updating library is not working in photos

Hi,

Just as an update: I called AppleCare, and I talked to 3 or 4 advisors until I ended up with someone from the Creative Media team in San Francisco (despite my being in London). So far all the solutions tried have not worked, but no need to wipe the computer and start again from what I've been told.

I've been having calls every 2-3 days with this same advisor for the past month (which is great because I don't have to re-explain every single time!). They've been collecting data from my photos app for 24 hour periods (which I grant permission for, don't worry folks!), but still no news. The engineers have it on their list of tickets to resolve, but it seems like the only way this may get resolved faster is if more people call AppleCare with this issue, because the advisor told me he hadn't encountered anyone else with this issue, and they have A LOT of tickets after Catalina was released. I've been worried I would lose all my photos, but I was told that I won't lose them; if I was to rush the process, I could get away with it but I'd lose all the albums, which I don't want to do.

So I would suggest you take a little bit of time and call Apple Care because the more specific complaints they have, the higher up the priority list this will get.

I'll update again once I know more.

I updated to Catalina 10.15.2 because it claimed that the new updates had fixes to unexpected crashes in Photos (I was having this issue). After updating, I cannot even access my photos because Photos app states "Updating Library" and has never gone past 4% progress for that last 4 days. I contacted Apple Care today, and was guided through several steps to "fix" the issue (I was informed by Apple Care that numerous people are having the same issue). After 2 hours, and speaking to three people; the last person being a specialist supervisor with the Photos app, I still had no resolution. I was instructed to submit a screenshot and a diagnostics report to Apple that would be passed on to the "engineers" for them to come up with a solution. Currently I am waiting to hear back from Apple on what to do to restore access to my Photos. Updating to Catalina 10.15.2 actually caused my problem. My advice to Apple users is to wait a month or more, and research new updates before installing, to make sure that potential bugs do not affect your work. Otherwise, you might be subject to hours of your time being the "Guinea Pig" for new updates. I will try to post if I am given a solution to my issue; still waiting a response from Apple Support.

I had this type of issue on 4 Macs. The Macs won't sync but the IOS devices would. I had to re-install Catalina on each of the Macs from the recovery boot. It fixed them all. BTW it took nearly 24 hours for them all the get in sync.

Please can you tell me how to resolve this same issue? I updated to Catalina last night and when trying to open photos since it has said Updating Library 4% Complete for the past 24 hours.

Would be grateful for advice on what to do here please as there are many conflicting bits of information online. Many thanks.

i turned off time machine backups and I turned off anti-virus. Then I left it for a while. Maybe 2 days. Eventually it came back. Then I put backups etc back on. Since then I have exported my entire photo library to jpeg and storing both on hard drive and in the cloud. I’m finding all the updates quite frustrating as the only thing I have my Mac are the photos library and every time I go to do something I spend so much time troubleshooting the new issue instead of being able to do what I turned it on for. Probably not that helpful. But be prepared to wait :(.

Here is what I did to successfully solve this problem.

I made a new empty photo library, called it the system library, connected photos to icloud and all my photos entered the new system library within a few hours. 500 gigs of photos linked by choosing optimize storage option.

I had the same issue. I tried starting from scratch with a new library. But I cannot do that either because Videos get imported with the wrong timestamp! I'm so frustrated with how they broke this app...

Like many of you, I was unable to get my Photos to download with Catalina. I have a new MacBook Pro 16 inch so this is a FRESH install and not an upgrade of an OS. I spent about a week and a half deleting and re-adding Photos library in an attempt to get my library to download from iCloud. Eventually, I was able to get everything downloaded on the 5th or 6th attempt. Optimize Storage was the only way it would work, downloading originals was impossible. Since then, it has stalled and will not download new photos or update iCloud if I delete photos from Catalina.

I had posted in the Community about the new MacBook Pro 16 inch having excessive fan noise at low CPU and was contacted by Apple. The reason I bring this up... I would be trying the new BETA for Catalina to see if it resolves the Photos issues but Apple immediately stops working with you when you running a BETA and I would like to see if they can resolve the fan noise problems.

I have purchased a few MacBook Pro 16 inch machines to test before replacing all machines in our company. All of us are having the fan issues and we're all seeing Photo issues as well with Catalina. Things have been a bit disappointing as of late.

I encourage *everyone* to call Apple Support with this - Show some knowledge with the first person that answers and make them understand that this is not a common issue and that you need a Tier2 suppport. The Tier2 people seem to have a little bit more knowledge, but it is always the same person that follows your case and you have direct contact with them over email and phone. You don't need to explain the whole thing again every time you call. I've been speaking to a Tier2 tech for a week now and they are gathering information from my computer and specific issue. It is being relayed to the engineering deparment. I believe that if more people call and request support they will move the issue higher in the priority chain.

Same thing. It’s been stuck on 75% updated over night.

Me too! I'm stuck on 3%!! I've restarted my machine a few times and left it running overnight with no success...

I've been trying to update my photos since 8am this morning. It's restarted once or twice maybe three times and I'm currently at 9% complete. What a mess!

Did you manage to resolve this please?

sorry to hear that it did not work as well as it did for me.

That is frustrating.

As a final update from me: the latest Catalina update 10.15.2 has fixed the library updating problem, so my photos are back to normal! Phew. :)