12-06-2009, 10:21 PM

I recently double-clicked on several of the photos in one of my iPhoto '09 albums. Instead of the photo expanding, I got a large "exclamation point" inside of a white circle.

I attempted to open the photos in Photoshop Elements 8, but got the error message that the file was either incomplete or corrupted.

I know for a fact that several of these affected photos expanded normally when I opened them in the past. So I assume that the problem was not in the camera.

Can anyone offer me any guidance? Thank you.

12-07-2009, 04:09 PM

I read about this earlier this year. Google came up with this as part of a forum thread.
Hope this helps.


As per everyone else I too had the misfortune of loosing photographs. Although I backup my computer, the last two backups I made backed up the problem so a re-install did not resolve the issue. In my case I lost all photo's uploaded in 2009. I tried all the usual things suggested, even took it to the genius bar, no luck. Have you checked the ORIGINALS folder. This folder can be accessed through USERS/PICTURES and CTRL clicking on the IPhoto folder. You will see a menu appear, choose SHOW PACKET CONTENTS and the contents will be shown. If you are lucky, the photos will be in their respective folders. In my case the ORIGINALS folder had been corrupted so in desperation I purchased Data Recovery II. What a wonderful tool, I recovered about 95-98% of the lost photos. I'm sure I would have recovered more had I been made aware NOT to load new applications, add, delete files or run disk utility software!. In any case it saved the day. Would highly recommend it, but be warning it can be a slow process depending on the number of photographs have been deleted. Hope that helps

Help! I lost all my pictures in iPhoto!

12-07-2009, 04:15 PM

Lycoming,

Thank you for the response. Fortunately, I solved the problem this morning. Apparently he file path for several photos was corrupt. I downloaded iPhoto Library Manager & rebuilt the library. Everything now seems fine.

Thanks again.

12-07-2009, 06:37 PM

Originally Posted by kitjv

Lycoming,

Thank you for the response. Fortunately, I solved the problem this morning. Apparently he file path for several photos was corrupt. I downloaded iPhoto Library Manager & rebuilt the library. Everything now seems fine.

Thanks again.

Nice find kitjv Have been looking for a solution for months to combat my iPhoto ?'s

Have posted a tread ages ago with no joy.

Many Thanks

12-07-2009, 09:35 PM

tattoedmac,

My pleasure. Go to fatcatsoftware.com & download the freeware version. In addition to a seamless way to rebuild your iPhoto library, it also has some other nice features. If you have any questions on how to rebuild your library, let me know. I'll be happy to answer whatever I can.