Aperture broken by Catalina 10.15.7 (19H1030) update

[waldemarhorwat]

The most recent macOS Catalina update seems to have broken Aperture's rendering of JPEG images. Old previews still appear for a split second but are replaced with gray or garbled images as Aperture re-renders the images.

[oakhampton]

Broken for me too: updated this morning and now Aperture is now showing the same symptom. Viewing the Browser is OK, but on attempting to use 'Split View' or 'Viewer' the image appears for a very short time before disappearing leaving just the metadata. Switching off metadata (Y) shows the image again for a very short time again before it disappears, as does pressing 'M' which should show the original unedited image.

Images which have not been edited disappear to black, images which have been edited disappear to blue.

I do hope you can fix it Tyshawn.

[oakhampton]

Further to the above: Aperture can still export the Library - or parts of it like folders or projects etc as a new Library - and this can be opened in Mac Photos, from which images can be exported.

[angrenez]

The same issue for me :-(

[walterdavis]

I’m guessing this is related to the breakage of CoreImage as noted here: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2021/04/30/catalina-security-update-2021-002-breaks-opencl/

[jb59]

..and the same issue for me (iMac Catalina) - FWIW iPhoto working fine!

[AlainAvon]

That's the same issue for me ! Hope you can solve this big problem soon ...

[drbajm]

Same issue here, MacOS 10.15.7… such a pity since Retroactive - Apple Aperture worded so well along ! Hopefully, a solution will be provided. Best regards from France JMB

[drbajm]

An afterthought… wouldn't an upgrade from MacOS 10.15.7 Catalina toward MacOS Big Sure 11.31 solve the issue ? Your thoughts… Best regards JMB

[walterdavis]

I haven't tried that yet, but why do you suppose that would work? Were there changes to CoreImage in Big Sur that would make the bug go away again?

[drbajm]

To put it simply, in desesperation, I tried it of course without any success as you already guessed ! 140.000 photos to transfer towards Lightroom… only 120.000 until the end. I already miss some cataloguing features found in the old Apple Aperture :-( Best regards

[walterdavis]

It may not be a popular opinion, but Aperture's retouching tools were one of my most favorite things. I know Photoshop really well, I've used it since version 2 or so, but I am so productive in Aperture, and especially for studio shots, when I want to get rid of the same clump of sensor dust on 30 images, nothing even comes close. I wish that Apple had kept their eye on the Pro ball, photo wise.

[drbajm]

UPDATE — Even if the first trials using Big Sur — MacOS 11.3.1 — didn't seem conclusive at first, I was able to restore most of the files preview (delete and reconstruction). A big improvement with an apparent positive side effect (to be confirmed) : Adobe Photoshop seems no longer to be crashing ! Summary : when using my Pro computers, OS upgrades are regularly delayed until most of the applications are upgraded and the MacOS more mature. In this case it is a definite improvement but, in spite of this, I will keep switching all my image files to Adobe Lightroom. Best regards from France JM

[AlainAvon]

I don't know if this will help. I have 3 iMacs (two at home and one at work). All three have 10.15.7 installed. Only one has this problem with Aperture. Maybe it could be interesting to know if the problem came really with 10.15.7 ??

[drbajm]

Bonsoir Using Aperture after upgrading from Catalina 10.15.7 toward Big Sur 11.3.1… all problems are gone ! Aperture -Retroactive seems to be fully functional even if I didn't test all features. All in all, it worked for me even if I maintained my decision to switch entirely to Lightroom: my RAW development workflow used Lightroom since several years and I found only Aperture vastly superior as a cataloging system. Best regards from France JM

[gibletizer]

I have the same issue, and it started very recently, probably with the 10.15.7 security update, which I installed on 5/4, not the update, which I installed on 12/8/20 or the supplemental update installed on 4/2. So I suspect it's the OpenCL issue walterdavis cites above. The page he links to lists several other issues with this update, but I don't know if Apple, in fixing those, will fix this. Until then, that page says "the quick fix is to tell Core Image not use the software renderer." How is that done? I know nothing about this stuff.

