iPhoto crash

I store my photos in iPhoto in RAW format (Panasonic LumixFZ200 Camera) with all going well except sometimes when I try to crop the image during editing. My iMac (intel core 2 duo) running Maverick intermittently jams up and the only way I can get out is to switch off the machine at the wall. I have tried pretty well all of the ways of Forcing Quit but nothing happens. This doesn't happen otherwise. Any suggestions? I am not happy with the Off switch approach. There seems to be a bug.

You didn't say how much memory you have. Most slowdowns are caused by lack of free memory. Editing graphics is a very memory intensive activity. Turning off at the wall is not helping either, as it can leave large swap files that take up HD space. So you end up with low memory and low space, which then slows the machine down more.

I'd recommend you consider taking your iMac to as much memory as it can handle.

Thanks for that . I think I can squeeze in some more and will attend to it. One other thing you mention is "leaving large swap files that take up HD space." Should I take steps to clear these and if so how do I do it?

Search for a product called Onyx and get the proper version for your version of OSX. It will clean up caches and other debris from your power off shut downs for you quite nicely. You may have to provide your password and give it permission to install, but if you get it from the developer site, you'll be very safe in allowing it to install.

Thank you for that.

Totally endorse what MacInWin advises re OnyX. When downloaded and installed and after the optional SMART status checks, Click on the Automation Tab, check all the boxes and let it do the work—can take some time. Must let it finish; don't abort. A restart will be needed.

As for "switching off at the wall", I recall a senior member of this forum writing that the one and only time you should do this is if the Mac catches fire.

If Force Quit can't do the job and you absolutely have to shut down, push in & hold Power On button. I had better add that I am talking about an iMac. You don't say what Mac you have and I don't own a laptop; but I would assume that the same thing applies.

Ian

Thank you too for that. Actually I do shut off in this case by holding down the power button - and it is an iMac mid 2007 model.
cheers!

It turns out my hard disc was on its last legs - just managed to do a final back-up and have it replaced. Any way of getting some warning of impending disc failure?

You had the only one clue I know...slowdowns. If your machine suddenly slows and you haven't added or changed anything, its time to think about changing the HD. What happens is that as the drive starts to fail, SOMETIMES, only sometimes, it warns you because as it tries to read/write, it tries and fails, then tries again. IF it takes more than one try to read, those tries slow down response times. As long as it eventually succeeds, you don't get any error messages. But if it cannot complete successfully, you get an error message or a total hangup but by then its too late, your data is not usually recoverable. So count yourself lucky.

I STILL have problems with iPhoto jamming up while cropping images during editing RAW photos taken with my Panasonic Lumix FZ200, with the only escape being to hold down the on/off button on my iMac. I have a new 1TB harddrive and Orxy says it is all in order. I have my iPhoto library stored on an external hard drive and 900GB of my iMac hard drive available and I am operating Mavericks with all up to date. I strongly suspect a Software glitch in iPhoto. Any suggestions?

Did you add memory? Also, an external drive will always be slower than an internal one, and that slowness will depend on the interface. USB2 will be dead slow, USB3 and Firewire are better and Thunderbolt is best. iPhoto may be using scratch space (temporary space for holding data) on the external drive as that is where the image starts out before cropping, so that interface will be a multiple bottleneck (read the file, write the file, read and write the scratch data, etc). Adding memory will reduce the I/O on the external drive.

I did add memory to total of 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM - maybe not as much as available in a new iMac but more than I had before. I recall that I might be able to get to max of 6 GB if I replaced both cards, but that is the absolute maximum for this model (1977 Intel Core 2 Duo) The general speed of the link to the external hard drive is not normally too much of a problem (USB 3)and the cropping function isn't always a problem - mostly it isn't - but the jamming up occurs often enough to be a bit of a nuisance

Well, all I can think of is that that machine is pretty old and you may need to move to a newer machine that can take more memory and has a faster processor to be more reliable in handling those images. It may be time to move on.

Ouch! For now I will stick with switching off and on again! Thank you for your input.

Here's the problem: you are working with enormously huge photo files with not enough RAM and, most likely, a graphics card that can't cut the mustard on files that large.

To test this, set up a completely fresh, empty, new iPhoto library (hold down option on launch to get this feature) and once that's set up add in a few JPG files (no RAW files!) to it and do some manipulation on it. See if you have the same problem. I'll bet you don't.

!4.9 MB RAW image files - not particularly big by RAW image standards. I am inclined to agree with you though- althought the problem is intermittent. I suspect the system jams up if I crop the image and then re-crop before the processing has taken place, which probably indicates overloaded RAM. I was contemplating another camera with 18MP files instead of the present 12MP, but it seems likely that that would compound my processing problems without upgrading my iMac. More expense............... - at least I am aware of the likely problem now.