Pictures all turned Gray and Black

Question

I was working in iPhoto V 7.1.5(378) on a MacBook 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM Memory running 10.5.6. When all of a sudden my screen went gray. I looked at my events and they are all black. I still have dates listed under my events and my computer says I still have about 1900 pictures, in the gray bar below where my pictures should be, but I sure can’t see them. I have turned the computer on and off, Zapped the Pram and, read about starting holding down the Apple + "alt" key and opening iPhoto. No good so far. I just clicked on a picture when it all went gray. If I try to highlight a picture I do get a yellow square around either the grey in "Photos" or the black of "events". Any help would be greatly appreciated.
RHWood

Answer 1

Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and point it at the Library in your Pictures Folder.
If iPhoto sees a valid library there it will open it. If not then your database is damaged.
Try these in order - from best option on down...
1. Do you have an up-to-date back up? If so, try copy the library6.iphoto file from the back up to the iPhoto Library (Right Click -> Show Package Contents) allowing it to overwrite the damaged file.
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 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.
3. If neither of these work then you'll need to create and populate a new library.
To create and populate a new *iPhoto 08* library:
Note this will give you a working library with the same Events and pictures as before, however, you will lose your albums, keywords, modified versions, books, calendars etc.
In the iPhoto Preferences -> Events Uncheck the box at 'Imported Items from the Finder'
Move the iPhoto Library to the desktop
Launch iPhoto. It will ask if you wish to create a new Library. Say Yes.
Go into the iPhoto Library (Right Click -> Show Package Contents) on your desktop and find the Originals folder. From the Originals folder drag the individual Event Folders to the iPhoto Window and it will recreate them in the new library.
When you're sure all is well you can delete the iPhoto Library on your desktop.
In the future, in addition to your usual back up routine, you might like to make a copy of the library6.iPhoto file whenever you have made changes to the library as protection against database corruption.
Regards
TD