FYI, a comment from 5/5 on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67318465/rendering-ciimage-results-in-a-blank-image-on-macos-10-15-7-19h1030 says the OpenCL break is "fixed in macOS Catalina Security Update Developer Beta 2021-003." But this discussion lists other issues with this beta update: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-10-15-catalina-on-unsupported-macs.2183772/page-563. I could upgrade to Big Sur but I'm afraid that would pushing it on my late 2013 MBP.

[walterdavis]

The link was to a developer's blog, and the kind of change (from software to hardware rendering) is something a developer can do within their application, but not something you can adjust outside of the internals of the application. If Cormiertyshawn can fiddle that along with the thousands of other things they already fiddle, then sure, this may be relevant.

Walter

On May 12, 2021, at 12:37 PM, gibletizer @.***> wrote:

I have the same issue, and it started very recently, probably with the 10.15.7 security update, which I installed on 5/4, not the update, which I installed on 12/8/20 or the supplemental update installed on 4/2. So I suspect it's the OpenCL issue walterdavis cites above. The page he links to lists several other issues with this update, but I don't know if Apple, in fixing those, will fix this. Until then, that page says "the quick fix is to tell Core Image not use the software renderer." How is that done? Does he actually mean OpenGL? I know nothing about this stuff.

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[serprinss]

is it working on 19H1030?

[walterdavis]

Yes and no. It's broken in a new way for me here on 19H1030. Instead of the large image appearing and then being replaced with "Image Format Not Supported" and a big yellow danger sign, I get a brief flash of the full-size image followed by nothing. If I resize the window, the large image appears briefly, then disappears again. Also, unlike the previous issue, the thumbnail is not affected by this. Previously, once the large image was marked "not supported", the thumbnail would also get a gray danger triangle and no longer show the image. I'm about to try upgrading to Big Sur. In case it matters at all, I'm on a 2013-series Mac Pro, which is entirely built around hardware for OpenCL. It's pretty much the poster child for that software ethos.

[walterdavis]

I decided to bite the bullet (just delivered a big project, and I don't have any deadlines ATM) and upgrade to Big Sur. I can report that after unlocking Aperture again after the upgrade, everything appears to be working w/r/t this issue. I am very relieved that I can keep on using my favorite toolchain with my pro cameras (Leaf and Nikon). Thanks to all who suggested this path, it does work.

[AlainAvon]

@walterdavis I hope upgrading to Big Sure will not be the only way. I can't do that with 3 of my Mac (too old to get the upgrade) ....

[serprinss]

The link was to a developer's blog, and the kind of change (from software to hardware rendering) is something a developer can do within their application, but not something you can adjust outside of the internals of the application. If Cormiertyshawn can fiddle that along with the thousands of other things they already fiddle, then sure, this may be relevant. Walter …

could this be done with a program that sits between coreimage and aperture?

[AGILBERT01]

The same issue happened to me after I updated to the recent security update. The only way I could resolve the issue was to re install Catalina OS and NOT update the latest security patch. Hopefully someone can come up with an update??

[WingsTanar]

Same issue. However, tried walterdavis solution and did a full clean install of Big Sur from scratch. Downloaded Aperture from the store. Ran v1.9 of Retroactive. No other software loaded. Opened Aperture and although it appeared to work, when I open a folder with several hundred images in thumbnail view and then scroll down the display, it appears that only the first 100 or so are displayed - the next "block" is blank. After a moment, the blank block gets populated with thumbnails - but then on scrolling back up the screen, the first block is now blank and does NOT get populated. Further scrolling up and down makes no difference, only some of the blocks are displayed and no more blank blocks get populated. The tally at the bottom of the thumbnail display reads the correct number of files loaded - so it's not a file access problem, just a display problem.

Second issue, despite my seeing somewhere that the latest version of Retroactive allows import from an external drive and allows full access to referenced files - I cannot get files on an external drive to appear available for import (and thus I cannot import, obviously).

