iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual, 5th Edition

Appendix A. Troubleshooting

iPhoto isn’t just a Mac OS X program—it’s a Cocoa Mac OS X program, meaning that it was written exclusively for Mac OS X. As a result, it should, in theory, be one of the most rock-solid programs under the sun.

Still, iPhoto does have its vulnerabilities. Many of these shortcomings stem from the fact that iPhoto works under the supervision of a lot of cooks, since it must interact with plug-ins, connect to printers, talk to Web servers, and cope with an array of file corruptions.

If trouble strikes, keep hands and feet inside the tram at all times—and consult the following collection of problems, solutions, questions, and answers.

The Most Important Advice In This Chapter

Apple’s traditional practice is to release a new version of iPhoto (and iMovie, and iDVD…) that’s full of bugs and glitches—and then, just when public outcry reaches fever pitch a couple of weeks later, send out a .0.1 updater that cleans up most of the problems. That’s exactly what happened with iPhoto 6.

The list of bugs in 6.0 included photocasting problems, problems viewing thumbnails in large libraries, freezes when ordering cards, calendars and books, bogus “elements missing” messages when opening older iDVD projects, crashes when emptying the Trash, and more. Spare yourself the headache: update your copy to 6.0.2 (or whatever the latest version is)!

To do that right now, choose iPhoto → Check for Updates.

Importing, Upgrading, and Opening

Getting photos into iPhoto is supposed to ...