Q: Forum for Photos App & iCloud Photo Library Sync Upload Issues – summary of problems for OSX (imac) & IOS (iPhone 6+ & iPad mini) devices  (April 2015 ) -  Apple Support case logged

Above was posted as a summary of issues and steps to resolve (for those having similar problems) - short awnser contact apple icloud support (log case online)  if your images are not uploading as seems to block stop and requires apple intervention to resolve

All, following is an update to above post (post apple icloud support intervention) - photos (icloud) strggles to sync large photo library (10,000+ images) with multiple devices inputting at the same time.  Below are the steps that were suggested by Apple Support (cant show you screenshots as images dont paste):

Key Steps to be aware of / resolve:

- uploading 10,0000 +  images can take up to 48  hours  - it took me 24 hours for 5000-10,0000 images and 72 hours for 30,000 + images on a fast fibre connection 100mb+ upload via  ethernet (so wifi and cable will be slower)

-  if having problems with icloud photo sync from  your main photo library (eg my imac) turn off your photo icloud sync for  iphone, ipad, etc as having multiple devices input at the same time seemed to confuse icloud - once I turned off the other devices the icloud photo imac sync started again and once main imac photo library was synced I was able to sync all o5000= imaoges from a macbook library in 24 hours   (be aware that turning off icloud on phone will delete all images that are not saved on iphone (they are still on the icloud)

- if your images are not uploading (photos app preferences shows zero progress in 24 hours) log case with apple icloud support ( I wasted 5 days with zero progress before logging case)

Here are my notes for 7 + days of activity: 

Forum for Photos App & iCloud Photo Library Sync Upload Issues – summary of problems for OSX (imac) & IOS (iPhone 6+ & iPad mini) devices  -  Apple Support case logged (23 April 2015 )

Problem

• ongoing problems with icloud photo sync across multiple OSX and IOS devices (no photos uploads for 5+ days (Mon 20^th Fri 24^th April ) – known problem with apple support case logged
• Problem occurs more frequently with large number of images (15,000 - 50,000 + images) and large Photo Library sizes (150GB – 375GB)
• iCloud Photo Library struggles to upload large volumes of images (15,0000 - 30,000 + images & videos ) with  multiple OSX and IOS devices. Photos App(s) and icloud photo library sync stopped working for 5+ days (multiple restarts and normal trouble shooting issues tried unsuccessfully)
• There may be a problem with photos app library size / image numbers and there is a definite problem with icloud photo library syncing (sync issue may be due to limits on uploads each day).
• Possible duplication of images issue with Photos App library(s) due to multiple imports (image numbers vary between 15,000 to 50,0000 in 24 hours so could be a sync duplication issue or could be correct number of images  due to  large image imports from iphoto, picasa & IOS Devices)
• Support case logged with Apple Support (iCloud and Mac) 24 April 2015

Background:

• In April 2015 the Photos App was installed on iMac and IOS Devices with iCloud Photos Library  sync enable and an iCloud account set up with 200GB storage.
• Multiple devices including imac (OSX Yosemite 10.10.3) and IOS (8.3) devices (iphone 6+  , 2 ipad mini) uploading photos from Photos App to iCloud Photo library (with all photos optimised for size per device)
• The initial Photos App import from old iphoto library and Picasa went well with 30,000 plus images imported from iphoto (15,000 images) and  picassa  (15,000 images) duringfirst 24 hours. As part of this process Photos App identified a number of duplicate photos and removed from automatic import
• iCloud  photo app sync set up: during first 24 hours  icloud photo library uploaded (synced) 122.3 GB photos with 15,000 images  953 videos from iMac Photos App and IOS devices to icloud. At thist point icloud storage shows 75GB of free space but also showed 15,000 plus images still to be synced to icloud library
• The icloud photos library then stopped syncing with limited (zero) progress over 5+ days. During this period  iMac photos app showed  30,000 – 50,000 photos in “all photos” album (photo numbers vary by day, shoiwing possible size or duplication issue) and the Photos App Preferences shows 15,000 -  30,000 images still to be uploaded to iCloud Library (screenshots  below, number of images to be uploaded varies massively eg it can change from 900 to 35,000 images in minutes )
• IOS devices Photos App shows 16,000 photos but phone photos not uploading to icloud photos library and the Photos App could not access 90% of the iCloud photos  (IOS Phots App has photos size optimised  for device)
• iCloud storage was increased to 500 GB on 23 April 2015   (with 375GB of free space) to check if the iCloud storage limit was a potential issue (this did not resolve issue)
• Fri  24^th  Support case logged with Apple Support (iCloud and Mac) 24 April 2015 - apple icloud support advise was stop all IOS devices syncing other than imac to ensure that main library synced first - apple support then did a manual check of icloud storage settings and set up a followup appointmet for 24 hours
• Sat 25^th 4000 photos uploaded in 24 hours, apple support called and suggested that we wait another 48 hours. they wonder if is an issue with icloud library photo limits (25k per month) – if so will need  to get this reset

My Photo Stream upload limits  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202299

• Uploads to My Photo Stream per hour: 1000 photos
• Uploads to My Photo Stream per day: 10,000 photos
• Uploads to My Photo Stream per month: 25,000 photos

If you exceed one of these limits, your uploads to My Photo Stream will pause temporarily, and you might see a notification on your device. Your uploads will resume automatically when you no longer exceed the limit, such as in the following hour or on the following day.

