed, next to every song in an entire album, the gray circle with the exclamation point signaling that itunes could not locate the file. I went into my itunes folder on my external and went to where the album should have been... but it was gone. I went back to my itunes and went through it, and I found 6 or 7 more albums where the songs popped up with the exclamation point. I went into the itunes folder and the files were no longer there. I finished going through my library, deleted all the songs, and thought I had cleaned it out.
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Dear Apple,
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ITunes U files disappearing

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Dear Apple,
Please stop ignoring this extremely serious issue that is quite obviously very real for a great number of people. I have an external hardrive set up with YOUR time machine and it has worked very well over the past year with my iMac... until the sum of all backups became too large. I only noticed this after I had to disconnect my hardrive from my iMac when I needed to bring it into an Apple Store for repair. This was in December. Ever since, files of all kinds, especially songs, have been disappearing from my Finder Folder where my files are stored. Same old story as everyone else in this thread; songs, movies, books appear to be there but are followed by an grey circle with an exclamation point in it.
NOW, it is happening to my photos from iPhoto. A thumbnail appears in iPhoto but when I control click to find the file it is missing. VERY uncool, in fact there needs to be someone who address this issue quick. Poor customer service no matter how you look at it to not address it.
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APPLE, PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS. YOU ARE ******* YOUR CUSTOMERS OFF AND THAT'S NOT GOOD!

All my photo's are missing from iPhoto and I'm getting a message "your photo library is either in use by another application or has become unreadable"

Yesterday when I opened iPhoto all of my photo's were missing. After many hours of frustrating time looking how to resolve, I decided to try again this morning. When I tried to open iphoto, I got the message I referenced above regarding the library is either in use or has become unreadable.
My photos are not in iPhoto anymore. There's nothing there. iphoto acts like its never even been set up. I have iPhoto '11 version 9.4.3. I have OS X Lion version 10.7.5. However, when I go to "All My Files" and then under "images", there are over 10,000 images. I see my photos (I guess it's all of them - i have no idea how many there were) and other "images" also. When i go to "pictures" I only see the 15 or so items I have scanned. In "iPhoto Library", there is 1 picture of what looks like a deck of playing cards with flowers on them - I don't know where that came from. But also in "iPhoto Library" under the heading "desktop", it shows a size of over 27GB and under "kind" it says "package". Still under desktop and "Photo Booth Library" it shows 53GB and under "kind" it says "Photo Booth Library". Before I opened iPhoto to view my photo's, I went to "empty trash" yesterday (not in iPhoto) and it showed over 65,000 items to delete. There were no more than 200 that I could actually see. So, I don't understand. I let it delete a couple of thousand before I stopped it because I didn't know what it was doing. I know - not too smart. I don't know if that has anything to do with iPhoto or not; I'm just throwing that out there. Today I went to "empty trash" and it now shows the 200 items that I can see in there. Don't know what happened.
I do have a time capsule but not sure if I’m using it correctly. If you were to tell me to restore to a certain point, I’d have to be walked thru the process.
I downloaded “iPhoto Library Manager”, not exactly sure how to use it, but got a message basically saying the library nor the database could be loaded and that album data file for the library “iPhoto Library” could not be read.
I’ve spent hours and hours and hours searching the web for answers but I’m scared to do much of anything thinking I could end up losing all my photos if I haven’t already.
Please help!
Thank you!
James

Apply the two fixes below in order as needed:
Fix #1
Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
Since only one option can be run at a time start
with Option #4 and then #1 as needed.
Fix #2
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 - download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
2 - click on the Add Library button, navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
3 - 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.
4 - In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
5 - 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. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost. The original library will be left untouched for further attempts at fixing the problem or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.
OT

[Photo] Files disappear/missing

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