Photos to iPad sync error with some movies

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Level 6

19,706 points

Photos to iPad sync error with some movies

My setup: Mac mini 2018, Big Sur 11.6.1, iPad Pro MLQ62KN/A 9,7", iOS 15.1.

A few years ago I converted all incompatible old movies with obsolete codecs that failed to sync to iPad or had display glitches in Photos to H.264/H.265 AAC .mp4.

They synced OK just a few months ago. But lately when syncing to the same iPad I have been getting multiple non-helpful alerts like:

“95777576-B433-4730-9BDE-36D64D5ACCDC.m4v” was not copied to the iPad “matti’s iPad Pro” because it cannot be played on this iPad.

Some videos were not copied to the iPad “matti’s iPad Pro” because they cannot be played on this iPad.

This is not very helpful when trying to isolate the problem and check how the offending movies differ from those that sync OK.

The offending movies can be located via the Terminal recursively from the same folder as the Photos library with a command like:

find . -name 95777576-B433-4730-9BDE-36D64D5ACCDC.m4v

The output locates that movie at:

./Photos Library.photoslibrary/originals/9/95777576-B433-4730-9BDE-36D64D5ACCDC.m4v

In the next step only look but do not touch! Do not in any way modify the folders and files because mere mortals should not mess inside the library package unless they know what they are doing and have good backups!

OK, in Finder right-click or ctrl-click the Photos library and choose "Show Package Contents" and open the "originals/9" folder of that example and in Finder window's upper right Search icon paste that 95777576-B433-4730-9BDE-36D64D5ACCDC.m4v, choose Name matches... and in the upper left click Search "9" to see the offending movie. You can then copy it to another folder to try to check what's wrong with it.

I initially spotted 21 such movies but might have more because only half of my movies fit the 256 GB iPad. Many offending movies were iOS slow/fast motion movies, some regular Final Cut Pro movies and some movies converted with VLC to H.264 from some PC-only codec. Most of them H.264 and one H.265 wrapped as .mp4, .m4v or .mov. So at a first glace they should be OK.

I don't yet try to re-wrap or re-encode them because Big Sur 11.6.1 Photos.app plays them OK and maybe some iOS update will fix this anyway (currently using iOS 15.1).

Posted on Nov 5, 2021 12:55 PM

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Answer 1

Matti Haveri Author

Level 6

19,706 points

Nov 6, 2021 10:38 AM in response to Matti Haveri

So this is the current alert when some movies fail to sync to an iPad:

I now checked all movies by syncing them to the iPad and found another 23 offending movies. All were H.264 .mp4.

It seems all offending movies do not have audio. Maybe that is the culprit why they don't sync to the iPad like other movies?! I'll check if that would indeed explain this. Even a timelapse straight from the same iPad does not sync back to it.

I can identify the offending movies with the clumsy workflow described above. I'd welcome suggestions how to streamline it. BTW I noticed that the 1st character tells in which /originals/ subfolder the file is stored, i.e. folder "9" for 95777576-B433-4730-9BDE-36D64D5ACCDC.m4v and so on, so at least it is not necessary to jump from folder to folder.

If I want to check which movie in Photos library corresponds to that 95777576-B433-4730-9BDE-36D64D5ACCDC.m4v I can use GraphicConverter's "Rename via EXIF" so the are renamed as originals (I rename all images and movies as YYYY-MMDD-hhmm-ss.* based on their EXIF before importing to Photos):

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Answer 2

Matti Haveri Author

Level 6

19,706 points

Nov 5, 2021 1:13 PM in response to Matti Haveri

p.s. when fiddling with this problem I noticed that it is possible to check the movie's or photo's internal database name by dragging the Photos thumbnail to Terminal. For example dragging a .m4v to the Terminal shows where that thumbnail is:

/Volumes/data/bkp/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary/resources/derivatives/9/912DC577-B1B8-40EE-9FF9-0F341EEB517E_1_105_c.jpeg

The corresponding original imported .m4v is then at:

/Volumes/data/bkp/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary/resources/originals/9/912DC577-B1B8-40EE-9FF9-0F341EEB517E.m4v

To find all files related to that movie you can use the following command with a wildcard:

find . -name '912DC577-B1B8-40EE-9FF9-0F341EEB517E*'

which outputs:

./originals/9/912DC577-B1B8-40EE-9FF9-0F341EEB517E.m4v

./resources/derivatives/9/912DC577-B1B8-40EE-9FF9-0F341EEB517E_1_102_o.jpeg

./resources/derivatives/9/912DC577-B1B8-40EE-9FF9-0F341EEB517E_1_105_c.jpeg

./resources/derivatives/masters/9/912DC577-B1B8-40EE-9FF9-0F341EEB517E_4_5005_c.jpeg

In this example *105_c* seems to be the smaller and *102_o* the larger thumbnail and the *4_5005_c* at .../masters/... the smallest thumbnail.

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Photos to iPad sync error with some movies

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