Why has Photos forgotten faces it previously identified?

Question

Level 1

8 points

Why has Photos forgotten faces it previously identified?

I'm doing the major re-org of my nearly decades-old, 80K photo collection. I've moved the library to a new external drive and started syncing with icloud. Everything was going well for a couple of weeks as I organized folders and albums and deleted duplicates. Photos was scanning through, identifying faces. The library was uploading to the icloud, though way more were "not able to be uploaded" than I liked, but they're still on the external drive.

This week, however, Photos "forgot" thousands of photos that it had previously scanned. It doesn't see faces on them at all, even though it had previously identified them. Additionally, when using my photo library for my screen saver, the computer isn't able to find or load them.

I tried the repair tool last night, but the problem remains. I haven't been able to find anything similar in the forums. Has anybody else ever experienced this?

Posted on Mar 4, 2021 10:01 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,783 points

Mar 4, 2021 11:52 PM in response to moifeeg

One more question: Which system version is running on your Mac?

Did you recently install a system upgrade? After a system upgrade Photos may temporarily forget the faces while it is using the new, improved face recognition to scan the library again for faces.

When you use the Library Repair tool on an iCloud Photos Library, it will result in a new upload and syncing of the library with iCloud. This can take several days for a large library. For an iCloud Photo Library I would only use the repair tool as a last resort, if nothing else will help, and when I am sure it is a problem, that can be fixed by a library repair.

What is the status line showing for your library? Is it still showing "Uploading" or downloading"? While Photos is still syncing with iCloud the face detection may be paused, because faces are syncing with iCloud since macOS 10.13 High Sierra.

I would first fix the "Unable to upload" problem and remove all photos and videos from your library, that are unable to upload. The same items might be blocking the face detection.

Has the external volume been used for Time Machine backups? If yes, it is not suitable to host a Photos Library, because of the special security features for time Machine volumes.

Reply

Answer 2

Mar 4, 2021 10:17 PM in response to moifeeg

Is the external drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (GUID) with "Finder > Get Info: Ignore ownership on this volume ON"?

Reply

Answer 3

moifeeg Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 5, 2021 9:37 AM in response to léonie

Thank you for your help.

The external drive contains only my music and photo libraries.

I did recently upgrade to Big Sur, but the issue didn't appear until several days or perhaps weeks after that. I don't know how to see updates between my library and icloud. I'm not familiar with a status line, however, the number of scanned photos, as shown in the People gallery recently dropped back to zero and hasn't moved in days.

Baring any solution here, I'm likely going to purchase a new machine soon anyway. I may be facing the problem with new variables in a week or so.

Reply

Answer 4

moifeeg Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 5, 2021 9:24 AM in response to Matti Haveri

It is formatted as APFS. Again, this library on this drive had been working recently. While it is "new", having created it in February, it was functioning properly until this week.

Reply

Why has Photos forgotten faces it previously identified?

Similar questions