why is photoanalysisd not scanning my library in Big Sur?

Hello jmernin

Yes, based on what you provided, looks like the same issue. When I last spoke with media tech from Apple, I told him that photoanalysisd in my activity monitor showed activity as well (like yours). The tech said "it could be for any number of reasons if your photo album is open....it is not necessarily because it is scanning faces/people specifically, so you can't go by just that".

As a recap of what I previously said in my posts, the tech said the answer may be forthcoming in an apple update. About a week ago or so I downloaded an apple update hoping the fix was in that, but it wasn't. Still waiting. But the more people complain about this directly to apple, the better. How do you complain? Chat to them via support is what I do.

Concerning your post that says Photos app is not suggesting there are any other faces/photos, Here is where I see it, go to People, and scroll to the bottom page. That is where I see " 0 Photos Scanned, 108,233 Remaining." It should have a message like that. The issue is scanning, in People. For instance when it is scanning for People, it would say 98% scanned and 500 photos remaining. My scanning was working right up until the day I installed Big Sur. Now the question may be that when it starts scanning will you have to wait for the remaining photos to be scanned, or will it pick up where it left off and only scan new photos imported. I think it picks up where you left off on the new photos . But we will all see right?

Hopefully Apple provides a fix soon. And too, hopefully my information does not cause further confusion to others. Remember I am just a "user" like the rest of us, and only providing information I have directly obtained from Apple, and/or surmised by trying stuff out.

Patiently waiting for the fix.

Best Regards

Don

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, Don.

In terms of why my Photos app is not showing any photos being scanned, remember that my library was fully scanned and up-to-date before the Big Sur upgrade, so I would not expect to see that message most of the time anyway. However, I would, as you say, expect to see it (briefly) after importing a couple of new photos, but I don't - that's the the thing. It's like it simply doesn't realise there are new photos to be scanned.

I will look to contact Apple support to report the issue too.

I contacted Apple Support and they suggested trying an SMC reset [1] (or a NVRAM reset) to see if this helps. To be honest, I was quite skeptical at first but, to be fair, the SMC reset has actually fixed a multitude of weird issues for me in the past and the support engineer also said that it's no bad idea to do this after an upgrade anyway (especially a major version upgrade like Big Sur was), so I decided to give it a try.

While my issue is still not fixed, one hopeful outcome is that I *am* now seeing the standard message (i.e. People will finish updating when Photos is in the background) at the bottom of the People view, which at least suggests that Photos may be attempting to scan the photos after all.

I'm guessing I'lll have to give it a day or so to see if things improve so will report back here to let you know either way.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMAdyMkv-Lg

The "Updating People" message is still appearing at the bottom of People view but it seems to be impossible know if/when Photos is actually scanning for faces. I've been keeping an eye on the "photoanalysisd" process using Activity Monitor but rarely see it registering much CPU usage beyond 1-2 minutes, no matter what way I leave the Photos app (i.e. running or not, in the foreground or background). This really is a terrible user experience.

Still no resolution to my issue. The most recent call with Apple Support suggested that quitting the Photos app (and powering the laptop from battery, with settings configured to prevent it from sleeping) is actually the best way for the faces to be processed in the background. However, after another 2 days of that, I'm still seeing the same issues. More updates as I have them.

Just wanted to row in to this problem.

I have a 200000+ Photos Library all in "scanned state" before upgrading to Big Sur.

After upgrading, only newly imported photos did not get scanned.

So I decided (before reading this thread) to repair my Library.

I ran the repair/restore an now i have 210000 photos remaining to be scanned and 0 done.

I have the feeling, that "Faces" is completly broken in 11.1.

Also, many faces that were named before the repair aren't named any more after the repair/restore.

So, waiting for the next update...

Hi Richard,

I tried this (on a copy of my library) too and saw the same outcome. Repair complete but zero photos scanned and a bunch of photos missing faces that were present beforehand. That's a general observation I've made with the repair process, though, where it seems to forget certain faces in certain photos post-repair (perhaps the ones manually added).

While it's good that our observations are similar (i.e. supporting evidence that a systemic issue is at play), it's bad that something so fundamental is not working.

Hello,

thanks for you reply.

I'm also not too worried about the missing faces, because I'm sure, once scanning is functional again, 99% will be re-recognized.

If not, I still have the pre-Big Sur Library untouched on the old external Hard-Drive.

I did some further tests on my wifes new M1 MBP and created a new Library on the internal SSD there, imported about 20 Photos, closed Photos.app and let it sit there connected to power for a few hours.

0 photos scanned...

Is face recognition working for anybody with 11.1?

I still have another Play-Mac in the Beta-Program. I'm about to install 11.2 there to see, if we get a new Photos.app-Vesion...

Best Regards

Richard

So in the Public Beta of 11.2 there is a new version of Photos.app (330.0.110).

When launching Photos, the Library is updated.

But I don't really want to test my huge Library with this new Beta-version and copying would take very long for my library-size (2TB).

Are there any Release Notes with the newer version that could indicate what has changed in the newer version of the Photos app?

Also, if you try creating a new library and importing a couple of photos to that, do the faces in those photos get scanned?

Thanks for the work you're doing to try to debug this.

Hello,

unfortunately, there are no proper release Notes for the Beta (as most of the times with the Betas).

I created a library and the Photos were scanned without problems. The same photos imported to a new Library on my 11.1 primary Mac did not get scanned.

But I have to admit, that I did not spend too much time with Photos.app on this specific Computer with 11.1.

So scanning may have worked before in this Mac.

I've had a couple of follow-up phone calls with Apple Support in recent days and they had me run a Data Capture app (for a few minutes) which they're now going to analyze, to see if they can determine what is (not) going on. I'll report back on any updates they send me.

I also read some other support threads that suggested using the OSX Console app to shed some light on what the photoanalysisd process might be doing. While this did reveal some errors, it's not fully clear to me if those are normal or not (i.e. I'm not overly familiar with what "normal" console output for that app looks like).

My cloned library has still not scanned a single photo either, so everything still points to facial scanning simply being broken on 11.1.

I also created a brand new library and imported 33 photos to it, and observed the following messages in the People view:

"Photos will continue scanning your remaining 33 photos when you're not using the app and your Mac is connected to power."

Once again, the definition of "not using" is unclear here.

"To finish scanning your library, quit Photos and make sure your Mac is connected to power"

This is clearer, though, and does suggest that quitting the application should invoke the scanning features.

I'll leave the new library overnight to see if any of the 33 imported photos are scanned.

I've had a couple of phone calls from Apple Support on this topic over the past 1-2 weeks. They've installed numerous log analysis tools, verified all my settings and tried all sorts of other known solutions (to common Photos issues) but we've yet to find a solution. Will post more updates if/when I have them.

I forgot to mention one suggestion made by the Apple Support engineer (in their Creative Media division). They suggested creating a brand new user on my Mac and importing some photos to the (empty) Photos library there, with a view to identifying whether the issues I'm seeing are specific to my particular library or user, or something system-wide on my Mac.

The good news is, when I created this new user, imported around 50 photos and then left it scanning overnight (with the Photos app stopped), the photos now have circles around the faces.

While my specific issue is still not solved, this at least proves that the Photos app is not fundamentally broken on Big Sur. I'll report back again once I speak to the Apple engineer again.