Apple Aperture library import to Lightroom Classic: Failed to import Photos

[Chaumurky]

I have just obtained a subscription to Adobe Lightroom Classic and I tried importing all of my photos from my Apple Aperture Library in an external hard drive to Lightroom Classic by following the steps outlined on this Adobe help page.

The import took a long time (60+ hours) but was successful in importing 21,373 photos. I did not encounter any glitches. Unfortunately upon completion of the import, I received a notification letting me know that some photos were not imported. I exported the list of not imported photos into a text file and it is huge. There were so many photos that failed to import.

The failed to import text message follows the following format:

Failed to import /Volumes/ExternalDrive/Aperture Library.aplibrary/Masters/2011/01/23/20110123-171647/GreenGarden_5:1:03.JPG. (Possible reasons include asset offline or unsupported asset type.)

Copied /Volumes/ExternalDrive/Aperture Library.aplibrary/Masters/2011/01/23/20110123-171647/GreenGarden_5:1:03.JPG to /Users/username/Pictures/LightroomMasters/NotImported/GreenGarden_5:1:03.JPG

The possible reasons given: "asset offline" or "unsupported asset type" do not make sense to me. I am assuming a .JPG format is fine and indeed I checked in Lightroom plenty of .JPG files were imported without any issues As far as I can tell the asset is not offline. I did a parallel test and import the Aperture Library to Apple Photos, the missing assets were imported without any problems.

I am confused on this issue and what I can do to find a solution. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I am currently using: macOS Catalina version 10.15.3 and Adobe Lightroom Classic 9.1 release, Build [201911291132-64cf90b4]

[gostats]

Hi chaumurky, I just did the same thing - importing Aperture into Lightroom Classic on OSX 10.15 and also got the "Failed to Import" file. I wonder if you found more information about the reason.

After a bit of looking around, it seems that at least some of the failed photos are those imported to Aperture but kept in place outside the Aperture library (not copied when importing). I suppose the thing to do is to import of the failed photos from where they are. It is a big file of failed imports locations but after sorting the lines it resolves to a much smaller number of  directories where I kept the photos imported to Aperture "in place."

Let me know if you found something different.

[Chaumurky]

Hi @gostats ,

Thank you for your reply. My apologies for my late response. Unfortunately I have kind of given up on Adobe. I am not a fan of subscription models but I was ready to "force" myself into useing Lightroom. However, when I encountered the headaches during importing and when I didn't really get any help or support from Adobe, I decided to find alternative solutions to Adobe. that met my 2 main criteria: (1) high quality and professional software, and (2) not subscription based.

I am a big fan of Affinity Design instead of Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Photo instead of Adobe Photoshop, and Affinity Publisher instead of Adobe InDesign. They create top notch software at an affordable price. I talked to them and they seem to be planning a Lightroom alternative for Mac users coming from Aperture. I can't wait. Now I am being patient. 🙂

[lolapal0oza]

I've had the exact same issue recently when I moved all my Aperture photos to Lightroom, but my main problem is that I don't know where that list that was generated has saved to, or what it's name is. I know for a fact that many photos did not make it from Aperture to Lr, but without that list, I can't verify which ones those are.

Do you know the file name of that list, or where it exports to from that dialogue box? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[Chaumurky]

Hello @lolapal0oza ,

It's been a while and I have kind of forgotten, but if I am not mistaken after the import process completes, a notification pops up telling you that some photos were not important. At this point, if I am not mistaken there is an option or button that allows you to export a list of not-imported photos. Maybe @gostats gostats can help confirm.

Sorry I could not help you further. Since I was not able to find an adequate solution or support from Adobe, I am planning to use other software and I have stopped my Adobe subscription.

Good luck with Adobe!

[lolapal0oza]

Good Day,

Thank-you for your reply! I am happy to announce that I was able to find the file with the list of photos that were not imported! The default file name is: LibraryImport.txt

Next, I need to figure out how to move these files over from Aperture into Lightroom. I was in contact with a support person from Adobe, but they proved rather useless; I had to explain to them that there is a plug-in directly in Lr to do an Aperture > Lightroom import. Their advice was to delete all the previously imported photos, change permissions in my computer, and then re-import. Considering how long it took to import in the first place, this is something that I am not going to do. So, I must figure out why the list of photos didn't import in the first place, and try to move them over brute force. 
Wish me luck!

[Chaumurky]

Thanks for your reply @lolapal0oza - I agree Adobe Support was not helpful...

Indeed good luck with your endeavor! If you succeed and figure out why some photos are not imported, please do let us know. 🙂

[gostats]

@lolapal0ozaGlad you found the list of not imported. I sorted the list and found that the files resolve to a small number of directories (2 or 3). There are many applications to do this. I used an emacs text editor as I often work with unix environmens. I then imported those directories directly in a few steps.  But you probably figured that out by now.

I still need to go to my backups and figure out what if anything is still missing. There is also an issue of duplicates that I need to check.