Saturday, September 05, 2009

How to restore a lost iPhoto '09 facebook connection

Every so often I like to go through my Facebook Application settings. Sometimes I see things like 'Ads and Pages' that I don't recall authorizing, or I find apps I no longer use.

For example, I found an Aperture export app. I'd tried using export to Facebook from Aperture, but it didn't work for me (buggy?). So I deleted it. Funny thing is, I don't remember anything about a FB app, that was an OS X app...

[Ok, I'll cheat. As you'll see below, I later realize that when you use a Facebook "feature" on the desktop, there's a companion Facebook "app".]

That's how I came across some funky iPhoto Uploader app without any author or profile information to speak of, but with mediocre reviews. I don't need that shoddy app I thought, I've been using the built-in function that comes with iPhoto '09. So I deleted it.

Then a thought occurred to me.

Yes, I returned to iPhoto, and now when I clicked on the albums that sort-of-synchronize with my FB albums I got an error message saying the upload had failed ...
... authentication with server failed. Please check your login and password information...
Oopsie.

Clearly that mysterious iPhoto Uploader app was the 'companion' to iPhoto '09 (I wonder if it's a real "app" or just some kind of authentication framework shoehorned into the "app" slot.)

So how could I restore it? Apple doesn't provide any documentation on this sort of thing -- that would be against their religion. I played around briefly, here's what worked
  1. select any old picture
  2. click the facebook button to upload it to FB
  3. you'll see the upload button is grayed out. Click the "change account" button. You'll now be able to reenter your un/pw credentials.
After you reenter credentials you can sync your FB albums again, and the iPhoto Uploader "app" will reappear in your Facebook app settings page.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This worked just fine. Good advice!

Anonymous said...

thank you so much! your a life saver

Anonymous said...

Do you know how to restore lost iPhoto albums after I deleted them? I was trying to free up space on my startup disk and was told it WOULD NOT delete my albums on FB, but...it did....along with alllll the comments, tags, etc....can this be restored? I have all my photos saved on an external hard drive, but are the FB albums saved on there too? I can't tell...

JGF said...

I think the FB information is gone. I presume you haven't lost your photos though?

Paris Vega said...

Thank you, sir.