I’ve recently had some “fun” trying to create a Photo book with Photos. Unfortunately Photos frequently quits unexpectedly when I attempt any inevitable adjustments of the photos or their placement in the automatically generated chosen book theme.

Console tells me “EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)” or “ EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)” but not much else that what passes for my brain can comprehend other than it’s all bad. A brief web search suggests that this has been happening a lot and, of all the suggestions offerred (repairing the library, fiddling with other drives and much else that was too scary for me to contemplate), the only one that actually worked satisfactorily was to use iPhoto instead. I'm glad iPhoto still works but, oh dear.

I love a good rant but there is always the risk that it would quickly become clear I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m talking about. Because I’m the sort that generally likes to go with the Apple update flow (viz ease of use across devices etc), I’d prefer to continue to use Photos which otherwise is quite useable with some intelligent massaging. But not if it’s as wobbly as this. Does anyone in this community have any advice that might fix this crash issue?

Andy
late 2013 iMac, 10.11.6, 16GB

Since you have received no suggestions, I will share with you an experience with the same error and crash, but in Apple Mail. It may be that Photos behaves similarly and lead to a resolution for you.

Mail remembers the last state when you quit (or it crashes). Specifically, which e-mail was highlighted/selected. If this e-mail is corrupted in some way, Mail will continually crash on opening. The solution is to hold the shift-key while starting Mail, which puts it in a "neutral" state on opening. Then find (yah, how?) the offending e-mail and delete it. This has worked for people to whom I have suggested it.

It may be that there is a corrupt Photo in your group that causes the crash, and every time you work with it, bam!

This could be a long shot, and how you might find the bad (in what way??) photo is anyone's guess, but given the lack of other suggestions posted here, this might give you someplace to start.

You might try rebuilding the Photos Library

1. Close Photos if it is open
2. Press Option - Command and double click on the Photos icon
3. The Repair Library opens
4. Click Repair to rebuild your Photo Library

Thank you Ira L and joemikeb for your suggestions. I have tried both but Photos still quits unexpectedly.

Given that Photos has worked flawlessly for me (with that "intelligent massaging", particularly in editing mode!) up until now with my own photos, I suspect that the culprit is a corrupt photo because my attempt at creating a Photo Book involved pictures taken with 2 cameras wielded by others as well as my own iPhone. As Ira L suggested, determining which one is corrupt is probably going to be too hard. And it may well be an issue (for Photos) related specifically to the Photo Book creation process. If it is, let's hope that Sierra fixes it...

Anyway I'm now awaiting the arrival of the Book I created with iPhoto. From the carrier, it looks like this has been printed somewhere in the States and it's therefore likely to get to me in half the time it would have taken if production had been done in Sydney!!

If it is a corrupted image file that is causing the problem I wouldn't hold my breathe waiting for Sierra to fix it. The solution will almost certainly involve identifying the corrupted file and either repairing or deleting it. Logically the corrupted file would be one that is used in the photo book which would limit the number of possibilities.

You might try a minor edit on each of the images to see if that "fixes" the image or opening and saving each image in an external editor such as Photoshop Elements, Graphic Converter 10, or Affinity Photo.