G.Lenn

Q: Photos for Mac, stuck on "updating" trying to upload to iCloud Photos Library

Hardware

  • Late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina
  • 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5
  • 8GB RAM
  • Intel Iris Graphics

 

Software

  • Yosemite 10.10.3
  • Photos (latest release that is on Mac Appstore as of 2015-04-10)

 

Problem

Uploading status of Photos to iCloud Photo Library seems to be stuck at "Updating".  No change of progress bar despite hooking up my Mac through wired ethernet for 24 hours.

 

I've tried turning off Photos in iCloud settings and then turning them back on.  Restting, shutting down, all that stuff.  No photos are populating on my iCloud Photo Library from my Mac as far as I can tell.  Not even 1.

 

My Upgrade Process

  • Downloaded Photos Update
  • OPTION + CMD opened Photos app
  • Selected my iPhoto Library on an external USB 3.0 drive
  • Photos started converting the library

 

Photos library finished converting

  • I then tried to enable iCloud Photos Library, but it advised that only the System Photos Library can be used with iCloud.
  • I then changed my System Photos Library to the one on my harddrive.
  • I now am able to successfully enable iCloud Photos Library on the Photos App.

 

Again the problem I am having is that the uploading status seems to be forever stuck at "Updating" in the Photos App.

Anyone with similar problems?  Anyone found a fix / work around?

 

 

Supporting Screenshots

 

iCloud Settings in Photos App

Screen Shot 2015-04-10 at 11.13.19 AM.png

iCloud Settings in System Preferences

Screen Shot 2015-04-10 at 11.31.30 AM.pngScreen Shot 2015-04-10 at 11.32.01 AM.png

 

System Prefs > iCloud > Options Pane

Posted on Apr 10, 2015 8:39 AM

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Q: Photos for Mac, stuck on "updating" trying to upload to iCloud Photos Library

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  • by tnorris,

    tnorris tnorris Apr 29, 2015 3:40 PM in response to timbarrick
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 29, 2015 3:40 PM in response to timbarrick

    In my case, all of my photos uploaded successfully weeks ago, but Photos still shows a status of "Updating" with no other details.  Not sure what's being updated, if anything at all?  Activity Monitor does show traffic on the App.  Could just be a problem w/server overload as you said.

  • by gonzalosiddig,

    gonzalosiddig gonzalosiddig Apr 29, 2015 6:34 PM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Apple Music
    Apr 29, 2015 6:34 PM in response to G.Lenn

    I feel the same! Since yesterday I'm having problems with the update photos Mac . Basically when I take a photo on iPhone, is not appearing in photos , if iCloud , but not in photos Mac . Now I closed assignment of iCloud on the Mac and returned to login. In the " iCloud " Picture window says " updating " but the bar is empty.

    The problem is that Mac photos for some reason is not connecting with iCloud library .

    Under " Preferences" in Mac Photos , bar iCloud upgrade never starts to move , but says " updating ".

    My account icloud is 200GB and library weighs only 11GB.

    The problem seems to be connecting with iCloud. Please someone who can help me.

  • by Liverpool Webmaster,

    Liverpool Webmaster Liverpool Webmaster Apr 30, 2015 12:40 AM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 30, 2015 12:40 AM in response to G.Lenn

    Greetings Everyone. I have posted to this thread several times, and followed all the replies. I believe that we have jointly figured out all that is happening with this iPhoto to Photos update but just haven't put all of the pieces together. Here is my best guess as to what is happening (in at least in a lot of cases).

     

    1. We downloaded OS 10.10.3 which included the new Photos software to our computer. Most of us followed the directions from Apple and downloaded all the newest software for the iPhone and iPad. If you have a number of devices, you may had multiple iPhones, iPads, other desktop and laptop computers. In other words, lots and lots of devices. We then followed the directions from Apple for connecting to iCloud. It looks like the "process" starts, but then "jams up" and stops. This may, or may not, be the case. You can observe the uploading of photos to iCloud by logging into your iCloud account > Photos > Moments and scrolling down to the bottom of that page. There will be a count of the number of photographs and videos that has been uploaded. There will be the spinning timer with the word "Updating." Eventually the timer will stop and the number of photos/videos will increase. This spinning timer can take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes, depending on how many photos/videos have been uploaded. At 30K photos it routinely takes my computer 2-3 minutes count the total number of photographs. You can start the updating count again by mouse clicking on the browser's refresh button. By noting the number change this is one way you can tell if uploading is really occurring.

