Last edit
Summary: My iPhoto won't start anymore.
Added:
> I file copied them all to my desktop and removed most of the files on the camera:
> {{{
> rm -rf /Volumes/CYBER-SHOT/*
> rm -rf /Volumes/CYBER-SHOT/.Trashes/
> }}}
> (This left a few things on the memory card.)
> Now switching the camera on. Interesting: iPhoto no longer starts. The camera has no pictures on it and thus no longer registers as a camera? Let's give it a try... Taking a picture or two... Connecting it again... iPhoto starts... and asks if I want to import the pictures!
> Apparently I broke the cycle.
> So, what was different? What did I delete? I can think of only one thing: I rarely record /video/ with the camera, but today there was a video file on it. Perhaps that caused iPhoto to die?
I connected my Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX5 to the newly booted Mac, started iPhoto, and got the spinning rainbow ball. Killed iPhoto and tried it again. Three times. Force Quit Applications → iPhoto (not responding) 
Then I restarted iPhoto while pressing the alt and command key and told it to “repair” the library database. It did that, finished, and gave me the spinning rainbow ball. I am reminded of Comments on 2011-07-12 Mac OS X Problmems. This sucks.
I restarted iPhoto while pressing the alt and command key and told it to “examine and repair” the permissions. It did that, finished, and gave me the spinning rainbow ball. Truly, what a thing to come home to after a long weekend. Thanks, Apple.
Tried fixing ownership and permissions myself:
chown -R alex:alex /Volumes/Extern/Pictures/Alex\ iPhoto\ Library chmod -R ugo+rw /Volumes/Extern/Pictures/Alex\ iPhoto\ Library
That didn’t help.
Removed ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPhoto.plist and ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iPhoto and logged out and back in. That helped! I had to start iPhoto while pressing the alt key to pick my photo library, and got to click around. Encouraged, I connected the USB cable and switched on my camera. And I got the spinning rainbow ball again.
What the hell? Switching off the camera and restarting iPhoto gets me the spinning rainbow ball. Apparently the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX5 can destroy iPhoto. 
Ok, just deleting the cache and restarting iPhoto without logout and login:
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iPhoto
That didn’t help.
Try removing both without logout and login:
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iPhoto ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPhoto.plist
That still doesn’t do it. I will try removing both and logout and login again.
That helped. I identified some faces, quit iPhoto, restarted it. No more problems. Except for one: How will I get new images from the camera into iPhoto?
I file copied them all to my desktop and removed most of the files on the camera:
rm -rf /Volumes/CYBER-SHOT/* rm -rf /Volumes/CYBER-SHOT/.Trashes/
(This left a few things on the memory card.)
Now switching the camera on. Interesting: iPhoto no longer starts. The camera has no pictures on it and thus no longer registers as a camera? Let’s give it a try… Taking a picture or two… Connecting it again… iPhoto starts… and asks if I want to import the pictures!
Apparently I broke the cycle.
So, what was different? What did I delete? I can think of only one thing: I rarely record video with the camera, but today there was a video file on it. Perhaps that caused iPhoto to die?