Photos for Mac stuck on "Updating Library" with a progress bar at "94% complete."

ok, but regarding iCloud, since I have no pics there, I’ve left internet router off during this process.

Photos needs internet access when upgrading and analysing the library, for example to look up locations. I would keep the internet connection available, even of you are not using iCloud Photos. How much free storage is on the external? Photos needs a lot of free storage while rebuilding the library.

You wrote "The library contains 50 yrs of photos, 65,300 pic, 2,458 vids, 172 items, is over 850Gb". Did you check your videos and older images for compatibility, before you upgraded from Mojave to Big Sur? If you have videos or image files in a legacy format in your library, the upgrade may hang because Photos will not be able to recreate the thumbnails and previews. I am looking at the support document for iMovie to check for legacy media: About incompatible media in iMovie for macOS - Apple Support

I had to remove and convert many of my Final Cut videos to het the Photos Library migrated to Big Sur, also the Live Photos I created from video clips using Into Live Pro. These items appeared in a smart album with the rule "Photo is unable to upload to iCloud". Even if you are not using iCloud, this smart album can help you to find incompatible items.

What has triggered the library update? Have you just upgraded to Big Sur? Or something else.

Is the library stored in your pictures folder? Or somewhere else. If on an external volume, what is the format.

How long have you been waiting for the update to complete? How big is the library?

Tony,

“this is not limited by your inernet speed, but by Apple servers. If yours runs at the same speed, you can expect it to take around 18 days 24 hours a day”

It sounds like your thinking the photos library is in iCloud based on the speed of the internet comment.

The photos library is located locally on the 8Tb ext drive.

TonyCollinet wrote:

OK

Forget the on and off - you need your mac on 24/7. Second - don't do repairs, or turn iCloud on/off - that just restarts the process from the beginning.

ok, but regarding iCloud, since I have no pics there, I’ve left internet router off during this process.

If yours runs at the same speed, you can expect it to take around 18 days 24 hours a day.

Well I’d like to ask for some help with a similar issue if I may.

1. What has triggered the library update? Have you just upgraded to Big Sur? Or something else.

Big Sur 11.4 upgrade from Mojave 14.5.6

iMac Pro 2017

32G of ram

2TB internal, 8TB external

1. Is the library stored in your pictures folder? Or somewhere else. If on an external volume, what is the format.

external volume;APFS,

ignore ownership selected,

direct connect 

1. How long have you been waiting for the update to complete? How big is the library?

Update has been running for 4 or 5 days on and off. Tried rebuilding library again, no help.

No iCloud for pics, except one idevice has shared folder

The library contains 50 yrs of photos, 65,300 pic, 2,458 vids, 172 items, is over 850Gb. Being a photographer, Final Cut Pro certified, and a musician, photos is used extensively.

Does photos need to be running to allow Big Sur to scan the photo library? I was told no by Apple Support.

Is there a way to increase the debug output to the console when running photos ?

Tony,

thanks for your helpful comments,

Leonie,

Regarding locations; I don’t allow locations to tag photos, so do I still need the internet network on all the time this takes ? Hope not. Check this website which posts twice weekly on what’s going on in the world of computers and networks.

https://www.sans.org/newsletters/newsbites/

On disc space, the internal drive has almost 300G available, the external has @2TB left. I have not seen any swapping going on at all;zero as reported by memory via Activity monitor.

The video and media check you speak of, wasn’t that a Final Cut Pro ability or something else?

Thanks for the KB article, I read and get back to you.

Best of Days to you

After reading the media KB article, it appears that running iMovie in Mojave should have prompted to convert incompatible files, yes ? Don’t remember seeing that, but I do create somethings in iMovie, so maybe I did and don’t recall that I did. Is there a way to check if it was run then by checking directories or file formats?

If not, then it seems compressor may be the workaround for the easiest solution. If not then a restore of the original photos library on a iMac running Mojave and running iMovie to convert and then move to Big Sur OS might work ?

I’ll check the smart album later and advise.

thanks for your support!

Greetings Leonine,

I did find what appears to be a couple folders that was created @30 days ago. The two folders, one with legacy files, another modified files with H.264/5 or ProRes422. I believe located in the directory with the photoslibrary.

Does this mean iMovie checked “ALL media; images and video which was scanned in the photo library or just the imported files used or imported to iMovie library?” If it’s just the iMovie library, then what about Final Cut? I sort of remember running a compatibility check in Final while running Mojave.

Regarding the smart folder looking for the “iCloud message”, I checked each smart folder in iMovie and didn’t see anything like you stated.

I looked in Final as well and no luck there either. Think that you maybe referred to creating a new smart folder and defining the rule to search for that field/attribute yes?

Not sure which application your speaking of Smart Folders to identify which files are causing the problem.

System has been running last 48 hours, disconnected from internet. The blue status line in the Days menu is about 7/8’s of the way complete, its been there for over a couple day’s, and hasn’t moved any further along.

That's quite normal. Ask for help and suddenly you don't need it 🤣

Sorry - completely misread. I was talking about iCloud sync. You can safely ignore pretty much everything I wrote 😀

Leonie (below) is the person you need.

OK

Forget the on and off - you need your mac on 24/7. Second - don't do repairs, or turn iCloud on/off - that just restarts the process from the beginning.

You have a large library 850GB is huge for a full sync. This is going to take some time. For reference, my 50GB library took 48 hours for a full sync - this is not limited by your inernet speed, but by Apple servers. If yours runs at the same speed, you can expect it to take around 18 days 24 hours a day. Leave your mac on with photos running and just let it get on with it. DONT do anything that will restart it. (see above)