Photos Repair Tool - running for 13 days

Question

Level 1

9 points

Photos Repair Tool - running for 13 days

iMac 27" 2020

OS: Sonoma 14.2.1

Photos Library (Photos Library.photoslibrary) Size: 64 GB

Of late, Photos had started hanging (revolving rainbow wheel) when I performed actions such as clicking on the "People" album or "Places" album etc. Also more often than not it would not import new photos from my iPhone 11 (latest iOS). Sometimes it would not play videos from the main library.

As these symptoms became more frequent, I decided to use Apple's Photos Repair Tool.

The Repair Tool has now been running for 13 days and indicates that it is Restoring and is 42% done.

Surely, this cannot be normal!

I have not quit the app as I'm concerned about corrupting the library although I made a copy of the library before using the tool.

Any suggestions what I should do to speed this up?

Posted on Mar 13, 2024 10:10 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Richard.Taylor

Level 7

21,644 points

Mar 13, 2024 1:00 PM in response to rajanyvr

If the library repair takes longer than several minutes, it's not doing anything, so you're right to be concerned.

My first thought is storage space-- how much disk storage is available on you hard drive? Apple's recommendation is to have at least 15% free. Less causes slowdowns and stutters.

You haven't said where your Photos Library is located-- is it on an external drive? And do you use iCloud Photos to synchronize Photos on your devices?

If you have plenty of disk space, and if your Library is in your Pictures folder on your internal drive then you should try these steps:

Restart the computer (of course)
Make a new user and see if the same problem recurs with it
Use another library if you have one, or make a small test Library with a few pictures in it and see if the same thing happens.
Re-start in Safe Mode. This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes. Safe Mode is different for different computers, so see this:

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

Let us know what happens...

Reply

Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

202,733 points

Mar 14, 2024 1:42 AM in response to rajanyvr

You wrote:

"... Photos had started hanging (revolving rainbow wheel) when I performed actions such as clicking on the "People" album or "Places" album etc. Also more often than not it would not import new photos from my iPhone 11 (latest iOS). Sometimes it would not play videos from the main library. ... "

The symptoms you described in your original post are indicating problems with the media files in your Photos Library. You will be seeing this, if the library contains damaged media files or media in a legacy format, that Photos can no longer handle after a system upgrade. Such problems cannot be fixed by a library repair. Trying to repair the library can even make it worse, because the library repair can get stuck, when it tries to rebuild the library and wants to create previews and thumbnails, but can't, because the files cannot be processed. That is why we need to make a backup of the library, before we risk to repair it.

You need to identify the image files or videos that Photos can no longer process and remove them from the library. Export them as the original file, then delete them from the library, then try to find some third-party software to convert the problematic items to a more compatible format, before you try to reimport them.

How to use the Photos Repair Library tool on your Mac - Apple Support

You may want to restore your library from your backup copy (duplicate it, if you have enough free storage). The problem is, if you open the backup copy, Photos might try to repair it as well. It will be safer to use a copy and not to open the saved version. To check for incompatible items start with videos where you noticed that they will no longer play. Export the suspicious items (File > export > Export unmodified original), then import hem to a new, empty library. If there is a problem with the video, Photos will give a warning, that the file is not supported.

Any item that cannot be imported into a new, empty test library needs to be converted to a more compatible format.

Reply

Answer 3

rajanyvr Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 13, 2024 3:19 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

Thanks for the quick response Richard @Richard.Taylor!

Storage space: 476 GB of 1TB used so I have plenty of spare storage
Memory: 64 GB
Photos Library is on the Internal hard drive (SSD) in the Pictures folder
I do not use iCloud to synchronize pictures

I believe the tool is actually running albeit very slow. Yesterday morning it was at 40%. By the end of the day it went up to 41%. This morning it was at 42% and right now it is at 43%.

If I restart the computer, wouldn't I run the risk of corrupting the Photos library?

Reply

Answer 4

rajanyvr Author

Level 1

9 points

Apr 11, 2024 7:39 AM in response to léonie

Thanks for your response. Apologies for my late response as I was away for the last 3 weeks.

I tried your suggestions but every time I opened the copy the Photo Repair Tool would start up. Finally I contacted Support and after I got rid of the PostgresSQL db application on my Mac, the Photo Repair Tool stopped running each time I started Photos using the "Copy" which has now been set as the System Library.

I may have found the issue based on one of your other responses: 253797762 but am still having an issue.

My library has:

Photos downloaded directly from my iPhone(s) which open when I click on them and
Photos imported from a NAS (Synology) which has the photo files of my older photos (before I had any iPhone). When I click on them they open but are often blurry for a while. If I try to delete any of them, the deletion takes a long time - could be up to 20 - 30 mins per photo

I checked the Photos --> Settings --> Importing: "Copy Items to the Photos Library". This Setting had not been Checked. (I have now Checked this setting.)

As recommended by you in 253797762 I tried to create a "Smart Album" containing "Referenced" photos.

However, this Smart Album did not get created. Do you think I might have to wait for a while for this album to get created since there are over 16K referenced photos?

I also tried to create a Smart Album of Videos. The dialogue box showed me there are 339 videos. However, this album too did not get created.

I clicked on one of the "referenced" photos and then clicked on File --> Consolidate ... and the cursor turned into a rainbow coloured spinning wheel.

Any suggestions?

Reply

Answer 5

rajanyvr Author

Level 1

9 points

Apr 12, 2024 10:59 AM in response to rajanyvr

The "Referenced" album did eventually get created after I let the process run overnight.

I tried Consolidating photos and videos in this Referenced album but the process was running extremely slowly - ~10 mins per image. So, instead I have started deleting images from, this Referenced album which seems to take less time albeit for 16K images I expect it will take over a month. I plan to re-import these pics later on.

Overall, Photos seems to be a pretty unstable, relatively amateur app!

Reply

Photos Repair Tool - running for 13 days

Similar questions