     

    2. In the past, when we have downloaded software, we're used to having it work right after we have it installed.  This has NOT been my experience with Photos.  First, I have FIOS with 75Mbps upload and download speed, but was only averaging 1Mbps during the uploading. I also had to upgrade my iCloud storage from 20 GB to 200GB because I was around 135 GB "short" of needed storage space. The good news is that this is another indication that something is happening. The bad news is that this is a glacial upload speed. One of the writers in this thread mentioned that Apple told him their servers are overwhelmed and to wait a few weeks before uploading to iCloud so they can bring more servers online. It stands to reason that if I'm uploading 135GB of photos/videos, and you are uploading GB's of media, and so are tens of thousands of other users, then there will be a lot of lag (apparently Apple did not anticipate this high initial usage).

     

    3. How fast your photos upload will depend on a lot of factors -- the processing speed of your computer, the speed of your Internet, how stable your Internet connection is, how long you leave Photos running, etc. Another hint, in System Preferences > Energy Saver set "Computer Sleep" to NEVER. That way you let the uploading continue over long periods of time without your computer automatically going to sleep. It took me around 70 hours of run time before all 30K photos were uploaded. You can start and stop Photos during this process, I restarted my computer several times.

     

    4. As iCloud was slowly filling with photographs, the photos started to appear on my iPhone (another hint that the process is working).  HINT: If you have a lot of photos you may not want iCloud to send them all to your iPhone as they take up a lot of memory. You can tell you iPhone to store what I'm guessing are the thumbnails, rather than the full resolution photos. I have an iPhone 6 with 128 GB and 30K photos required more memory that was available on my iPhone using full resolution. Even the smaller versions of pictures took up over 50 GB.

     

    5. I have also noticed that other software interferes with the sending/receiving of photos to iCloud and/or the processing of the Photos program. Mail, for example, when it runs it periodically checks to see if you have new mail stored on your companies server(s). I have Gmail accounts, a Verizon account, a Yahoo account, etc. Mail will attempt to make connections over the Internet with the mail servers. This in turn interrupts the transfer of data to iCloud. I have had to Force Quit Mail because of failed connections, and Mail just freezes up. I also noticed that my external Time Machine hard drive, if it is doing an update, will slow down the data transfer. The computer needs processing power and data transfer to update Time Machine, and apparently can't access that, update Photos and iCloud simultaneously (or at the very least, slows down ALL processes).

     

    6. SUMMARY SO FAR. Photos has to take and process your iPhoto pictures/videos (chewing up computer processing speed), then upload them to iCloud. iCloud then takes them and downloads them to your other connected devices. So, one batch of photos UP to iCloud, then iCloud turns around and SENDS them back to ALL your connected devices. I have 4 devices in my home. Multiply that times tens of thousands of new Photo users, times the number of devices each household has ... you can see why iCloud seems to be crawling right now. I have also continued to take new photographs, thus uploading even more photos to iCloud, then iCloud has to download them to my other devices.

     

    7. While all this is happening, I also noticed that many of Photos features (like editing) simply did not work, that "events"  and "albums" were not being carried over,  etc. In the beginning of the process, only 2 or 3 of the editing features worked. As time went on, more and more of these features became active. After about a week, all of the editing functions then worked. After almost 2 weeks, the facial recognition part of Photos became active. At first just the photos of faces recognized from iPhoto were there, but I could not access them nor do any additional faces. Then a day later (after leaving the computer running another continuous 12 hours), I could utilize the full features of facial recognition.

     

    8. It seems to me that the Photos software doesn't totally work until more and more of your photographs are uploaded. My guess is that the program is busy converting media from iPhoto to Photo, then busy uploading all the media (plus it's associated data) to iCloud. It also had to tell iCloud the albums individual photos were in, etc. I'm guessing that the software developers delayed the implementation of Photos editing, etc. until the full resolution photos were uploaded to iCloud. I suppose it might get confusing for the software if, during the initial upload to iCloud, one started to edit photographs.

