Sequoia Photos in People Collection not responding to mouse clicks

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Level 1

53 points

Sequoia Photos in People Collection not responding to mouse clicks

Just upgraded from Sonoma to Sequoia. Photo library on EHD, connected to a 2024 iMac. Prior to now I've had no problems with Photo program. Now my photos in the People Collection do not respond to mouse clicks. I cannot open to all the photos individually, only with a right click can I play a slideshow of all the photos of each individual. The remainder of my Photo albums are OK. Exception, some photos with "face names" have either lost names or have picked up the wrong names.

What can I try to correct the problems I've "gained" with the update? I let the photo program run for past 24 hours.

Thank you.

iMac (M3, 2023)

Posted on Jan 8, 2025 1:27 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Richard.Taylor

Level 7

23,220 points

Jan 8, 2025 2:58 PM in response to elkriverken

Are you saying that, in People & Pets, you click on a face and nothing happens? But if you click on a normal album it works? That's very odd!

To narrow things down, try these steps:

Restart the computer (of course)
Re-start in Safe Mode. This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes, and it often helps. Safe Mode is different for different computers, so see this:

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

Those are the easiest things to try first. Then try these:

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.
Make a new user and see if the same problem recurs with it
Rebuild your Photos Library--close Photos and re-launch by option-command-clicking the app icon.

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.

Let us know what happens…

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Answer 2

elkriverken Author

Level 1

53 points

Jan 10, 2025 6:54 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Created a new user and switched over. Opened photos library. It went through repairing permissions, then restoring library. The People album in collections was not corrected. Could not open photos on clicking.

Switched back to usual user, waited while photos library repaired and restored. Again tried to open People albums without success. Frustrated, about to give up.

Wait! In my frustration I double clicked VERY quickly for me (92 years old) and it worked! I went through Days, People, Memories and Trips, all working with quick clicks.

Looking at the mouse setup, There is no way to control click speed, only Tracking speed, which was of no help.

So, Thank you for your help. I learned a lot. Now I'm going to rest my fingers.

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Answer 3

Jan 9, 2025 6:35 AM in response to elkriverken

I'm pretty amazed!

The reason for making a new user is that your user account might have crazy stuff cached, or there may be corruption caused by errant apps, or apps may have set up automatic login processes. It's worth a try.

You should make a small test Library on your internal drive, but it won't have faces, of course.

You might try a different mouse, or different cables.

As far as I've seen, no one else is experiencing this in Sequoia. For what it's worth, I'm using an M3pro MacBook with 15.1.1 (I'm slow to update…)

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Answer 4

elkriverken Author

Level 1

53 points

Jan 8, 2025 2:54 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

The EHD has always been formatted APFS and has never been used for anything else except the Photo library. It holds 1000 GB, still about 800 GB free. This has been the setup for some years without problems until updating from Sonoma to Sequoia. Thanks for your answer.

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Answer 5

elkriverken Author

Level 1

53 points

Jan 8, 2025 5:52 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

Yes, when clicking on a face in People (as well as Days, Memories and Trips, all in Collections), there is no response to the click. All of the other albums respond as they should.

Restarted the computer. No change.
Restarted in Safe Mode. No change.
Switched to my other library on another clean EHD (a backup).. No change.
Did a rebuild of the above library, launched Photo. No change.
Did not make a new user. Not sure how to do that this late in the evening. Not sure how that could help.

BTW, when right clicking on the faces in People, they all create a Slideshow with the included photos.

Thank you for anymore ideas.

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Answer 6

Jan 8, 2025 2:22 PM in response to elkriverken

And how is your external drive formatted? To avoid damaging the Photos Library an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Additionally, the drive can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted. There have been so many problems with using incompatible drives that the newest macOSs won't even allow a Library on a non-Mac formatted drive to open, since there is a chance of damaging the Photos database. See this:

Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

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Sequoia Photos in People Collection not responding to mouse clicks

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