why is photoanalysisd not scanning my library in Big Sur?

the same thing has happened to me with over 7,000 photos, I hope they fix this in the next update!

This is super helpful, Don! I've gone through all sorts of experimental fixes on Photos, all to no avail. Glad to hear that it is not just me.

Warm regards,

Trey

You're welcome Still no fix from Apple Patiently waiting I think it will help if people advise them of the complaint, so everyone should do so

Regards

Don

Seems like I'm in the same situation. Rebuilding didn't help/

I followed these steps and scanning still doesn’t seem to be working on the photo library on my external drive...

Any tips with that?

I *think* I'm having the same issue but would appreciate a consensus view from others here. Here's what I'm seeing:

*Setup*

A library of around 13,000 photos, stored on the inbuilt disk on my Mac Book Pro, with years of investment in facial/people scanning, geo-tagging etc. but library in good shape overall (on Catalina) before the upgrade to Bug Sur.

*Problem*

Since the upgrade to Big Sur, new photos imported to my library do not detect any faces in them (been waiting more than 3 weeks) but all faces in previous photos are still there.

Photos app is not suggesting there are any other faces/photos to be scanned and seeing occasional CPU usage by photoanalysisd in Activity Monitor. Have also tried quitting Photos app, minimizing it and leave it run behind other windows, all to no avail.

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

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