     

    OVERALL SUMMARY: Moving from iPhoto to Photos is a complex, multi-step process that takes a LOT of time to complete. The process utilizes a lot of computational power as well as a lot of Internet bandwidth. Besides a few exceptions mentioned in #1, there is frustratingly little information given to the end-user as to the progress of your update, or how long it needs to complete the process. Apple probably left out the "time" indicator because a lot depends on your internet speed, but they should have at least had a drop-down with a check off box section, telling you the steps it is working on, steps completed, and steps left to do. The software needs SOMETHING to let you know that "stuff" is happening. Unfortunately, the best you can do is take some notes on how many photos are uploaded, what parts of Photo is working, and what's not working. Then check your notes from time to time to see if progress is being made. DON'T let your computer automatically go into SLEEP mode. Let it run continuously (and without other software running) for as long as you can. It is okay to shut down Photos / iCloud. I did it many times so I could get mail and do other things. At the very least I let it run continuously over night.

     

    I can say that after 2 weeks and around 100 hours of connections to iCloud and letting Photos run -- that everything appears to be working, and working as it should. Still, when I first start Photos, there is still a noticeable lag (minutes) as Photos connects with iCloud to upload any new photos I have added to my desktop computer and iCloud then sends to my iPhone, plus upload any photos from my iPhone and send them to my desktop AND any edited photos - basically "housekeeping" to make sure all the devices and the iCloud are kept up-to-date.  All this takes some computational time and Internet time. If I start the computer, Photos and Mail all around the same time, Mail still lags and occasionally crashes. It's even worse if Time Machine decides it's time for an update. I must have sent in 10-15 Mail "crash reports" to Apple, I'm hoping it's a problem that has a software fix or will work itself out once iCloud access speed increases.

     

    I also realize that this isn't going to solve everyone's issues that have written in this thread. I don't have any additional software connected to iPhoto/Photos. I'm unsure what effect Lightroom might have, or any plugins? I do have Photoshop Elements 13, and did activate Organizer before switching to Photos, just to make one more backup of all my photos (the other on Time Machine). Overkill, but I really didn't want to lose 30k photos.

  • by LIZZYLAB,

    LIZZYLAB LIZZYLAB Apr 30, 2015 3:24 AM in response to Liverpool Webmaster
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 30, 2015 3:24 AM in response to Liverpool Webmaster

    Great synopsis of what's been happening (or not happening)  with iPhotos. The only thing you didn't mention is that it seemed to duplicate some of my photos during the upload~ I have many more than I originally had. Could be I restarted process so often at first or because i transferred photos from Mac, iPad and iPhone.

  • by BlahBleorg,

    BlahBleorg BlahBleorg May 2, 2015 8:28 AM in response to LIZZYLAB
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 2, 2015 8:28 AM in response to LIZZYLAB

    Mac Photos has been stuck at "Uploading 5 items" to iCloud Photo Library for weeks. It uploaded the first 13K photos without too many problems. I've rebuilt the Photos database and then re-synched with iCloud. I don't see any photo or video files open in cloudd so I can't tell if there is a corrupt file that is hanging the download. Is there a way to see which files haven't uploaded yet?

     

    What else should I look at?

     

    Thanks,
    Jason

  • by koocmj,

    koocmj koocmj May 2, 2015 9:58 AM in response to BlahBleorg
    Level 1 (9 points)
    May 2, 2015 9:58 AM in response to BlahBleorg

    In my case the apparent sticking was caused by a very large video, and the fact that my macbook logged my account off after one hour. Thus the machine was trying to upload this huge file and being cut off by the account logging off. This seems to be why every morning I was coming down to apparently nothing having Happened.

     

    IN essence once I got rid of the video and ensured powersave and auto log off were disabled I got my files up within 18 hours.  See my further posts.

     

    there was also a really useful post on this thread about usng the activity monitor to find which files were being worked on.

     

    now everything is uploaded I am impressed by the photos app and iCloud Photo Library.

     

    good luck!

  • by OakParkGoan,

    OakParkGoan OakParkGoan May 2, 2015 2:21 PM in response to Liverpool Webmaster
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 2, 2015 2:21 PM in response to Liverpool Webmaster

    Excellent summary Liverpool Webmaster

    My payload is 39000 pix. It is taking way too long. So I've voted with my wallet. Cancelled the iCloud storage upgrade and downgraded to 5GB. I know Apple will not prorate the refund because rule 78 in their operations manual says they may not but I'm going to live without iCloud Storage for a while till they figure out how to deal with the sort of demand they stimulated themselves. Can't believe they did not anticipate the simultaneous demand that was bound to be triggered after they almost railroaded us into the upgrade.