I have seen several comments on line claiming that Aperture unboxed works fine under Big Sur, and several that it does not. Which is it ? The implication is that there is an underlying hardware issue - different machines responding differently. walterdavis states he is on a 2013 Mac Pro - I am trying to work with a MacBook Pro 16 2019. Different graphics cards ? Or am I doing something wrong ?

[walterdavis]

Since updating to Big Sur, and re-unboxing my existing copy of Aperture, I have seen the issue with the images taking a while to load in their thumbnails, but it usually works out if I'm patient. For someone who was once so stoked with the utterly fluid display of tens of thousands of images in Aperture, it is a real let-down. At least the images no longer say "unsupported image format" any more, so I take my wins where I can. I am using a 2003-era "trash can" Pro, with two AMD FirePro D300 2GB cards in it. Those are the low-power "standard" cards for this era Mac. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of image they are. Some of the folders where I have seen it are full of JPG scans of my black-and-white film work. Others are raw Nikon D3 images. And I've also had some weird issues with my Leaf back images: sometimes they will display after import, other times they will not. When they don't, I am back to the "unsupported image format" error.

[drbajm]

Since I was the one that suggested and tried using Aperture with Big Sur , I already gave an early feedback (see earlier posts). All things measured after a much more intensive use, Aperture is quite usable BUT the blank image is also noted — one click on the "unpopulated area" corrects the problem — and Aperture isn't anymore the rock steady app I knew. Most important, the more than hundred thousand pictures can be exported either as originals or exported files (after applying the metadata since they are precious). I own two Macs : an iMac Pro (Intel Xeon W 10 cœurs 3 GHz, 64 Go RAM, Radeon Pro Vega 64) as well as a high-end Macbook Pro 16", using the latest MacOS and Retroactive app versions… same problems on the two platforms. As already stated, I decided to definitively switch to Lightroom… a massive amount of work — I knew why a postponed the process ! — but IMO it is worth the effort and much easier since Aperture is working again :-) Best regards from France

[AlexMorello]

Hey, folks - I see the issue hasn't been resolved. Has Retroactive's developer commented on this yet? Can't instal Big Sur because my Mac isn't supported. Don't want to switch to Lightroom, either - not a fan of subscription-based software much. Also, has anyone reported this to Apple already? https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

[oakhampton]

From the comments above, it seems that Big Sur is definitely not a reliable upgrade to get Aperture working again. Fortunately I had a Carbon Copy Cloner hard drive with a Mojave clone: CCCloner reported that the Catalina upgrade changed too much to go back, so I saved the last Mojave clone to a separate drive. Since the Catalina update I've been using that as a start up disc in order to use Aperture, though it isn't a true solution. I tried Lightroom once; never again! I actually have a copy of Lightroom 6; it is reported that it will run on Catakina, but the installer program is only 32 bit and so Lightroom can't be installed onto Catalina - but it works if it was already installed on Mojave!!

[AlexMorello]

From the comments above, it seems that Big Sur is definitely not a reliable upgrade to get Aperture working again. Fortunately I had a Carbon Copy Cloner hard drive with a Mojave clone: CCCloner reported that the Catalina upgrade changed too much to go back, so I saved the last Mojave clone to a separate drive. Since the Catalina update I've been using that as a start up disc in order to use Aperture, though it isn't a true solution. I tried Lightroom once; never again! I actually have a copy of Lightroom 6; it is reported that it will run on Catakina, but the installer program is only 32 bit and so Lightroom can't be installed onto Catalina - but it works if it was already installed on Mojave!!

Thought as much. The developer needs to look into this, for sure. Anybody got his email? I've reported the OpenCL bug to Apple, too.

Sadly, I haven't got any backups this time.

[AlexMorello]

Would this do as a workaround?

[WingsTanar]

Good News Update

MacBook Pro 16. Catalina. Aperture using referenced files with data on external drives.

Used Mac OS Recovery to re-install 10.15.7. (Didn't affect data, so the day's worth of backups and archiving yesterday was wasted).

