Photos App stuck in loop when importing library - Please help

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Level 1

33 points

Photos App stuck in loop when importing library - Please help

I have just upgraded my machine to Ventura 13.6.7. I moved my 500GB photo library from a backup drive from older OS, into the Puctures folder in Ventura, then opened Photos. It's a procedure I have done in the past many times. It all seemed to be working,took a good hour to display any photos while it imported, but at the bottom there's a progress bar which keeps showing a string of phrases. It's been doing it for 16 hours and doesn't seem to be progressing. The phrases it shows in a loop (as if doing the tasks, but clearly can't be) are:

Detecting duplicates

Curating best photos

Composing layout

Gathering favourites

Anaylsing scenes

Detecting duplicates

Curating best photos....

And round and round she goes.

I don't want to mess it up by breaking in, but clearly I need to do that. Hoping someone can advise please

iMac 27″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jun 29, 2024 4:25 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,531 points

Jun 29, 2024 9:32 AM in response to joeyjohnson

You can safely ignore this loop. It is just Photos showing off how busy it is, a new feature introduced with macOS 10.15 Catalina.

The message is coming from a background process, that is running in the background whenever Photos has time and you are not interacting with Photos. Photos is scanning your Photos Library to understand what the photos and videos are showing. It will use these results to make a more pleasing layout in the Days, and Months, and Years, also to make Sharing suggestions and give better search results. This analysis may take weeks or longer for a large Photos Library. You can use Photos while this analysis is in progress and you can quit Photos, if you need to shut down your Mac. Photos will continue when you start it again. To help Photos to get the background processing done, you may want to keep your Mac turned on over night, when you are not using it. But Photos will work already, even if the "curating best Photos" has not been finishes.

For my library with 50000 photos this loop of "Curating best photos" etc took roughly a month, for a smaller Photos Library with 2000 photos it took two days an a MacBook Pro.

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Answer 2

joeyjohnson Author

Level 1

33 points

Jul 1, 2024 8:10 AM in response to léonie

So kind of you to reply, not sure why I didn't get a notification.

I regard this behaviour as 'filth'! I didn't ask Apple to 'curate' or in any other way analyse my photo library, I just want to store it and view it when needed. I also resent the use of my system resources for such unwanted behaviour.

Do you know of any way to turn this filth off?!

Thank you again

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Answer 3

joeyjohnson Author

Level 1

33 points

Jul 1, 2024 8:21 AM in response to léonie

Bit tricky to explain my next question but here goes... actually it's 2 questions...

I am trying to 'export unmodified originals', for all photos. As soon as I start it, it reports :

"Missing File: Photos with unavailable original files cannot be opened. The original photo “IMG_xxxxxxxxx_51320.jpg” is either offline or cannot be found. Click Find Original to reconnect."

1- This confuses me, as if i search for "51320.jpg" it finds the file and opens it, I can view it full screen. So it clearly exists. Why won't it export it? I am looking at it!

2- Is there any way to find out how many of these there are with 'missing originals', in my library?

I have to click 'skip' for each one, and no idea how many times (maybe thousands) I will have to click to find out how many there are. I am concerned, I don't want to lose these originals from my export. So then I tried the other export option, rather than 'export unmodified originals', I chose 'export items', but it gives me exactly the same error as choosing the other option (so I can't see how the two options differ, seems like they don't).

Any thoughts appreciated, thanks again

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Answer 4

joeyjohnson Author

Level 1

33 points

Jul 1, 2024 8:25 AM in response to joeyjohnson

PS I may as well add....

I am setting up a new laptop and trying out Linux, and the 'Shotwell' photo app (like iPhoto was in the good old days :) )

I want to export all my Photos app photos to import into Shotwell, and it apparently has excellent duplicate detection so will do some cleaning on the import. This export is for that purpose, to try to get all photos duplicated into Shotwell's library on another machine so I have two copies of the whole library, but I fear I am going to lose loads of them, all the ones Apple claims have 'missing originals', yet I can actually view them just fine in the Photos library.

(PPS - I see the "Remove Duplicates" option in Photos app, which I was going to use until I realise I have to click 1,922 times to do them one row at a time, if there's a faster way I'd love to know! Thanks)

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Photos App stuck in loop when importing library - Please help

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