Photos not downloading to Mac (no network traffic!)

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Level 1

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Photos not downloading to Mac (no network traffic!)

Hi, the Photos library on my Mac has been stuck for months.

I have searched and tried many remedies, including:

Signing out and back into iCloud
Starting a new Photos library and starting the Cloud sync
Force quitting Photos Agent / photolibraryd / cloudphotosd
Deleting ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.cloudphotosd

What I can see in Activity Monitor is that there is no network traffic (upload or download) for Photos or its helper processes. [One minor exception: Sometimes very minimal traffic (16/23 packets sent/received) on initial startup]. I have tried waiting weeks as some people have suggested, with no change. Rebooting also has not helped.

The only time I have seen network traffic via these processes was after deleting `~/Library/Containers/com.apple.cloudphotosd` . Then it downloads what is needed to repopulate this folder, including Shared Albums. However my library never downloads, nor are the local photos uploaded to iCloud. Photos is just stuck with the "Updating..." message.

I have plenty of free space of my hard drive (1.15 TB) and iCloud (46 GB).

I have not been able to download any new photos since Aug. 2019. Please help!!!

Thank you :)

Mac mini, macOS 10.13

Posted on Dec 7, 2019 11:27 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,645 points

Dec 7, 2019 11:47 AM in response to photojomb

How are you connected to the internet? Are you connected by WI-Fi? iCloud Photos does not sync, if you are having only a connection using a cellular hotspot.

Where is your Photos Library stored? Is it on an external volume or in your Pictures folder?

Have you checked, if your library contains items, that are unable to upload? Photos will only download new photos after the upload is complete.

Please create a smart album (File > New Smart album) with the rule "Photo is unable to upload". Is this album empty?

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Answer 2

photojomb Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 7, 2019 12:12 PM in response to léonie

Léonie: Thank you for your rapid response!

My computer is connected by wi-fi.

Photos Library is stored in Pictures folder. Pictures folder is an alias to a folder on an external hard drive (always connected), and has been in this configuration as long as I have had the computer, ~4-5 years.

Thanks for the reminder about the "Photo is unable to upload" Smart Folder. I had checked this earlier and verified now that there are no photos in this category.

I should add that Photos had been working fine with iCloud for over a year. Then on Sep 1, 2019 I encountered this issue for the first time. Photos had finished uploading all photos (several hours wait!) then began downloading new photos; when it was ~95% finished the hard drive ran out of space.* After waiting several more hours, I decided to reboot. Ever since, Photos seems to be in limbo.

I have even tried starting a new local Photos Library. Nothing to upload, so it should quickly move on to the downloading phase. Only it never sends/receives any network traffic. Internet works fine for everything else on the computer. Photos displays the "Updating..." message for weeks with no changes.

[*] = Hard drive appeared to run out of space, because anything I deleted would end up in a hidden volume, so empty space never increased. Eventually I found an implemented the fix for that.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/362552/something-taking-up-90gb-of-storage-in-macos-catalina-10-15-beta

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Photos not downloading to Mac (no network traffic!)

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