Ran Aperture - same problem except this time I got blank unsupported file images instead of totally corrupted ones. Still couldn't import from external drive. With the external drive disconnected everything seemed to work OK, but as soon as I connected the external drive any thumbnail that Aperture tried to render became corrupt. So, clicking on a thumbnail to display image full screen resulted in the image corrupting.

Deleted existing version of Aperture. Re-loaded Aperture from App Store. Deleted back copies of Retroactive, downloaded V 1.9 and ran it. Connected external drive and - it appears to work as it used to. I can import from an external drive. Previously corrupted images now appear as unsupported file images - and reprocessing those files WORKS.

I have made sure that my system no longer installs updates in the background.

I'll continue to exercise Aperture for the rest of the day (just because it's working now doesn't mean it still will be after lunch) and update this message stream accordingly.

[AlexMorello]

Wait - we need a solution which does not require re-installing macOS. Where has the developer got to?

[WingsTanar]

There's Good News and there's Bad News.

Tried all afternoon and have not broken the system. Fairly confident that all is working as it was a couple of months ago. That's good news for me - BUT - it may be bad news for others as it does mean that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Retroactive. Scroll to the top of these comments and the box there states that the issue has not been assigned yet - it works as advertised - so I do not see anyone wasting effort on fixing something that is not broken. Apple have clearly stated that Aperture is no longer supported - so reporting the issues as a bug to Apple will just be ignored.

My re-installation of Catalina over Catalina was completely trouble free, with no impact on installed apps or data - so for me that was a few hours well spent.

BUT - how did it work ? My original plan was to find a pre 15.10.7 version that I could install - i.e. one that had not had the update applied which has caused this problem. I couldn't find one so I went for the current version as available on the App Store in the vain hope that it would be a version without the faulty update which I would be asked to apply on completion of the system installation. That hasn't happened so I assume Apple does incorporate security patches into the version available on the App Store (logical thing to do) - so the only conclusion I can draw is that "my original Catalina plus latest security patch" is NOT identical to "Apple's patched Catalina on the App Store".

[WingsTanar]

Now more bad news. Having got the system working (see previous post) I applied latest Catalina security patch 19H1217 and that has broken Aperture again. Different this time, though. Go through the import from external drive routine and finally, on clicking "Import", Aperture crashes - every time. Other functions still appear to work - and no corrupted thumbnails - but importing is a vital activity and has to work.

Hopefully this can be fixed in Retroactive. A real shame - what other application is there out there that lets me scroll through 20,500 images in one go - and lets me display images with a selected keyword faster than I can press the enter key ?

[LGL90]

I'm having same issue as well. On MacOS 10.15.7. Any images I imported in since after the OS update show black thumbnails. Some flashed briefly when double clicked to view in full. Ugh! How do we ping or contact the Retroactive developer?

[WingsTanar]

I believe these comments are automatically e-mailed to cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive - the "developer".

[gibletizer]

Tyshawn,

Thank you so much for creating Retroactive and please know that I for one would gladly pay at least $100 for a version that fixes this problem.

On May 27, 2021, at 11:03 AM, WingsTanar @.***> wrote:

I believe these comments are automatically e-mailed to cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive - the "developer".

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive/issues/220#issuecomment-849709915, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ARKS5YNX5N2AMHCCJY4DGHDTPZNNFANCNFSM43UCJWRA.

[michaelherger]

Unfortunately I believe that's the day where I have to say goodbye to Aperture. I knew that day would come, it's been inevitable. @cormiertyshawn895's work was magic, when I first found out. But there's only so much he can do. When Apple kills an API which is used at the core of an application, then he can't fix this. He was able to stub out some less central features like movie import/export. But that meant dropping a feature. Now when it comes to drawing images, that's not a feature you can drop. It's the end.

At least Photos now can handle my collection (in the early days it would chew on it for hours, before failing). But man... is this limited and buggy... My workflow, which I was able to handle all in Aperture before, now requires multiple tools (HoudahGeo, RAW Power, Better Rename). And then Photos fails to export the carefully applied keywords (see eg. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252194855?answerId=255273768022#255273768022). They claim to have fixed it in the latest update from a few days ago. But it clearly is not fixed. Support even suggests exporting to PNG instead of JPG, because the export to PNG doesn't show that failure...

