why is photoanalysisd not scanning my library in Big Sur?

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).

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 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 have very similar situation, if not the same and just chiming in case Apple is keeping track at all of the number of users affected by this issue.

Bought new Mac Mini M1 and have tried using my external HD with photos library from pre-Big Sur on it. It's been a couple of weeks already and it still shows '0 photos scanned. ~90k remaining'. Unfortunately I'm not able to spend too much time trying to troubleshoot it so will keep following your thread here to see if you are able to arrive at a solution with Apple. Really hope I don't have to start a new library and retrain several faces!

Wow, that's very exciting news! Light at the end of the tunnel :)

I'll take it slowly to see if I can pinpoint which step (if a single one) solves the issue. I'm already running into some differences though :)

I skipped to step 3 (configuration reset) because I thought that was the step that most likely solved the issue. For me, however, I was only able to fully 'nest' some of those folders, because others the option to create 'new folder with selection' simply was greyed out once I selected all files/folders... In some folders I was able to pick the files that were 'not' making the option grey out and I nested those, but in several folders I wasn't able to nest any files. I 'think' it is a permission issue, but am not sure.. Usually it asks me for my password when there's something that requires permissions and it moves along, but in this case I don't even have the option to request the command (it's just grey). Did you run into this issue? Did you have to do this step with a 'special user'?

Then, just to check, I went to see what was in the 'login items' for step 1 and as I expected it was already all empty. My Mac Mini M1 is a new machine that already came with Big Sur and I didn't transfer anything other than the photos library from my previous mac, so not much software loaded.

I'm letting it stand still for some time with the Photos app closed to see if what I was able to do on step 3 may have helped... If this doesn't work I'll do step 2 and redo step 3 again.

Fingers crossed :)

All,

I can confirm that jmernin's solution outlined on his Jan 22nd post WORKS! My Photos app started scanning photos overnight and has already processed ~8k out of my ~90k photos. Thanks jmernin for battling this out together with Apple's tech support!

FYI, I only really performed Step #3 of the post. And even with that I was not able to 'nest' all files as I described in my previous post. Nevertheless, whatever I was able to nest seems to have worked as the scanning has finally started. If for any reason it doesn't complete I'll come back and let everyone know but as of now it all is looking good!

Good luck to anyone else having the same problem.

That's great to hear and am happy you've had some success so far.

In terms of your other questions and observations:

1) I did have to enter the admin password a couple of times when nesting (I'm presuming the user you're logged in as is an admin too, right)?

2) I never did think this was anything to do with my login items (to your point about only trying steps 3 in my update).

3) I did wonder if the Malware items detected could have been relevant (these were MacKeeper and Photos Duplicate Cleaner), especially since one of them was loosely related to Photos.

4) It's be interesting to cross-reference the directories you could and could not fully nest, against mine, to see if this could shed light on specifically which individual directory or file may have been the ultimate root cause.

All this is great news........but I must admit I am lost on how to even proceed on the 3 configuration reset . For instance some of us are unable to figure how to even start in 3a. I for one have no idea of how to find these directories to look at User or System settings .....squiggly symbol/library means nothing to me. I am a bit thick unless each and every step is actually spelled out . But I a, glad there is a resolution.

For me neither.

I moved away the stuff from the /Library/... and ~/Library/... Folders.

The "Virus"-Scanner did not find anything.

After two nights of leaving the computer running without any programs running still 0 Photos scanned...

Best Regards

Richard

That's possible, but question for you: did you see any activity with photoanalysisd in Activity Monitor? I wasn't seeing that either which, to me, was an indication that the scanning still was not happening.

The other curious thing is, my system photo library seems to be scanning fine. I'm only really having issues with the second library on the external.

Thanks for your insight with this!

As mentioned, step 3 of the fix worked for me. However, I would like to point out that the paths were a little different than expected...

Usually '~/' means the user folder ('/Users/username/'). However, finder doesn't display any 'Library' folder in my user folder.. even though I can see it through the command prompt.

The folders I worked on in finder were '/Library' and '/System/Library'. I think the '/Library' is actually a hard link to my user folder library that I can't see through Finder.

I don't mean to confuse people but the reason I bring this up is you may want to check '/System/Library' and see if your nesting also applied to there...

You are correct. Finder does not normally show you the ~/Library folder (that's why I recommended the Go, Go to Folder menu option instead). However, I also happen to know that, if you select the Go menu in Finder and then press (and hold) the Alt key while the Go menu is on display, the Library folder will appear that way as well.

@jmernin

• Ad 2) Thanks for the word definition. Though very obscure by Apple.
• Ad 1) You are welcome. I wanted to contribute to the community and not sit on my experience but compile it together. As the comments show, quite many people were affected. It's a core app from Apple. Hope this gets improved.

Update on my previous post:

1) The number of pictures remaining to be scanned is stuck at 281, and photoanalysisd only registers additional CPU time in Activity Monitor when the Photos app is open. As soon as I close Photos, photoanalysisd has no activity.

2) I've tried importing photos from my iPhone (via USB cable connection). With Mojave, I remember seeing faces on newly imported photos relatively quickly. With photos in Big Sur, NOTHING.

3) No changes or improvements noted after upgrading to Big Sur 11.2 either.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. Those steps feel like something that a Library Repair operation might do also, but I tend to avoid a formal library repair as it often "forgets" many of the faced I had manually added.