     

    My wife has a much smaller library of 1750 pictures and some videos. It took 4 days and nights of non stop pounding (all energy saving was abandoned in this crazy effort as was use of the computer). After the marathon, Photos announced that it was done. But my joy at this milestone was soon dashed when I found  that the counts of the pictures in iCloud and Photos (Local Library) didn't match.Did a picture by picture manual compare and find that random pictures from sets have just been dropped from the upload. Logic? Beats me. They are just part of a collection, nothing ostensibly out of place that could point to an explanation.

     

    This is a very simple example. Less than 2000 pictures. C'mon Apple. Stop shopping for cheap and instead hire more competent labor.

  • by anniewise,

    anniewise anniewise May 4, 2015 2:58 AM in response to kennethfromshort hills
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 4, 2015 2:58 AM in response to kennethfromshort hills

    THANK YOU!

    signing off from iCloud and then signing back in worked!

     

    Really appreciate your help!

  • by anniewise,

    anniewise anniewise May 4, 2015 3:00 AM in response to kennethfromshort hills
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 4, 2015 3:00 AM in response to kennethfromshort hills

    THANK YOU!

  • by pips1971,

    pips1971 pips1971 May 6, 2015 1:46 PM in response to anniewise
    Level 1 (10 points)
    May 6, 2015 1:46 PM in response to anniewise

    Screen Shot 2015-05-06 at 21.27.34.pngWhat's wrong with this

    It happens all  The time

  • by Bruce Kieffer,

    Bruce Kieffer Bruce Kieffer May 10, 2015 5:05 PM in response to pips1971
    Level 2 (183 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 10, 2015 5:05 PM in response to pips1971

    I have the same upload problems. I've spent A LOT of time with Apple Senior Level Support. I'm convinced they don't know why there are problems. They had me do so many things that to me have no relevance to the upload problems. They had me delete a lot of files that only caused me much work to get back to where I was with my system. It's sad, but I have to feel the problem is the Apple servers cannot handle the traffic, and the software is not developed enough to work without huge problems.

  • by koocmj,

    koocmj koocmj May 10, 2015 10:43 PM in response to Bruce Kieffer
    Level 1 (9 points)
    May 10, 2015 10:43 PM in response to Bruce Kieffer

    I Was too having such issues an the apple support team were lovely but clueless.

     

    in the end I sorted it by,

     

    1 deleting everything in cloud photo and turning off on all devices.

    2 Deleting my system library in photos. I replaced it with the copy I had made before mucking around.

    3 Ensuring my MacBook was not sleeping

    4 ensuring my account did not log off after an hour, in my case this was the real culprit for the apparent lack of progress

    5 turning iCloud Photo Library back on

     

    i then got 3300 photos up in about 30 hours.

     

    the auto log off was the real issue for me. The reason mine kept "sticking" was a 28 minute video.  The Maxine was trying to pass this large file and midway through it was log g off and cancelling the process!

     

    mine seems to be working completely as advertised now.

     

    i Hope this experience may help you somewhat.

  • by Bruce Kieffer,

    Bruce Kieffer Bruce Kieffer May 11, 2015 4:54 AM in response to koocmj
    Level 2 (183 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 11, 2015 4:54 AM in response to koocmj

    This is so sad how bad this is. 4 days now trying to get my photos uploaded. Me doing most of the work. My upload keeps reseting every night, and then I have more and more items uploading. There have been so many "solutions" offered, and I have tried most if not all, but to no avail. I'm close to going back to no iCloud Photo Library and waiting until Apple gets this figured out and working correctly.

    Screen Shot 2015-05-11 at 6.32.40 AM.png

    Screen Shot 2015-05-11 at 6.32.48 AM.png

  • by pips1971,

    pips1971 pips1971 May 12, 2015 12:55 PM in response to Bruce Kieffer
    Level 1 (10 points)
    May 12, 2015 12:55 PM in response to Bruce Kieffer

    lets hope 10.10.4 brings more luck lol .

    i no they said there as been an update for photos but am not to sure .

  • by jordy_s,

    jordy_s jordy_s May 17, 2015 10:43 AM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 17, 2015 10:43 AM in response to G.Lenn

    After a few weeks of working just fine, once again my Photos for Mac was stuck on "Updating..." for days. What fixed it for me this time, was simply killing the "Photos Agent" proces from within Activity Monitor, while keeping Photos for Mac running. The agent will restart itself and everything started syncing right away.

     

    This might have been mentioned earlier, but I couldn't find a search function for this topic (this is stupid, right?) and did not feel like reading all posts again.

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