It's a sad day. But it's the day to face what we've always known: Apple stopped development of Aperture. It would break one day. Time to say goodbye.

And thank you very much @cormiertyshawn895 for the additional years with Aperture you gave us!

[AlexMorello]

Unfortunately I believe that's the day where I have to say goodbye to Aperture. I knew that day would come, it's been inevitable. @cormiertyshawn895's work was magic, when I first found out. But there's only so much he can do. When Apple kills an API which is used at the core of an application, then he can't fix this. He was able to stub out some less central features like movie import/export. But that meant dropping a feature. Now when it comes to drawing images, that's not a feature you can drop. It's the end.

At least Photos now can handle my collection (in the early days it would chew on it for hours, before failing). But man... is this limited and buggy... My workflow, which I was able to handle all in Aperture before, now requires multiple tools (HoudahGeo, RAW Power, Better Rename). And then Photos fails to export the carefully applied keywords (see eg. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252194855?answerId=255273768022#255273768022). They claim to have fixed it in the latest update from a few days ago. But it clearly is not fixed. Support even suggests exporting to PNG instead of JPG, because the export to PNG doesn't show that failure...

It's a sad day. But it's the day to face what we've always known: Apple stopped development of Aperture. It would break one day. Time to say goodbye.

And thank you very much @cormiertyshawn895 for the additional years with Aperture you gave us!

Wait - did Apple actually kill something this time? I thought it was a mere bug in the latest security update. Retroactive still works on Big Sur, doesn't it? Anyway, it's high time @cormiertyshawn895 commented on this, at last!

P.S. One could also do a clean Catalina installation to fix this, couldn't they?

[michaelherger]

Wait - did Apple actually kill something this time? I thought it was a mere bug in the latest security update.

Whether they introduced a bug or killed it on purpose doesn't really change much IMHO: they have announced the end of Aperture, and they have announced the end of some features that Aperture seems to be using in its core.

[AlexMorello]

Wait - did Apple actually kill something this time? I thought it was a mere bug in the latest security update.

Whether they introduced a bug or killed it on purpose doesn't really change much IMHO: they have announced the end of Aperture, and they have announced the end of some features that Aperture seems to be using in its core.

Have they? If it is a bug, they will fix it in future updates. Security patches have nothing to do with OpenCL. Also, they haven't announced anything regarding Aperture. It was abandoned back in 2015 or so.

Upd: it appears they did it on purpose:

'Both updates address memory corruption and handling issues with the kernel that could elevate privileges or allow kernel memory disclosure, a Wi-Fi-related memory corruption issue that could allow an app to cause unexpected system termination or write kernel memory, and a Windows Server issue that could leak a user’s credentials from secure text fields.'

[AlexMorello]

@cormiertyshawn895 Please comment on this ASAP - the users may re-instal the OS if it is intentional ☝🏻

[AlexMorello]

Has anyone tried installing the new 2021-003 security update?

[AlexMorello]

Unfortunately I believe that's the day where I have to say goodbye to Aperture. I knew that day would come, it's been inevitable. @cormiertyshawn895's work was magic, when I first found out. But there's only so much he can do. When Apple kills an API which is used at the core of an application, then he can't fix this. He was able to stub out some less central features like movie import/export. But that meant dropping a feature. Now when it comes to drawing images, that's not a feature you can drop. It's the end.

At least Photos now can handle my collection (in the early days it would chew on it for hours, before failing). But man... is this limited and buggy... My workflow, which I was able to handle all in Aperture before, now requires multiple tools (HoudahGeo, RAW Power, Better Rename). And then Photos fails to export the carefully applied keywords (see eg. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252194855?answerId=255273768022#255273768022). They claim to have fixed it in the latest update from a few days ago. But it clearly is not fixed. Support even suggests exporting to PNG instead of JPG, because the export to PNG doesn't show that failure...

