What to do with failed initial import?

bigethan · June 8, 2024, 9:14pm

Mac desktop 1.1

I was importing a bunch of photos from a google takeout. It had been working fine, I went to bed, in the morning PhotoStructure had crashed. Launching it gave these three errors in succession:

Don’t have permission for desktop folder (I didn’t allow this, it’s not needed in my setup)

and then these three errors:

**Library setup failed: : ModelDbJanitor(/Volumes/Doodlebot/PhotoStructure/.photostructure) ModelDbJanitor.setup(): Failed to set up /Volumes/Doodlebot/PhotoStructure/.photostructure/models/db.sqlite3: Quick integrity check failed: *** in database main …¹

main setup failed: ModelDbJanitor(/Volumes/Doodlebot/PhotoStructure/.photostructure) ModelDbJanitor.setup(): Failed to set up /Volumes/Doodlebot/PhotoStructure/.photostructure/models/db.sqlite3: Quick integrity check failed: *** in database main *** On t…

ModelDbJanitor(/Volumes/Doodlebot/PhotoStructure/.photostructure) ModelDbJanitor.setup(): Failed to set up /Volumes/Doodlebot/PhotoStructure/.photostructure/models/db.sqlite3: Quick integrity check failed: *** in database main *** On tree page 17 cell 29…

I was using 1.1 but downloaded the 2.0-beta1 to see if that’d help as some posts with similar errors seemed to indicate that was going to help. IT didn’t. This issue indicates I should use node, but the laptop I’m running on is macOs 11, which homebrew doesn’t support anymore. And, during the import I set up PhotoStructure to move and not copy the photos.

So the actual question: What state are the imported photos in, and what about the database? If I get photstructure node running, what steps should I take to make sure it picks back up?

support-bot · April 13, 2026, 11:41pm

Thanks to @bigethan for reporting this issue. Apologies for the delayed follow-up.

SQLite handling and crash recovery have been substantially reworked since v1.1:

v2026.1: New photostructure fix --db command runs VACUUM, ANALYZE, and integrity checks with auto-repair if corruption is detected; fixed an fts5 regression that could cause integrity checks to fail.
v2026.1: Database layer moved to all-new native @photostructure/sqlite library, with WAL checkpoints on clean shutdown to reduce the chance of post-crash corruption.
v2026.2: Fixed an EPIPE crash in daemon mode and a finalization death-loop that could leave the library in a bad state after a crash during import.
v2026.4: The macOS desktop build adds Sequoia and Tahoe compatibility and APFS firmlink path normalization. See the install page for current downloads.

If you still have the old v1.1 library folder, a fresh v2026.4 install pointed at the same library will run migrations and — if needed — fix --db can repair residual corruption, but starting from a new library directory may be simpler.