Apple Photos will not identify faces at all!

Escott from ER and interrobang,

We should eliminate some possible causes. You both should try these things:

• Restart the computer (of course)
• 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 

• 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. You can create a new Library by closing Photos and then option-clicking on the Photos icon.

interrobang already tried the "new Library" thing, and it didn't work. Escott from ER tried rebuilding the Library and got the same results. So we are now pretty sure that the cause is not a corrupt Library, so that's good information. The idea is to find out if the problem is with the Library, with your account, or with caches and login items, and stuff like that. One of these steps may fix the problem, but their failure to work also helps figure out what's happening.

What do you mean by "will not identify faces?" Do you mean that, when you select the menu choice View>Show Face Names, and you look at the picture in full sized preview mode, that everyone remains "unnamed?" Or do you mean that no faces in images are recognize as faces, and there are no little circles over people's faces?

When you look at the info window for a picture,

does it show a face in a circle?

That's a big Library, and things that require the entire Library can take weeks to work. If your videos are large, that will be even slower. As my Library got larger, I divided it up. I have a Library in which I keep only the favorites, the ones I want to show friends and family, and that I'm happy to see over and over, again. That's the Library that I have connected to iCloud. The other pictures that don't change, really, are in a separate Library. Since the favorites Library is one that I search on, mostly, it's faster.

Safe Mode may have fixed the problem. It's always one of the first things I try when things seem broke!

I’m having a similar issue, though my Photos are on my boot disc (2TB SSD).

Photos v 9.0 has stopped identifying faces.

That is, it’s not even placing an “unnamed” dialog box on faces.

In the past it would take ~6 hours for faces to be identified, or be “unnamed.”

Now even after 48 hours it has failed.

Note: because a handful of People marquis images (the thumbnails on the People landing screen), and by extension the marquis image on a Persons individual page is gray box, I rebuilt my Photos database (twice). It did not correct the issue.

Safe mode is good for testing, you you shouldn't attempt normal activity in Safe Mode. I've run in Safe Mode for a day or so with no problem, but it's possible that it will keep some things from working that are supposed to work.

Have you looked at your Log-in items? Most of the things you find there can be dumped.

You might look around in folders of cache files, but I'm not sure what might be holding things up. If you find something suspicious (and there's a whole lot of crazy stuff in there that probably doesn't hurt,) you can move it to another folder (so it doesn't get used, but you don't erase it and can move it back) and see what happens.

Honestly, I think I might start over-- maybe we all should every so often...

Photos v9 began identifying People again without any intervention.

It’s possible that after rebuilding the database last week that with over 62,000 images, it takes a little time...