Photos scanning stuck after upgrade to Big Sur?

I posted this on a similar thread........

Well.........same exact problem, when I updated to Big Sur. I have always used an external. I have 100k total of pics/movies and a 6 TB external Now granted when a new Photo version comes out, in this case version 6, you sometimes have to do a repair/restore with that version within the external and that happens automatically But.........it made no difference, I did a total of three repair/restore, with the same results .......0% of the library scanned. My photos are all there but 0% scanned for People. I can add/import pictures/movies from my IPhone to the external library, but 0% scanned. Having the Photos app running or not running did not make a difference. I decided to first chat with Apple and then spoke on the phone with Apple media tech. He said”you have done everything I would do and added he is seeing complaints like this coming in” His recommendation “ wait for an update patch, that will come in as a software update” . That was a week a week ago the third week of November 2020. So I will be patient and hope it will be forthcoming. I will post an update to this ultimately .

Now for those of you thinking “Maybe my Big Sur app was corrupted when I updated”. Ponder this, I did the Big Sur update on a Mac Mini, attached my external, repaired/restored the external library when it failed, after repeated 0% scan in people, and thought “Yeah maybe it was a corrupted app in Big Sur”.

So, I updated to Big Sur in my 2017 iMac (has a 1 TB SSD.......not a fusion drive ...and 32 GB RAM)......,,,, and same result of 0% scanning. Did a repair/restore twice of the photo library. No change.

So rather than beating this to death and overworking the external , I am going to wait

BTW........I know this is a lengthy response but perhaps seeing what I did may help someone not to repeat it all

Best Regards and waiting

Don

Hi eRosso,

we have had this problem since the Catalina Version came by.

I've hoped they would have cleared this with the new OS.

You can find a lot of posts regarding this topic, and at Catalina time, many thought that the iCloud Backup (restoring after upgrade) was the problem.

I have more tha 80.000 pictures in my Photo App, and none of them are synchronised with iCloud.

It seems that one or more pictures / movies / pdf's or any other type of file, could be corrupted.

I manually ran through thousand of pictures and finally found 4 or 5 pictures, that showed up grey in the thumbnail.

After deleting them, I suddenly in one and a half day got a fully sync'ed Photo Database.

But meanwhile - and I don't know from when, sadly enough - I have had my iMac Pro running for months, where it is stuck with 6.672 pictures to be analysed.

Was ro hope for - what many people have hoped for until know - ist that when a picture can't be analysed, after a time out, the program will jump by, and continue analysing those pictures, that aren't corrupted.

I have my Photos Database on an external ssd drive, and hooked it up to an old MacBook Pro which I'm not using any more.

I can see, that this machine uses almost 100% CPU ressources all the time on PhotoAnalysisd, because I'm using it for other things.

The Prozess can't be cancelled. After each cancel, it pops up again after a shot while.

I put in a link to another thread from the spring.

https://idmsa.apple.com/IDMSWebAuth/signin?path=%2F%2Fthread%2F250714545%3FanswerId%3D252169549022%26replyId%3D252169549022%26login%3Dtrue&language=US-EN&instanceId=EN&appIdKey=529eb2b096d5a3d54162171f0f29ba797e602812660013123243e58bc7bedf56&rv=1

Please put your solution to the problem within this thread, if you should be so lucky to find one.

I'll follow it from know on.

/Jesper

Hi eRosso,

no thanks needed.

We all would rather that we didn't need the thread.

I'm sorry to say, that you should read through the thread, because some people found help in some of the suggestions.

None of them didn't help me though.

As some people write, the Photo program tries constantly to update it selves, even though it is stuck.

This have the effect, that my iMac Pro (10 Core /64GB) constantly puts about 20-30% of its resources to finishing up the updates.

I do feel an effect raise, when I remove the SSD disc with the Photo Database. Meaning, that I always have to mount the Disc when I want to look into some photos.

Let's hope for the best.

"Those who is hoping/waiting for something good, do not wait in vain."

Even though we have been waiting since Februar. But it is Christmas sonn - so maybe .....

/Jesper

Really interesting... I thought my lack of photo face scanning was due to my moving my System Photo Library to an external SSD but... I just reopened the original copy which is still on my internal drive, and the last face it scanned and added was on November 13, which was right before I installed Big Sur! None of the photos added after that date have any faces scanned. I had noticed this at the time, but figured it was because many of the faces had masks on. But there's a very clear selfie with no mask that never got a face assigned to it. Now I realize it's Big Sur that's the problem. It has nothing to do with external drives, as I didn't have one in use until Nov 29. I will be reporting this to Apple, and everyone else should, too.

