You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Photos freezes when I try to delete some pics

Since downloading OS 10.15.4 this morning Photos freezes when I try to delete some photos.


It worked fine yesterday.

iMac 27", macOS 10.14

Posted on Apr 10, 2020 8:39 AM

Reply
10 replies

Apr 10, 2020 9:46 AM in response to exantiam

Please read the following user tip and restate your question/problem in detail: Writing an Effective Apple Support Communities Question - Apple Community  


As a test launch Photos with the Option key held down and create a new, test library.  Import some photos and test to see if the same problem persists. Does it? (This tells us if the problem is limited to your current library or is more wide spread)


Next log into another user account, Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac and see if the problem persists (this tells us if the problem is limited to your user account or is system wide).


Boot into Safe Mode (How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support) by booting with the Shift key held down and check there to see if the problem persists.  Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing some system cache cleaning, volume verifying and directory repairing. 




Apr 11, 2020 10:28 AM in response to Old Toad

Since you can use Photos OK in the other user account there's something in your account that's may be the culprit. 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 in the app's Privacy preference pane 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 determine the root of the problem.



Apr 11, 2020 8:07 AM in response to Old Toad

Old Toad, Thanks for the reply.

I had already tried Safe Mode with no success.

Test launch with new library took forever to import ONE photo.

So I set up a new user and Photos worked fine.

I went back to the Test library, and that now worked fine!


Photos with my original library still refuses to play ball. Select a photo to delete and when asked if you are sure, and click 'Delete',

Photos locks up with a 'Deleting' window.


Tony


It also locks if you try to duplicate a photo, with a duplicating window.



Apr 14, 2020 4:15 AM in response to Old Toad

iCloud is not enabled.

Well. I tried repairing/restoring the library several times yesterday with no success.

I restarted my Mac several times and still no success.

I restored a backup from before the problem, again, and it worked fine, for a while, and then failed.

One more restart and it worked. I went to bed.

This morning it failed again. I created a new user, imported lots of pics and everything was dandy. Went back to me.

I changed System Photo Library from one library to another and it didn't like the System library but was happy with the other?

I eventually, after going backwards and forwards a few times, I settled on my Original System Library and it appears to be working, and stable. I feel more confident that all is well because Photo Stream suddenly imported a lot of photos from my iPhone.


It's been an hour now and it's still functioning as it should.

Thank you very much for all your help, I have no idea which part cured my problem, but with your help, it's gone. Thank you again.

Apr 14, 2020 5:37 AM in response to exantiam

Photo stream seems to be causing this kind of problems in Photos 5 on macOS 10.15.

Several users have reported, that they had problems deleting photos, as long as they have been using my Photo Stream.

My Photo Stream is no longer suitable to transfer photos from iPhones and iPads, because it has never been updated to support videos or Live Photos. Users with a new AppleID cannot even enable it at all.



Photos freezes when I try to delete some pics

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.