Slideshows crash iPhoto

Question

Hello,
FYI, I'm using iPhoto 5.0.4 (263) and OSX 10.4.3.
Somehow part of my iPhoto database has gotten corrupted. What I mean by this is that I can still use all of my albums and my pictures are still there, but a few of the slideshows crash iPhoto. If I select one in the source selection list (left pane), I get the pinwheel [of death] for less than half a second and then an abrupt iPhoto death. I don't think any of the photos that were in the slideshow still exist in the library, which is why I'm trying to delete the slideshows.
I know that 99.999% of the people really SHOULD NOT do this, but just for fun, I backed up a copy of my iPhoto library, opened ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/AlbumData.xml in Property List Editor.app (which really needs to be threaded better IMHO -- expanding a list of 5000+ items takes forever and has no progress bar), and removed the Albums under "List of Albums" which had an "Album Type" of "Slideshow". Opening iPhoto back up, the slideshows were still there and I still had the same problem. So I restored the original iPhoto Library (including the AlbumData.xml file).
Any recommendations on how to remove these corrupt Slideshows (which are really only taking up screen real-estate, if anything)?
Thanks!
- todd

Answer 1

Hi toadgee
I am not sure if this will help but it wouldn't hurt. Try a rebuild of the library.
Try this:
Before doing a rebuild make sure iPhoto's trash bin is emptied. You can do this by control clicking on the trash bin, or from the menu bar under iPhoto.
Close iPhoto
Duplicate the iPhoto Library folder
Drag the duplicate to the desktop (hopefully you have enough room on your hard drive for the duplicate.)
Launch iPhoto holding down the Command and Option keys until you see the rebuild options screen.
Choose the first three options. If you were missing photos in your library, also choose the last option. Be advised that you will get a roll of orphaned photos and it might be quite huge. Most of them will already be in your iPhoto library, but use caution when deleting anything from this roll until you are sure the photos are still in your library in another place. It might be a good idea to share/export this roll of photos just in case you need to import them again.
Back to the rebuild, depending on the size of your library it might take some time. When it is done, hopefully your photos will be there.
You might see some unexpected results as I did when I did a rebuild. Photos had been moved to wrong dates, video clips had lost their duration info and some were even orphaned from the jpg pointer file. It took me some time to straighten it out again.
This is the reason to make a duplicate before you rebuild, in case you do not like the result. If you don't like the result, close iPhoto, then delete the rebuilt library and drag the duplicate back into the Pictures folder making sure the name is iPhoto Library. Launch iPhoto and it should open the library in the Pictures folder.
iPhoto 4 or later: Rebuilding the iPhoto Library
let me know how it turns out.
Lori