As anyone reading my blog knows, many consider me some sort of computing god that can miraculously fix anything that looks, smells, or in any other way resembles a computer. Some even feel that computers fear me, as my mere presense makes them work correctly. “Matt, why does it do….. now that’s funny, it’s working now. I swear it didn’t work yesterday when I did that!”
In reality, I’m nothing close to divine. What I am, beyond being gifted with computers, is highly pragmatic. I’m extremely good at solving problems. So today, I’ll walk you through a problem I just solved and teach you (and others) how to solve similar problems for yourselves.
Two days ago I had a buddy and business associate here at my home. I was demonstratrating some techniques for managing digital media workflow, particularly relating to video and DVD production. As part of this, I was showing off some cool stuff in iPhoto ’05 which I just upgraded to a couple weeks ago. However, I discovered that every time I clicked the “print” button, iPhoto crashed. This does not reflect well on Mr. Computer Wizard.
A quick google didn’t turn anything up, so I resolved to address the problem another day. Today was that day so I did a more extensive Google search which still didn’t turn up anything. There are millions of people using iPhoto, and many thousands that have upgraded to iPhoto ’05. Nobody else has reported this issue so that tells me that this problem is unique to my system. Oddly, everything else in iPhoto works perfectly. It occurred to me that I do have two export plugins installed (BetterHTMLExport & iPhoto2Gallery) so I removed both and still had the same problem.
One of the things I know and love about Mac OS X is that when an app crashes, it writes a crash log, like any good Operating System should. So, I checked out the contents of ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/iPhoto.crash.log. That file has all sorts of useful stuff in it for programmers, but it didn’t really indicate what the problem might be.
The next thing to check was the logs to see if they provided any clues. I perused through /var/log/system.log and found that iPhoto is a good app and does log errors to syslog but it didn’t log anything that would help me resolve this problem.
I finally turned to a last resort. I ran iPhoto from terminal (/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto) which runs iPhoto and spits any debug output to the terminal window. Not all applications are good enough to actually spit out useful error messages so this was really just a wing and a prayer but it turned out to be the clue that solved my problem. I tried clicking “print” in iPhoto and these were the last lines in my terminal windows as iPhoto crashed:
2005-04-08 11:08:26.042 iPhoto[4631] loaded /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/PlugIns/KeywordAssistant.bundle
Bus error
Oh yeah, I had that plug-in installed as well. Doh! I deinstalled it, and voila, my problem was solved. I checked out the developers site and sure enough, a new iPhoto 5 compatible version was available.
In summary, my problem with iPhoto was self-inflicted. I had installed a plug-in, forgotten about it, and then caused myself a problem when I upgraded to iLife ’05. Learn from my error. If you don’t have the skills or bravery to troubleshoot a problem like this, don’t install third party plug-ins. If you neglect this advise, don’t blame your primary vendor when something breaks, it’s most likely your own fault and you should be using techniques I have just demonstrated to determine exactly what the problem is.
ok..here is another problem..every time I try to open iphoto 5 it crashes and wants me to send this report to apple (what do I do?):
Can you help? What do I do???
thanks dan
Date/Time: 2005-06-28 21:40:54 -0700
OS Version: 10.3.9 (Build 7W98)
Report Version: 2
Command: iPhoto
Path: /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
Version: 5.0.2 (5.0.2)
PID: 1093
Thread: 0
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x23effffd
I googled iPhoto Crash and your site came up.
We have also upgraded with iLife, and we can’t get iPhoto to work. Crashes shortly after an attempted start up.
Here’s the crash report. Any thoughts? Also, we have an iMac with just 256 of memory. Could that be the problem?
Date/Time: 2005-07-07 08:30:57 -0700
OS Version: 10.3.9 (Build 7W98)
Report Version: 2
Command: iPhoto
Path: /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
Version: 5.0.2 (5.0.2)
PID: 796
Thread: 0
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000000
Hi Matt & Jen. I just got an iMac G5 and was excited to use iPhoto. I have found a problem that I have been unable to fix after trying various things. The problem is that when I rotate a picture, that picture does not stay rotated when I see it in a slideshow, email it, etc… When I go back to see the album in an edit mode, the thumbprint version of the rotated picture looks correct (upside up), but the picture in the main body shows incorrect (sideways or upside down!). The rotation does not stick and does not transfer to slideshows and other iPhoto applications. Any advice? Thanks tons for at least reading my desperate cry for help!
I tried using terminal to launch iPhoto. iPhoto crashes immediately you try to run it. A couple of other programmes behave the same. I personally don’t believe this is related to bad memory, I have been using same for about two years and no problems. Seems to started with upgrade of system to 10.4.2.
I lost access to my main login, but fortunately had created another with system administrator access and copied relevant to new account – but I have also done a re-install of iPhoto to try an cure problem to no avail.
Terminal reports the following:
Last login: Mon Nov 28 21:01:10 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
Bernie:~ justincase$ /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
2005-11-28 21:29:32.725 iPhoto[441] *** -[NSTextField setAllowsMultipleSelection:]: selector not recognized [self = 0x6c2000]
Bus error
Bernie:~ justincase$
I’m at a loss at the moment as to what may be causing it – any other possible cures?
Thanks in anticipation with baited breath!
For what it’s worth, very similar problem here. Backing up my photo library to DVDs: The first 2 DVDs worth of pictures burned to DVD as expected. The third, and last batch caused a crash very shortly after initiating the final burn command. Terminal reported the following, very similar to Bernie’s report:
Last login: Sat Jan 7 14:43:18 on console
Welcome to Darwin!
[My-Computer:~] stevedem% /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
2006-01-07 15:00:37.647 iPhoto[344] *** -[NSTextField setAllowsMultipleSelection:]: selector not recognized [self = 0x61b820]
Bus error
My problem with iPhoto 5 is that it is *extremely* slow, ruining under 10.3.9 on a dual 1.3 mHz G4 (upgraded sawtooth) with 1.6 GB of Ram. Also has made more and more of a mess of rolls with every attempt to rebuild. I do like iPhoto’s simple and intuitive jpeg processing tools but hate the mess it’s made of my photos. Is there any way to repair the cataloging hierachies?
I am getting a crash of iphoto when I scroll past a certian segment of pictures in my library. I wonder if there is any way to get Iphoto to rebuild its photo database? Or reinitiate the program somehow?
Thanks for any advise you can send me.
Ralph
Hi – thanks for the help. I must have installed some plugs a billion years ago. I opened package contents and saw iPhotoLighting and Removeblemish filter. I don’t even know where those are in iPhoto now, let alone the uninstaller. What do you think? Can I just delete them, reinstall, ???
Had some 1100 photos in my Library and was working my way through them enhancing, titling and commenting.Everything was working fine (excepting a few quits when coming back out of “enlarging” feature for which I replied to the “report” feature) on Dec 26th. When I went back into iPhoto on 27th I had no photos at all. In reading various tech noted I may have caused the problem by dragging an e-mailed jpeg straight into iPhoto. Whatever the cause all I wish to do is recover all the photos that were “modified” with titles, comments, etc.
Recovery procedures much appreciated!
My Imac was having system death problems so i backed up my files and installed from my original disk. I went to software update and installed the new sys 4.1 items. Then i tried the original iphoto software which I use every day. Didn’t open. I took out he original system installer and installed all the applications and went to the updater and installed all the updates. Restarted after each installations but Iphoto still will not open Any ideas please….