Large photos album problems syncing

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Level 1

8 points

Large photos album problems syncing

I have 1.3tb of photos (about 80,000 images and videos)

I have eventually managed to get my Mac mini running Mojave to keep the photos library up to date.

i have a dual boot on my Mac mini and I have the second boot on Catalina but on here I can't get in to my Apple account so my updated photos library will not update.

i also have a MacBook Pro with a 5tb external drive - it had a full copy of the Mojave photo library. This has now been updated to work with Catalina photos app - but i ham having a problem with the library updating. It has been trough several stages but never completes any of them after days of constant running.

it said it needed to upload them all to iCloud but there wasn't enough space and I can't buy more than 2tb so it runs and doesn't take up more space but never completes

after several reboots and killing processes it now says it is restoring from iCloud (which it doesn't need to do but) it is showing a full 100% blue line indicating it is about finished and has been like that for several days. I have also shut down and restarted and it still shows 100% restored but says it is still restoring.

Photos I have taken since this started are not yet showing on the MacBook Pro but are showing everywhere else.

I have tried repairing the album and everything else I have been able to find online - killing processes several times.

I am going away in a couple of weeks and want to spend some time editing my original photos and creating a new photo year book and holiday book. So I need photos on the Mac book pro to be working.

any additional ideas please.

apple needs to get iCloud and particularly photos sorted. Syncing full resolution photos when they are already synced is totally unnecessary - let's have some decent fixes from Apple support for these issues.

MacBook Pro 15”, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 28, 2019 2:43 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

kev114

Level 1

18 points

Jan 5, 2020 11:00 AM in response to Joseph_S.

Thanks -I have one for the brutal fix having tried a full download in to a new library that also failed. Rebuilt MacOS and start from scratch it is no half way down and should finish in another 2 or 3 days maybe 4 or 5 days.

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Answer 2

chris_g1

Community Specialist

Dec 31, 2019 11:49 AM in response to Kev Reid

Hello Kev Reid.

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.

If I'm understanding correctly, you are having trouble with updating your iCloud Photo Library because of not having enough iCloud Storage. I know how important it is to be able to update my photos with iCloud and I will be glad to assist.

Since 2TB is the iCloud storage plan limit, I would suggest submitting some feedback below:

iCloud- Feedback

For more information on iCloud storage plans, please see the following:

Buy more iCloud storage

Cheers.

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Answer 3

Kev Reid Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 1, 2020 4:03 AM in response to chris_g1

That's a minor point.

I have tried so many different ways to resolve this. The 2Tb limit is a problem but it is something I can get round.

in fact my MacBook Pro finder states the library is 1.39tb and it is uploading and can't do so because of space on the cloud. But it then goes into a restoring state and the library starts to grow locally and gets to 2.39tb in size - it reports 99% downloaded but never completes after 3 days.

i have killed that and tried to delete the library - but that never allows the library to be removed from the local drive. Empty basket never finishes after more than a day.

i tried to clear the drive by reformatting but it can't unmount the drive because finder is using it. Killed everything and restart the Mac - finder still using the drive but no activity . Still can't unmount.

pull drive without using the unload button and plug it back in - eventually after several attempts I got to reformat the drive and set about restoring the library to a new library which now insists on showing the extension even though the hide file types is on. I set the new library to be a system library and set up iCloud to not download the originals. After a couple of hours the library is updated. I shut down and restart and the library is still in good shape at 3.9 gb in size. I switch library to download originals and the library shows downloading 80,000 originals - the library still shows 3.9gb in finder. But the disk which only has a library on it is showing 26gb - clearly this is the download taking up additional space and not yet closed and allocated to the library.

but everytime I leave the system unattended - lid open, caffeinated, screen and disks set to no run down. It eventually shows the login screen ( password required to enable Touch ID ) enter the password and everything is still in the same state. No extra downloads ( it logs me out again after 30 mins or so ) and I have to enter password again to enable Touch ID which never seems to work any more. (Touch ID used to work as did my Apple Watch unlock) but all this has stopped working since I started to try to get my originals on my MacBook Pro.

sorry there are many issues going on here

photo originals not downloading

touch login not working

logging me off every 30 mins or so even though I have everything set to stay logged in.

i have read the downloads are faster if photos is not running but that doesn't seem to work either.

photos still says downloading 80k photos and it is not paused.

thanks

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

197,089 points

Jan 5, 2020 11:04 AM in response to Kev Reid

Kev Reid,

you can currently not trust the file sizes you are seeing in the Finder on Catalina. The file sizes for the Photos Library have been completely random for my iCloud Photos Library on macOS 10.15.2. While the Originals folder inside the library had a size of 180GB, the complete library has been showing a size of 1.2GB. After repairing the library the size changed to 4GB. Ignore the file sizes, they are currently making no sense in macOS 10.15.2 cataina.

Deleting a Photos Library is problematic, if it is the system photo library and the iCloud Photo Library, because then it will be continually in use, as long as you you are logged in. Try to create a new, empty System Photo Library, then restart the Mac, before you try to delete the old system photo library.

You mentioned "Caffein". Do you have any other third party software installed, that may have added incompatible system extensions? You may want to check with Etrecheck, if something nasty is installed, that could be causing problems.

And I would test with a small test photos library, if Photos is working at all as intended.

I am not sure from your posts, how you have been restoring the library after the upgrade to Catalina. I restored my library from iCloud by creating a new, empty library and letting it download from iCloud, to skip the lengthy upload to iCloud. is that what you have done too?

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Answer 5

Joseph_S.

Community Specialist

Jan 5, 2020 10:26 AM in response to Kev Reid

Hi Kev Reid.

Thanks for following up. I would next recommend contacting Apple Support. Here's how:

Contact Apple for support and service

Take care.

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Answer 6

Kev Reid Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 5, 2020 2:18 PM in response to léonie

I have restored macOS a fresh copy and downloaded from iCloud to a new library. It is taking days but hopefully it will get there. 30,000 images still to download.

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Large photos album problems syncing

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