Nb Mon 27^th   - Apple support confirmed that limits above only apply to Photos Stream (not icloud photos storage)

• Sun 28th Eve

- cloud photo library imac:  now shows 53,479 photos and videos (updating) using 253.56GB  storage in icloud

- iPhoto library (imac) shows library 53,852 items:  52, 180 Photos and 1,672 videos and a total storage size of 269.51 GB  (from photos app) -  324.14GB (finder library)

- Some (minimal) duplicates eg in screen shots below you can same photo of Tap with two different file sizes have).

- iphoto monthly limit of 25,000 limit has not been applied (which could cause problems with initial syncing of icloud & photos  library across multiple devices eg where have more than 25,000 images to sync).

- iPhoto library synce for IOS and OSX devices is has been enabled on iphone, ipads, macbook etc as of Sun 26 April 11:55pm

All Photos – sorting by date added (not date of image) – can not seem to change the default setting (greyed out) – need to show in date order – look at smart albums settings etc

Timeline of Issues (with  Screen shots)

Sun 26 April 111:55pm

- cloud photo library imac:  shows library with 53,479 photos and videos (updating) using 253.56GB  storage in icloud

- iPhoto library (imac) shows library 53,852 items:  52, 180 Photos and 1,672 videos and a total storage size of 269.51 GB  (from photos app) -  324.14GB (finder library)

- Some (minimal) duplicates eg in screen shots below you can same photo of Tap with two different file sizes have).

- iphoto monthly limit of 25,000 limit has not been applied (which could cause problems with initial syncing of icloud & photos  library across multiple devices eg where have more than 25,000 images to sync).

- iPhoto library synce for IOS and OSX devices is has been enabled on iphone, ipads, macbook etc as of Sun 26 April 11:55pm

Sun 26 April 111:55pm - cloud photo library imac:  shows 53,479 photos and videos (updating)  with an icloud photos stoarage size of 253.56GB 

Sun 26 April 111:55pm - cloud photo library imac:  shows 53,479 photos and videos (updating)

Sun 26 April 111:55pm - iPhoto library (imac) storage 326.55GB (finder)

Photos Library All Photos shows a library size of : 269.51 GB (57GB smaller than size in finder),  with 52,180 Photos, 1,672 Videos and a date range  27/02/1998 12:00 am - 26/04/2015 6:23 pm,

Sun 26 April 111:55pm  - iPhoto library (imac) item size

shows 53,852 items:  52, 180 Photos and 1,672 videos (as of Sun 26 April 11:30pm). There appears to some duplicates (eg same photo with two different file size have been uploaded see shows below).  iphoto monthly limit of 25,000 limit has not been applied (which may have been causing problems syncing library across multiple devices).  iPhoto library  synce for IOS and OSX devices is has been enabled on iphone, ipads, macbook etc as of Sun 26 April 11:55pm

Example of duplicate images below,  first screen shots one shows photos of Tap (IMG_2631 from iphone 6+ 1.8mb dated 25 April 2015 3:59pm), the second screen shot shows same photo of Tap (IMG_0277 from unknown source 224KB  dated 25 April 2015 7:58am)

SS1 Sun 26 April 111:55pm

SS2 Sun 26 April 111:58pm

Sat 25 April 3pm

Spoke to Apple Support Mac – escalated to senior advisor – may be an issue with icloud limit of 250000 per month or 10,000  per day.  Will leave over the weekend and if not change will escalate to icloud team Monday and ask them to reset limit. 

Ilcoud photo Library 3:50pm  20,754 Photos online so an increase of 4,000 photos over 18 hours

Icloud Photos Library Error (sent to apple)  

APPLICATION NAME:  photos

TYPE:  client

Sat 25 April 5:40 am to 6:40am – progress made overnight, tracker bar has moved significantly and number of photos to be uploaded shows a range of: 2,787  to 34,665

Fri 24 9:40pm - Spoke to apple support (icloud team) another 40  mins – disables all other devices other than imac to see if will help upload to ilcoud – apple support  will call back 3pm hk time

icloud – no change 15 mins

imac photo App:   52,125 photos in all photos album.  Number of items to upload in the iclould library Photo  UPLOAD varies between 15,279 photos and 48,0183  in 5 mins

Fri 24 9pm Spoke to apple support 60 mins – they turned settings on and off and I disabled ilcoud imac again – after 5 mins it  now shows 15,999 items to upload  – some photos form iphone have uploaded

Fri 24 April – After 24 hours NO photo have been uploaded and Phopto app  has now lost count of photos etc  so upload not working

Thu 23 April 2015   – No change in photos uploaded from Photos app to iCloud in 3 days  33,565 still to be uploaded.  iCloud photos has 15,065 images  953 videos and using 122.3 GB . 

Disabled icloud , increased storage to 500GB then  re-enabled icloud photos

iCloud Photo Library 33565 items to upload  Mon 20^th April

33,565 photos to upload

962 photos to upload

Figure 1 962 Photos to upload