Catalina has lost my Photos and Library Repair fails

Question

Catalina has lost my Photos and Library Repair fails

Upgraded to Catalina today and when I went to open Photos a dialogue box came up that says "Photos cannot find the system photo library named " .... ".

When I attempted repair the library repair failed at 0%.

I can't turn on Photos in iCloud to bring the photos down from iCloud because if I try to put a tick in the Photos box in iCloud (System Preferences>Apple ID) it won't allow it and just says "Checking Library".

Any ideas on how to get my Photo library back would be most appreciated.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Oct 9, 2019 5:33 AM

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Answer 1

markwmsn

Level 6

16,715 points

Oct 9, 2019 8:41 PM in response to David Auckland

If you think all of your photos are in iCloud Photos, you can create a new, empty Photos library, designating it the System Photo Library, enable iCloud Photos in it, and wait until all of your photos are downloaded to your computer.

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Answer 2

markwmsn

Level 6

16,715 points

Oct 10, 2019 8:42 PM in response to David Auckland

Restoring with Time Machine is worth a try. It should be faster than a network download. You can always try the download if the restore fails.

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Answer 3

markwmsn

Level 6

16,715 points

Oct 9, 2019 10:58 PM in response to David Auckland

The first step in creating a new empty library is launching Photos while holding down the "option" key.

That should pop up a list of all the Photos, iPhoto, and Aperture libraries visible on connected disks, with the date and time each was last modified and an indication of which is the current System Photo Library. One will be highlighted; the location of that library will be shown below the list of libraries.

Move the highlighting up and down if you need to see other locations. Write down the locations of any libraries you see, so you can go there in Finder and remove any you don't need.

Now click the "Create New..." button to select where you want your new library.

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Answer 4

Oct 9, 2019 9:51 PM in response to markwmsn

That’s a great idea thanks.

Do you know if there’s a way to be sure the previous Photos aren’t lurking somewhere damaged on my Mac? My photos are safely in iCloud and I’d prefer to avoid having a large unknown junk file somewhere on my system when I bring the iCloud photos down.

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Answer 5

Oct 9, 2019 11:28 PM in response to markwmsn

Thanks, that's what was interesting about the situation because even though I had approx 10 years of photos in the one library (I've never used anything other than iCloud Photos between my Mac, iPhone and iPad) there was no Photo library shown when I held Option and clicked on Photos (see below for what I see).

The photos are defintely in iCloud still - they're on my iPhone, iPad, and I can see them in Photos if I log in to iCloud in Safari. Just nothing showing on the Mac after upgrading from Mojave. For what it's worth, I did a clean install (erased the Mac SSD and installed Catalina from a USB stick) then migrated data back from Time Capsule. Of interest, when the Time Machine migration was finished there was a message on my Mac that said words to the effect "Sorry. Cannot Load User", but then when the Mac rebooted my user profile was there and all my data etc ... except Photos.

Just wondering if I should try to restore them from Time Machine?

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Catalina has lost my Photos and Library Repair fails

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