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User profile for user: AMW1205
AMW1205 Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Photos 'Restoring from iCloud' for days

I have been using Photos on my Mac mini for the last year or so with no issues. I have Catalina 10.15.7 with >200Gb disk space free (after import below)


Recently, I imported a large number of photos (c 50K) into Photos to move my collection to one platform. It did not seem to be synchronising the photos and so I googles the issue and rest about rebuilding the database.


The app then showed the number of photos and videos with the words 'Restoring from iCloud...' underneath. I read this could take a while so left the Mac mini on and waited.


The iPhone, iPad and other Mac Mini are all synchronising as normal and they all seem to have gone from around 50K photo to 96K photos but there are still 16K to go and nothing seems to have changed for 6 days.


3 questions if you don't mind:


1) Should I just leave it running and hope?

2) If so, how long should I leave it before i start to think there is a problem?

3) Why do not Apple offer some inkling as to whether it is doing something or not? Any other piece of software that synchronisies large volumes of data has either some form of progress marker or at least some sign it is still working. I find the Apple Photo solution very unhelpful and very user unfrendly in this respect.


Thanks for your advice.


Andrew

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Oct 29, 2020 11:03 AM

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11 replies
User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
197,321 points

Nov 1, 2020 3:55 AM in response to AMW1205

The upgrade to macOS 10.15 deprecated some file types, because the older support libraries for them have been 32bit versions and had to be removed from the system, as Catalina is 64bit only. There is no list of incompatible media for Photos; I am using the list for iMovie as a guide what will be save to use: About legacy media in iMovie for macOS - Apple Support


To get my library working again with iCloud, I did the following:

  • converted all videos to either HEVC or H.264
  • removed all audio files and PDFs from the library.
  • converted all image files in an older format to HEIC or JPEG or TIFF, and made sure to use a compatible color sync profile.

You may want to look at this tip how to search systematically for potentially problematic files: How to Weed out Legacy Media in Photos for Mac - Apple Community


The Activity Monitor output does not show any particular image file, so it is unfortunately not helpful at the moment.


is there any problem with your iCloud subscription? For example lack of iCloud Storage?


I would not interruptive current syncing by repairing the library. Each repair will just make the upload/download start over from scratch and it will just take longer. Restart your Mac and Photos occasionally to ensure that any processes, that ar hanging are restarted, and check for problematic media files in your library, nut let it run.





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User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
197,321 points

Nov 1, 2020 1:14 AM in response to AMW1205

In the Activity Monitor you can occasionally see which files a process is handling. If you search for processes with "Photos" in the name and then double click a process, for example the photolibraryd or image conversion service, then look at the "Open files and ports" tab, you may be seeing the names of the files that are currently analysed.

It may not be the upload to iCloud Photos that is hanging, but Photos may not have finished to prepare the recently imported files. You may want to check, if photolibraryd, Image Conversion service, or photoanalysisd are stuck on one particular video or image file, even an older file you imported before the upgrade to Catalina. macOS 10,15 does no longer support all formats, that the previous system versions supported. One bad apple in your library can block the iCloud upload completely.

What is the status line below the "Photos > Days" currently showing?



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User profile for user: AMW1205
AMW1205 Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Nov 1, 2020 2:50 AM in response to léonie

Thank you so much for your reply. It is so helpful.


My photolibrayd datas shows:


(see attached file as it won't let me include it here)

photolibraryd output



I checked it ten minutes apart and it was the same. What does it indicate?


It seems incredible to me that Apple would not support files they earlier did and even more incredible if they did do that, that they did not detect the depractated file type and skip them. Or move them to a folder which didn't sync. I am not impressed by them.


The status under the Photos remains the same as it has for more than two weeks now:


106,319 Photos, 3,670 Videos

Restoring from iCloud...


Thank you

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User profile for user: AMW1205
AMW1205 Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Oct 30, 2020 7:10 AM in response to léonie

Thanks - the other devices would synchronise any changes I assume, so as there are 106,319 on the Mac and only 92,024 on the other devices, with no change for 7 days now. I am guessing it needs to finish the restoring from the iCloud before it can upload the rest of the new photos.


But how long should I wait? I have 75 Mbps down / 20 MBps up at home.


Thanks


Andrew

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User profile for user: TonyCollinet
TonyCollinet
User level: Level 7
23,954 points

Oct 30, 2020 11:07 AM in response to AMW1205

Internet speed seems to have no bearing on how long it takes. I assume with about a billion people taking pictures with iphones all the time, there is only so much bandwidth apples servers can provide.


I guess they prioritise new photos over large library syncs also, since I never seem to wait more than a few seconds for a new photo to arrive on my Mac.

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User profile for user: AMW1205
AMW1205 Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Oct 31, 2020 4:46 AM in response to TonyCollinet

Tony


Yes, this would seem sensible. However, my Iphone, Ipad and other Mac Mini are all synchronisg instantly. They each show 92,102 Photos and 3799 videos.


The Mac Min where I imported the photos to shows '106,319 Photos and 3670 videos. Restoring from iCloud...'


The last photo ont his mac is where I started the process - nothing has synchronised on it since.


Interestingly, there were around 60,000 photos on all devices and in the fisrt week, this jumped to c90,000 but nothing has happened since in the last week.


The Photos app seems to be working fine in every other respect as does the Mac.


Do I leave it alone? Do I restart the Mac to see if there is a block somewhere? Any other ideas?


Surely some form of feedback or progress bar would solve this issue for so many people?


Andrew

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User profile for user: AMW1205
AMW1205 Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Oct 31, 2020 5:07 AM in response to AMW1205

And as an addendum - my Mac Mini Activity Monitor (All Processes) with only Finder and Photos open, shows only 2 kbytes/sec downlaoded and about the same uplaoded with only 4.3MB downlaoded and 2.1MB sent in the last 15 minutes.


Doesn't seem to be doing a great deal....


Is there any way I can see exactly what Photos is doing?

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Photos 'Restoring from iCloud' for days

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