Reporting it to Apple is essential......I encourage all to do so, As mentioned in my posts, I started with a chat with an Apple Tech (twice) and in turn the chat tech had an Apple Media tech call me and we talked at length

I forgot to add that my external is an HDD, so this glitch impacts both SSD and HDD externals Has to all be Big Sur related

I really appreciate all of our discussions on this

Regrards Don

I left Photos open overnight with the System Photo Library. In the Library view, when scrolling to the bottom, there is the progress bar with the rotating message of "Gathering Favorites... Analyzing Scenes... Detecting Duplicates... Curating Best Photos... Composing Layout..." I took a screenshot of the progress bar at the beginning of the evening and now (noon the next day) and it has not moved one pixel. I know that in the past I have seen the progress bar move rather quickly. So this seems to be related to whatever is jammed.

I know the standard advice would be to repair the Photo Library, but I already did that (took half a day) and it was no help. :-(

It’s great that everyone is continuing to contribute to this discussion Let’s keep it going My third phone discussion now with a media tech, this one linked to my Mac and he walked me through obtaining specific logs for the photos library in my external drive Pretty patient people, since I can be pretty thick Before you ask, that particular recovery of specific logs is only done by Apple and a shared screen and by their specific downloads and specific instructions The next step is for him to send this to Apple Software Engineers. I advised of the different solutions people found here and he said, that solutions could differ from each individual Mac. I will get back to you all after it is resolved. The Medua Tech said “there has been only 27 reports::complaints to Apple concerning this issue(s) I sent him this community link of our discussions. He will share that with the Apple Support Software Engineer

don

Well I can relate to the idea maybe another photo program but I am going to hang on to see if an Apple patch arrives If No solution comes then might be time to get to the Masters folders and start the long copy process But that far in the future if I jump ship But hopefully a solution arrives Regards Don

Hi Léonie,

be aware of, if the Photo Database is connected to your computer, the program works in the background and "steels" resources from your daily business.

What influence it haves on the lifespan of the disc SSD or not, is hard to say / unknown, as we do not know how much big the interaction is within the consistence of trying.

/Jesper

If I'm reading the Console app correctly (highly questionable), the photoanalysisd process opens every night on my Mac, but the process ends after only 90 seconds. For example:

photoanalysisd_2020-12-06-020623_Aluminum.cpu_resource.diag 12/6/20 2:06 AM System

Date/Time: 2020-12-06 02:04:47.043 -0500

End time: 2020-12-06 02:06:22.490 -0500

OS Version: macOS 11.0.1 (Build 20B29)

Architecture: x86_64h

Report Version: 32

Incident Identifier: FFEFF054-8613-4C3E-8A71-7D09C78E2526

Data Source: Microstackshots

Shared Cache: 9F6FFF1F-4096-355B-B037-8DCE73A7AA42 slid base address 0x7fff20025000, slide 0x25000

Command: photoanalysisd

Path: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PhotoAnalysis.framework/Versions/A/Support/photoanalysisd

Version: ??? (???)

Parent: UNKNOWN [1]

PID: 13368

Event: cpu usage

Action taken: none

CPU: 90 seconds cpu time over 95 seconds (94% cpu average), exceeding limit of 50% cpu over 180 seconds

CPU limit: 90s

Limit duration: 180s

CPU used: 90s

CPU duration: 95s

Duration: 95.45s

Duration Sampled: 89.78s

Steps: 52

Hardware model: iMac16,2

Active cpus: 4

...and then there are probably 1000+ lines of code that I'm not sure I should post here.

Is there some clue I should be looking for in those lines of code?

Last week, I went through my photos and deleted a bunch of greyed out thumbnails (mostly old AVIs) from 2009. No improvement.

I also found some damaged Live Photos that were not animating and I deleted those. No improvement.

Then this week, I upgraded to Big Sur 11.1, but after several days, there is still no face scanning... stuck at 0 faces scanned. :-(

Hi Don,

It is not related to Big Sur.

I had the Problem since end 2019.

After cleaning some greyed thumbs, it suddenly was up and running again. Until Feb. 2020. Since the I haven't been able to locate the problem.

Every time I connect the SSD where Photos is located, iMAC 10 Core/64GB is pumping ressources into finishing the sync.

Overall I would guess, that it minimum put more than 10% ressources into nothing. At some time, the SSD was connected throughout months, and it is still not getting to the end.

Other threads have suggested, that it could have something to do with iCloud up-/download, but I don't think the problem lays here. I do not replicate my 90.000 photos to iCloud.

Regards

Jesper