It's a sad day. But it's the day to face what we've always known: Apple stopped development of Aperture. It would break one day. Time to say goodbye.

And thank you very much @cormiertyshawn895 for the additional years with Aperture you gave us!

Mate, can't you just re-instal macOS and steer clear of those 'security' updates from now on? I've just confirmed the App Store version doesn't contain them - at least with Catalina.

[WingsTanar]

Tried 2021-003 otherwise known as 19H1217 three days ago. Aperture crashes on trying to import. See my comment 3 days ago in this chain.

Re-installing Catalina from AppStore DOES result in a working solution. i.e. revert to the point before the 19H1030 security update broke Aperture. Having re-installed (using OS Recovery so not affecting existing data or applications) delete all the Aperture installation (not the data file, of course) - re-load Aperture from App Store and re-apply Retroactive 1.9.

[AlexMorello]

Seems the issue is not solely with Apple this time. These here read OpenCL has been fixed in 2021-003:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67318465/rendering-ciimage-results-in-a-blank-image-on-macos-10-15-7-19h1030

https://shapeof.com/archives/2021/4/apple_april_2021_security_update_and_acorn.html

@cormiertyshawn895, please show some respect for the community and comment on this at long last!

[michaelherger]

@AlexMorello please show some respect for people who helped you delay the announced end of your beloved software application. For free.

[AlexMorello]

@cormiertyshawn895 could at least drop a line or two in here

[rologoetz]

I`m still using Aperture frequently on my iMac 27" (late 2013) which is using Catalina 10.15.7 and I noticed the same behavior as others mentioned above after some automatic "safety updates" from Apple :-(

Reading the posts above I just want to be sure : do I really have to completely do a new reinstall with Catalina again (including all other stuff) to get back to the "original" Catalina to get Aperture back again ?

Or is there another way to only reinstall the system without reinstalling all the rest again ?

And I agree to @AlexMorello : any comment by @cormiertyshawn895 would be very nice - at least to see if there is a chance that this issue gets solved or whether this is the real final end for Aperture on my Mac :-(

[WingsTanar]

Yes there is a way of only installing the OS.

I first uninstalled the Aperture app (having ensured that I could reinstall it from my App Store account) and made a backup of the Aperture library, then used Mac Recovery on my MacBook Pro 16 to re-install 10.15.7 from the App Store just as if I were applying an upgrade. None of the installed applications or data were affected. I then reinstalled Aperture and ran a fresh copy of Retroactive set to the Catalina option.

Of course, I might just have been lucky to catch the version of 10.15.7 without the safety update installed or (as I postulated in a previous post in this chain) a clean install of the AppStore version of 10.15.7 is somehow different from the previously installed-then-updated version - but either way I am now running Aperture just as I did several months ago.

I also made a bootable copy of the installation which was a good plan because when the next safety update was issued a week or so ago, I tried applying it to my system only to find that it also broke Aperture (but in a different way). Having the bootable backup made reversion a lot easier.

[rologoetz]

@WingsTanar thx a lot for the details !

I followed your instructions and reinstalled Catalina via recovery partition (restart with cmd-R). Worked fine so far. After rebooting MacOS I immediatelly removed the tick at "automatic updates" in the system settings. Then I deleted the old Aperture app (put into trash). Next step was to get Aperture 3.6 by new which wasn't that easy, because it doesn't appear anymore in my AppStore account despite I've bought it years ago :-( As I couldn't find another source in the net for Aperture 3.6 I finally recalled that I've a copy of it on my old 27" iMac (mid 2010 with 10.13), so I simply dragged this on an USB stick and copied it to my newer iMac. After this I restarted Retroactive to do the patch. Et voilà : after restarting Aperture the pictures show again as they did before. Some previews have been obviously corrupted by the system troubles (they only showed some random noise), but I could create the previews by new by simply marking them, going to context menu + simulantiously pressing the option (alt) button + selecting "create preview".

So everything is fine again - thank you for your input !

Nevertheless system is now reminding me again to the safety update ... so I'd be very happy if someone finds a solution to do this without corrupting Aperture again :-(