Trying to load Photo library from external HD to a new mac on Sonoma. The screen is stuck at 5% Updating photo library. Restarted the computer and it's still the same. When I switch back to the old mac, Photo library from the external drive opens just fine. That means I cannot use this HD or load the photo contents for Photos with my new mac??
MacBook Air 15″, macOS 14.0
UPDATE: SOLVED!! I tested it with a copy of my master Photo library. In the new mac with Sonoma, Press Option-Command and double-click the Photos library, Photo application will open up. Click Repair. You will see "Repairing photos.." and when that completes, it will become "Updating photos...". When both are completed, all the photos will show up in the Photo under Sonoma. Originally I tried to Repair using my old mac as Sonoma in my new mac corrupted my library when it got stuck at 5% during updating. So looks like it's an OS compatible issue.
With my library being over 360GB, the Repair process took about 2-3 hours (at least not stuck at 5%, and it moves steadily). And the Updating part took mover 10 hours. So I spent over 12 hours for the entire "Repair and Update" process. It's ok to leave it run overnight. And I did this successfully for 2 times, on my test Photo lib and my master Photo lib. Now when I run Photo in Sonoma, my library opens up with no problem.
Maybe Apple should pay us (by hours) for troubleshooting their problem.
UPDATE: SOLVED!! I tested it with a copy of my master Photo library. In the new mac with Sonoma, Press Option-Command and double-click the Photos library, Photo application will open up. Click Repair. You will see "Repairing photos.." and when that completes, it will become "Updating photos...". When both are completed, all the photos will show up in the Photo under Sonoma. Originally I tried to Repair using my old mac as Sonoma in my new mac corrupted my library when it got stuck at 5% during updating. So looks like it's an OS compatible issue.
With my library being over 360GB, the Repair process took about 2-3 hours (at least not stuck at 5%, and it moves steadily). And the Updating part took mover 10 hours. So I spent over 12 hours for the entire "Repair and Update" process. It's ok to leave it run overnight. And I did this successfully for 2 times, on my test Photo lib and my master Photo lib. Now when I run Photo in Sonoma, my library opens up with no problem.
Maybe Apple should pay us (by hours) for troubleshooting their problem.
I think the first thing that I would do is re-start in Safe Mode and then copy the Library to an external SSD hard drive formatted in APFS. Copying by itself may solve some problems.
Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support
Keep in mind that once you open a Photos Library in Sonoma, it will no longer be available to an earlier version of Photos. So you should make sure you have an un-altered version of the library still intact.
Given that the library works okay on the older machine we have to assume the library is essentially intact. The issue is not the disk format. This issue could be caused by a glitch on a single file - damaged, dodgy permissions or something like that, or even by a single dodgy sector on the drive.
Worth trying: Use a back up app to make a copy of the library. You need to use one like Carbon Copy Cloner or Chronosync (a free trial will probably allow you to do this at no cost) but not Time Machine (TM packages the back up into it's own formats, the others make a plain, same format copy). The point of doing it this way is that these apps will correct minor glitches as they work, and that might be enough to solve the issue. Also, simply duplicating the library won't work as it won't correct flaws.
When the duplicate is made try open and migrate that.
I too have similar issue. Have spoken and communicated to the Apple Creative Supervisor for the past six weeks to no avail. She sent diagnostics to "Engineering"...Twice...No solution. I recently was told this issue is pervasive throughout the world and Apple is "working" on finding a software update "fix" to address this infuriating problem. If anyone is aware of a solution please advise.
All the same particulars...New M3 Max Chip/Sonoma 14.2.1/External Hard Drive Journaled/1.2 TB of photo library/Worked on older iMac/Stuck at 5% (for five days!) while indicating it was updating photo library.
Thank you for your efforts on my behalf.
What format is that external drive?
Mac OS extended journaled.
Update: Tried restarting and reloading a few times under Sonoma, and it is still stuck at 5%. Now the Photo Library is messed up where the old Mac could not load it either. Restoring the 400+GB Photo library now with the old Mac... will take some time. :-(
And I just noticed Sonoma actually would not mount any of my external HD. I tried plugging in 3 other OS extended external HD already.
Not yet. I tried it couple times and then it corrupted by photo library. So i ended up spending 4 hours to rebuild the library data and now I just use it with my old mac. Don't want to risk destroying my data again. I may try again with an old photo library and see if it works.
mikki160 have you been able to resolve your photos issue. I too have same problem (see my post on this thread Velo_City). Please advise at your earliest convenience.
Mac OS extended Journaled.
I solved it! Read the latest thread. Hope it helps you with your problem.
Updating photo Photo library, from external hard drive. Stuck at 5%.
