You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: dvsdanny
dvsdanny Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Unable to Open iCloud Photo Library

I keep my iCloud Photo Library on an AFPS-formatted external SSD. Before I moved it to the SSD, I had it on another drive which was connected to my MacBook. I moved everything and put the drive on my new Mac Studio. Up until this week, I haven't had an issue using the drive on either computer, but I never used Photos much on my MacBook.


Yesterday, I put the drive back on my Studio to do some work in Photos and was given the error: Unable to Open iCloud Photo Library error 4302." I did a library repair but Photos continues to give an error (3145).


So I put the drive back on my MacBook and the library repaired and opened fine, although it hangs on restoring from iCloud so it won't download about two weeks' worth of photos.


I'm not sure what to do now. On one hand, my Studio refuses to open the library and MacBook gets stuck restoring from iCloud, but the library at least opens. Is there something I'm missing? Some cache or something I can clear/reset to make things work again? I really don't like the idea of redownloading 500GB of data.


Thank you so much!

Dan

Mac Studio

Posted on Sep 28, 2022 12:52 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: dvsdanny
dvsdanny Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Posted on Sep 29, 2022 8:03 AM

So...the problem somehow fixed itself. I left the drive plugged into Mac Studio overnight and sorta forgot about it. Decided I'd try it again and, lo and behold, Photos works perfectly with everything up-to-date. 🤷🏼‍♂️

View in context

Similar questions

7 replies
User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
197,309 points

Sep 28, 2022 9:50 AM in response to dvsdanny

Is your external SSD directly connected to the Mac or are you accessing it over the local network?

Has the external SSD been used for Time Machine backups? pHotos cannot work with a library on a network share or with a library on a volume used for Time Machine backups.

Try, if you can set the "Ignore Ownership on this volume" flag as described here: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support. If you cannot set this flag, something is wrong with the external volume.


Are all your photos already in iCloud? Then try to create a new, empty Photos Library and make it the System Photos Library in "Photos > Preferences > General". Then make it the iCloud Photos Library in "Photos > Preferences > iCloud". A new library will avoid the lengthy new upload to iCloud, of items that are already in iCloud and just download your photos from iCloud.


Reply
User profile for user: dvsdanny
dvsdanny Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Sep 29, 2022 8:26 AM in response to léonie

Well, on Mac Studio it didn't even offer to upgrade. Just gave an error. I suppose on the backend, some processes were running that made things click.


The 500GB was already downloaded and was current as of two weeks ago. I just didn't want to redownload everything again. In the initial days of iCloud Photo Library, that would sometimes happen with errors. Things actually seem smoother these days. When I bought Mac Studio, I transferred my library from HDD to SSD and figured one of my machines wouldn't like that. It opened and worked instantly.

Reply

Unable to Open iCloud Photo Library

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up