macOS Catalina problems: Photos does not sync via iCloud

It finally took about a week to get my photos to finally Sync, but there is a major issue with Catalina.

Both my new iMac 27" and my old 2015 MacBook Pro are each set to Optimize Mac Storage in photos preference. This was the only way I found that everything stayed synchronized. Also iCloud wants to store all the high-res on your Mac first, then it begins to Synchronize after all the high-res have been copied to your Mac, so it's a big waiting game.

Thanks for the advice John Hammer 1,

Actually, that would not be the solution for me: I just want to see the photo streams coming from my idevices, but I do not wish to save a hard copy of any of them as a default.

Someone mentioned in an earlier message that things got fixed after a late 2019 update of iMovie.

I did look in that direction and it started working (with the photo prefs set to iCloud photo = disabled and photo stream = enabled) after I ran iMovie for the 1st time and initialized all security settings with regards to Catalina.

Do other have similar behaviors to report?

I found the following simple fix for the Photos not syncing to my Imacs:

open photos

click photo preferences

choose iCloud menu option

uncheck iCloud photos

a checkbox for Photo Stream will appear - tick the box.

your photos will immediately start synchronising.

Close preferences.

Yay! Upgrading to 10.15.2 overnight appears to have resolved the issue. Changes to albums, folders on macOS now almost immediately reflected on my iPhone. Everything looks to be in sync. Happy days :o)

Also: You can try turning syncing off; waiting a while; and turning it back on. Also, you can try signing out of iCloud.com, waiting a while, and signing back in. These are long-shot possible solutions,

Hi alex_h1,

Thanks for your help.

I believe the problem is with Photos connecting with iCloud. I can upload, download and generally sync as expected between my iPhone, my iPad and Photos online when signed in to my account on iCloud.com - only Photos on my MacBook Pro seems to have a problem with downloading/synchronising.

On my Mac:

• the low resolution versions of all the images appear in photos, but a small exclamation mark within a circle appears in the bottom right corner of the photo (where the fillable wheel reflecting the download status normally appears while loading the full resolution copy from iCloud);
• when i try to play a video i get the error "Cannot Play Video Photos cannot play this video because the resource is unavailable.";
• when i try to edit a photo i get the error "Cannot Start Editing Photos cannot load adjustments for this image.";
• when trying to insert a photo in another app, such as Mail, using the media browser, you can actually see where Photos has synchronised to/until - the last photo is some number of days ago and even then there are plenty missing;
• when trying to force a photo to download by exporting/copying the file to a location in Finder, absolutely nothing happens, no error, no spinning wheel, nothing.

I believe I did have iCloud photos enabled before upgrading to Catalina.

I hope all that information helps find a solution to the problem.

Other people's confirmation of the same symptoms would be great.

Many thanks again,

Calum

The only solution I found was to do a fresh install of the entire OS, that seemed to resolved the sync issues at least for right now...

This worked perfectly. Uncheck, then recheck and it all starts syncing. My shared albums also had the same problem but unchecking and rechecking solved it too.

Hi Dan,

I just left my laptop overnight and fortunately it updated my photos. I was also wondering why it was taking it so long to update the photos which led also to believe that, like what you just said, it must be a serious flaw in Catalina macOS.

I never had any problems with my photos until recently when I upgraded to MacOS Catalina.

I really panicked when I realised that my photos would not update.

Such a painful experience... really.

But just wait, I think. I realised I could not do anything but wait so I waited and fortunately it did start re-populating my photos with my latest photos..

Update: it's been almost two months since my original post and I'm almost back to where I was before installing Catalina. In the meantime, I've spoken to many people at Apple, but mostly Phil in Media Services who'se been very helpful. We've collected tons of data and I've submitted many files. Here's what I've done:

1. Deleted my photo library
2. Created a new photo library and designated it as the System Library
3. Turned on iCloud Photos
4. Waited 3 weeks for it to download about 60,000 photos and videos. I have a high speed connection, but the download wasn't constant. It seems to go in fits and starts for no apparent reason. Everything else on the network is fine. Speeds are 470Mb/20Mb.
5. As it neared the end, the process ground to a halt with around 70 items to go.
6. After no progress for a few days, I tried rebuilding the library. It finished, but there were still 70 items to go. Then it crashed and wouldn't open the library again no matter what I tried.
7. Got ****** off and deleted everything, as in reformatted the computer.
8. Did a netboot and installed a clean copy of Catalina.
9. Started from scratch. New library, etc.
10. Waited another 3 weeks.
11. It's now at 20 items remaining... where it's been for about a week. It's not doing anything. Activity Monitor shows no CPU usage, no network traffic, nothing. If I take a picture on my phone, it immediately shows up on my laptop. That's working fine.

As I said, I've collected and sent many files to Apple. If they tell me to rebuild the library or turn iCloud Photos off and on I'll have to pass. There are things I like about Catalina. This is not one of them.

I ended up having to hire a certified Apple tech to start Catalina over on my MacBook Pro. Then we "refreshed" the Photos app and it took more than 48 hours to reload. It is all syncing now but it is super slow doing any task including simple deletions. It is working across my three devices now. Since I loaded inadvertently (meaning I had no idea it had so many issues with Photos), I have spent close to $2000 trying to get it all to work. Keywords still cannot be entered without resetting the cursor for each and every entry. Absolutely hate Catalina for doing this but feeling trapped. It is my new understanding that this discussion board is used only by Apple users not Apple staff. Apple expects users to do the fixes. Makes me even more disgruntled!

It might be related to Photo Stream. I don't know exactly when it happened, maybe 10.15.3, but it's no longer possible to have both iCloud Photos and Photo Stream active within the MacOS Photo prefs. I know I still had Photo Stream active up to at least a week ago because I was using Photo Stream to send photos to an old device.

I had the same problem after upgrading to Catalina. Even after I downgraded to Mohave, none of my photos would show up in Photos on my Mac and would not download from iCloud.

The only thing that has worked for me was to download the google photos app on my phone and transfer all of the 1000's of photos on iCloud to GOOGLE photos. It took 2 days. The only way I can view photos on my MacBook Pro is to open my GOOGLE account and view in Google photos.

Immediately after updating to Catalina, photos stopped syncing with iCloud. Attempting to turn iCloud Photos back on results in a message saying there’s not enough space on this Mac to download the library. Problem is, the library is already on the Mac. Actually, it’s on an external SSD, like it’s always been.

I've the same problem with my MacBook Air and with my MacBook Pro 15".

in iCloud web the pics have been uploaded from iPhone (ios13) and iPad (ios12). But Photos remains in "Download xx originals" (xx is 11 now, the last pics after upgrade to Catalina).

I've enough space in iCloud (80gb) and in both Macs (more than 110gb).

I'm regularly registered in iCloud in all the devices.

in MacBook Pro I've trashed the photoslibrary and create a new one, now totally empty because it doesn't receive any pic from iCloud (it sync the shared albums only).

suggestions?

thanks