On some systems, when attempting to use iPhoto Library Manager to copy albums or merge libraries together, iPhoto Library Manager may appear to go through the motions of importing, creating albums, etc., but the photos themselves don't actually appear in iPhoto. This behavior is often caused by a problem that happens on some systems where iPhoto's import Applescript command stops working correctly. This command is what iPhoto Library Manager uses to copy photos between libraries and when it fails, this is the result. This problem also affects other apps such as Safari and Mail which use the same command to implement features to import pictures into iPhoto.

To test and see whether this is in fact the source of the problem, go into the Applescript folder in your Applications folder and open the Script Editor application. Once it opens, copy and paste the following script into the editor window:

tell application "iPhoto"
    activate
    import from (choose file)
end tell

Run the script, and it should put up an open dialog that you can use to choose an image file (any image file will do, as long as it's somewhere outside your iPhoto library folder). If the photo you choose does not appear in the iPhoto library, then the problem is due to this Applescript bug.

This bug is caused by a problem with Apple's iLife installer when installing a newer version of iPhoto over an existing older version of iPhoto. If you just want to fix it, the fix is to delete your copy of iPhoto and reinstall a fresh copy from your iLife install disc. If you want the nitty gritty details, read on.

The problem occurs when a newer version of iPhoto is installed over a previous install of iPhoto 2. In iPhoto 2, the files that define the Applescripting dictionary for iPhoto (iPhoto.scriptSuite and iPhoto.scriptTerminology) were stored in Contents/Resources/English.lproj within the iPhoto application bundle. However, starting with iPhoto 4, they changed the location of those files so that they now reside in Contents/Resources. However, when you run the installer and install iPhoto 4/5/6 over a previous copy of iPhoto 2, the installer does not delete the previous version of those files, the result being that there are two copies of the scripting terminology present inside the application. iPhoto then goes and loads both of those suites, which end up interfering with each other, in different ways depending on what version of iPhoto you have. To fix the issue, you need to delete the whole app package before reinstalling, to make sure there are no stray files left over afterwards.