Pixelated and unstable images in Photos

Question

Level 1

14 points

Pixelated and unstable images in Photos

Photos library is held on an external device, containing ca. 85k photos & videos.

Mac is running Ventura 13.5 and post trying to make a backup copy of the library, now when opening the Library the folders & albums have repeated instability in the images:

load very slowly
images are blurred, pixelated
images appear in the 'wrong' albums, after a time they generally slowly refresh to correct images if I painstakingly scroll through the album
images often subsequently revert to incorrect/blurred/pixelated versions when selecting different album and then returning

Anyone experienced similar instability and/or have recommendation on how to stabilise the library images please?

iMac (2017 – 2020)

Posted on Jan 1, 2024 6:22 AM

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Answer 1

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,209 points

Jan 2, 2024 5:47 AM in response to Andrewkh

The Photos library must be stored on a disk formatted Mac OS X Extended, Journaled or APFS. Having the library on an inappropriately formatted disk risks library corruption and dataloss.

First step: move the library to an appropriately formatted disk.

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Answer 2

Jan 2, 2024 6:40 AM in response to Andrewkh

> HDD, ExFAT

Ouch. As Yer_Man already said, Photos libraries (and FCP projects and maybe also Music libraries) are only supported on Mac-formatted (APFS, MacOS Extended) volumes. Some recent macOS version even very strongly nagged and refused to use libraries stored on such volumes.

APFS is also quite slow on spinning old HDDs (especially when used as a boot disk which is a must on Mojave and later).

I use MacOS Extended on old "cold" archive HDDs and I am slowly moving to SSDs (although they might not be so reliable as a "cold" storage because they should be given some current every now and then (maybe every 1-2 year or so?) to keep the storage cells alive.

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Answer 3

Jan 6, 2024 8:18 AM in response to Andrewkh

Another caveat, just in case: For Photos, you can't use a drive volume that has Time Machine on it.

Also, be sure "Ignore Ownership" is checked (it is by default):

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Answer 4

Jan 1, 2024 6:47 AM in response to Andrewkh

> external device

SSD or HDD? APFS or MacOS Extended?

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Answer 5

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,209 points

Jan 6, 2024 7:06 AM in response to Andrewkh

Yes. Standard warning: reformatting a drive erases it so back up important data first.

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Answer 6

Andrewkh Author

Level 1

14 points

Jan 6, 2024 7:04 AM in response to Yer_Man

Thank you both. I've purchased a new SSD external drive, formatted using Disc Utility to MacOS extended and (at the third attempt) successfully copied the Photos Library across - now loading, and managing reliably.

I now want to create a back-up copy of the Photo Library - if I Erase & then reformat the Seagate HDD drive to MacOS Extended, can I use that drive as back-up for the Photos Library?

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Answer 7

Jan 6, 2024 8:22 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Matti Haveri wrote: APFS is also quite slow on spinning old HDDs (especially when used as a boot disk which is a must on Mojave and later).

I use MacOS Extended on old "cold" archive HDDs and I am slowly moving to SSDs (although they might not be so reliable as a "cold" storage because they should be given some current every now and then (maybe every 1-2 year or so?) to keep the storage cells alive.

That is great information. I need to re-think formatting on my mechanical drives, and I need to go back and re-index the SSDs to give them a bump in power. Perhaps that should be a New Year's thing...

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