Problems with photos library since installing Catalina

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Level 1

7 points

Problems with photos library since installing Catalina

I am running Catalina on a 2014 MacBook Pro.

I get error messages that photos library cannot open my libraries that are on my external hard drives. I am still able to open the libraries that are on my Mac.

I have used Time Machine to back up. At this point, I'm doing a backup today on Time Machine before attempting to restore a time frame, but I'm wondering about the best course of action when I do that. Since I am running Catlalina , and there are known problems with the way it is handling photos libraries, is there a method I should use to open these external hard drive libraries effectively with all the information?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 2, 2020 3:11 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

195,295 points

Oct 3, 2020 5:07 AM in response to MosLens

MosLens wrote:

They were formatted before using for Mac. And they were working perfectly until Catalina (:

Thank you for the input.

If you purchase an external volume with the specification "formatted for Mac"; it does not necessary mean, the format is compatible with Photos for Mac. Even if it worked before Catalina, you may have been using an incompatible file system format all along. Catalina is more rigorously checking the volumes before putting Photos Libraries there. Prepare the volume as described here: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Oct 3, 2020 2:35 AM in response to MosLens

Again though, which format?

Also is the "ignore ownership" checkbox ticked?

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Answer 3

Oct 2, 2020 3:53 PM in response to MosLens

Hi

What format are the external drives. Apple requires drives to be formatted APFS or MacOS extended (Journaled) if you are putting phtotos libraries onto them.

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