What changes was made to the Photos App since upgrade to Mojave??

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Level 1

8 points

What changes was made to the Photos App since upgrade to Mojave??

After my upgrade to Mojave I have had endless challenges with the Photos app.

My Photo Library that I keep on an external drive was not recognised.
After I read the community I did the following:
1. Tried to repair the Library file, this run close to 3 days, Library is close to 574GB.
2. The above effort got stuck on 99%.
3. Read advice again and created new library and imported all media, 574GB of it.
When I opened the new Library file, I had exactly the same problem than in 2.1 above.
Re-created a Library file, this time only moving master folder across, this seemed to work fine.
Another challenge is that the People updates does not work at all, if when leaving computer on, it ust does not work.
When importing new media it gets stuck and idles on Importing 0 of 0 and I have to Force Quit and restart to get reaction again.
I am so frustrated, it is so unstable, I am not used to this kind of behaviour from Apple Apps, must say, I am quite disappointed, this was the reason I moved from Windows 10 years ago.

I would really appreciate help from someone that is hands on that may assist sorting out this problem. I have invested a lot of time and money to maintain my Private Family Memories in this library, I hope I am not going to regret this.

Posted on Jan 3, 2020 8:38 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

197,619 points

Jan 5, 2020 6:31 AM in response to JCAOJCLA

JCAOJCLA wrote:

...

Answers to 1 and 2 is yes

That is not good. Photos on Mojave and Catalina cannot work with a library, if it is on a volume, that has been used for Time Machine backups. This will cause problems with the file ownership.

Move the library to a different volume and prepare it as described here: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

210,813 points

Jan 12, 2020 9:41 AM in response to JCAOJCLA

As Terence mentioned those are issues that are certainly not normal and something must be contributing to them. Download and run Etrecheck. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Copy the report

and use the Add Text button to include the report in your reply. How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report

IMPORTANT:

Before running Etrecheck assign Full Disk Access to Etrecheck so that it can get additional information from the Console and log files for the report:

ALSO important:

Then we can examine the report and see if we can get a handle on the root of the problem.

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

197,619 points

Jan 4, 2020 8:21 AM in response to JCAOJCLA

Some more things to check:

Is your external volume used for Time Machine backups? A Photos Library cannot be opened on a Time Machine volume.
Have you tested if Photos working at all on your Mac after the Catalina upgrade? If you create a new, small library in your Pictures folder and import a few photos, does it work? Can you make the library the system photo library in "Photos > Preferences > General: Use as System Photo Library"?
Have you given "Full Disk Access" to Photos in the "System Preferences > Security & Privacy"?

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Answer 4

JCAOJCLA Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 11, 2020 10:41 PM in response to léonie

Sorry, the above advice actually did not solve the problem.

I did not use the external drive as a time machine drive, and have never before.
The Photos App is not the stable and consistent I have been used to since 2009 I started using it.
I have created a brand new Photos Library on my local machine, imported photos and videos, I thought the sluggishness and hanging was due to the external library size, I still have the same problem on this new system library of 2,79GB
A simple photo rotation takes more than 2 minutes
I had to search and find, switch on and off, hide and show faces before I could see the actual add faces tool to use on my faces album, faces are not recognised, and the tool does not appear automatically on faces as it used to in the past.
I added and recognised 13 faces and left Photos open in the background for a full night last night during which a total of 18 faces was scanned with 6453 faces remaining
This experience is so counterproductive, this "messy upgrade" have left Photos and Memories that should be a pleasant experience as something that I dread, that is wasting my time such as Windows operating systems have done in the past.
I would appreciate an honest recommendation for a replacement app for Apple Photos, or at least an explanation and timeline on when these nagging issues will be fixed.

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Answer 5

Yer_Man

Level 10

164,010 points

Jan 12, 2020 1:54 AM in response to JCAOJCLA

The issues you describe are enormous and very unusual. I've never seen anyone report a rotation taking two minutes, for instance, and this makes me wonder if there is something else going on here, perhaps not directly related to Photos itself. How much free space is on your internal drive? What Mac are you on? How much Ram does it have? Do you have issues with other apps, particularly issues related to speed?

In relation to number 8, I'll just point out that you're not talking to Apple here, only other users who are giving their time and experience for free to help you. So no one here owes you any explanations, nor has any idea of what Apple's plans and timelines are. If you want that kind of information you would need to contact Apple directly.

As for alternative apps there are several very good ones. What kind of photographer are you? What volume to do you shoot? Raw or Jpeg? DSLR or Phone and P&S? What's your budget? What features of Photos do you feel are key to you?

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