Level 1

41 points

Photos for Mac, stuck on "updating" trying to upload to iCloud Photos Library

Hardware

Late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina
2.6 GHz Intel Core i5
8GB RAM
Intel Iris Graphics

Software

Yosemite 10.10.3
Photos (latest release that is on Mac Appstore as of 2015-04-10)

Problem

Uploading status of Photos to iCloud Photo Library seems to be stuck at "Updating". No change of progress bar despite hooking up my Mac through wired ethernet for 24 hours.

I've tried turning off Photos in iCloud settings and then turning them back on. Restting, shutting down, all that stuff. No photos are populating on my iCloud Photo Library from my Mac as far as I can tell. Not even 1.

My Upgrade Process

Downloaded Photos Update
OPTION + CMD opened Photos app
Selected my iPhoto Library on an external USB 3.0 drive
Photos started converting the library

Photos library finished converting

I then tried to enable iCloud Photos Library, but it advised that only the System Photos Library can be used with iCloud.
I then changed my System Photos Library to the one on my harddrive.
I now am able to successfully enable iCloud Photos Library on the Photos App.

Again the problem I am having is that the uploading status seems to be forever stuck at "Updating" in the Photos App.

Anyone with similar problems? Anyone found a fix / work around?

Supporting Screenshots

iCloud Settings in Photos App

iCloud Settings in System Preferences

System Prefs > iCloud > Options Pane

Posted on Apr 10, 2015 8:36 AM

Top-ranking reply

yepster

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Nov 5, 2017 9:40 PM

I've had this problem at least 4 or 5 times now. My system photos library is on an encrypted external disk. I tried several methods over the years, varying from reboot, to completely disabling icloud photos and keeping a copy on the disk, then enabling it again. (this required me to upgrade to a 1TB icloud subscription, even though I now do not require more than 200GB). All very time consuming, confusion and frustrating. You could argue: why not put the photos on the internal disk, but this disk space is an internal SSD and thus limited in both size and write cycles for lifetime.

Today it was solved much easier, using the killing cloudphotosd described in one of the first replies in this long thread:

stopping the Photos app
and then killing the 'cloudphotosd' process (not kill -9 but kill -TERM was enough)
watch activity monitor, about one minute ~40% cpu and disk activity from the automatically restarted cloudphotosd
open Photos app - still updating...
repeated 1-3 - now cloudphotosd didn't take much cpu and no unusual disk activity
opened Photos app - 'downloading 16 photos' and now '17924 Photos, 1414 Videos - Updated Just Now'

Knowledge gained:

don't need to reboot
don't need to disable icloud photos and reenabling/downloading all photos
the size of the library (17K photos) is not the cause for a multi day long 'Updating' status - in my case above sync/download of new photos took only minutes.

Sorry for duplicates - I didn't read all 16 pages.

View in context

239 replies

May 31, 2015 12:28 PM in response to lucianf0

This is working a treat a present, I will come back to you once it has finished. I have spent almost a week on this so far so if it works I am so grateful. It suffices to say though that Apple should not expect us to do this sort of thing!

Sorry should have said thanks to whoever posted the following solution in Terminal. I think it is lucianf0

pkill -9 com.apple.ICPPhotoStreamLibraryService

pkill -9 cloudphotosd

May 31, 2015 10:18 PM in response to mallchin

hello

where to find ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.cloudphotosd/Data/Library/Application Support/com.apple.cloudphotosd/

to delete ?

tks

jordy_s

Level 1

9 points

May 31, 2015 11:55 PM in response to lucianf0

Every time I think my problem is fixed, it reappears after a while. The "fix/workaround" lucianf0 posted is the only thing that works like a charm! I'm no programmer. Is there someone who can make it an AppleScript or something, so it's easy to run when Photos for Mac decides to hang on "Updating..." again?

mallchin

Level 1

8 points

Jun 1, 2015 3:30 AM in response to cyfargier

It's in the Library folder in your Users directory.

alhagar

Level 1

9 points

Jun 1, 2015 8:16 AM in response to G.Lenn

I've been following this thread for awhile trying most of the solutions posted here. Thanks everyone for pitching in.

What finally worked for me was deleting a few photos around the last photo that was uploaded to the iCloud Photo Library. I was always stuck on the same photo so I deleted the 5 or 6 photos in my Photos library dated just before that last uploaded photo (you can see the last uploaded image by logging into your iCloud account from a browser and going to Photos and scrolling to the very top).

There is some irony in how I discovered this. I was exporting all of my photos from Photos to add them to the new Google Service. I was doing it in batches and Photos kept crashing whenever I was exporting the photos right around the time of my last successfully uploaded photo. I then started exporting smaller and smaller batches around the time so I could pinpoint the problem photos.

After deleting the photos that were making Photos crash upon export, I thought I'd give iCloud Photo Library one more shot and it actually uploaded the final 8k or so photos to the cloud. I now have it running on my iMac (chose "Download Original to this Mac"), a 2011 MacBook Air (chose "Optimize Mac Storage"), and my iPad and iPhone.

The only issue I've had since successfully uploading was a crash where I repair my library. The crash happened when exporting a folder of old movies that had a few incompatible files in it). As a result of repairing the library Photos seemed to upload a number of photos that I thought I had deleted in the past (e.g. an HDR version of the non-HDR version I had saved).

I hope this helps those still struggling.

pips1971

Level 1

15 points

Jun 1, 2015 8:39 AM in response to alhagar

Lets Hope 10.10.4 will fix all of these 😀

gmc74

Level 1

9 points

Jun 1, 2015 10:19 AM in response to jordy_s

this removes the 'Updating' at the bottom of the screen for me, but it doesn't fix the issue I have where I can't see my shared folders on that one machine

Jun 7, 2015 5:43 AM in response to tunold

not working

cp_kid

Level 1

11 points

Jun 9, 2015 3:22 AM in response to G.Lenn

Since my photos app on my mac stopped uploading to the cloud and stopped syncing local pictures fro the cloud, I came here.

After reading this thread, I found the smartest suggestion -- switch back to iPhoto.

I switched back to iPhoto. In about 90 seconds my mac iPhoto library was synced with the cloud.

cp_kid

Level 1

11 points

Jun 9, 2015 3:23 AM in response to Liverpool Webmaster

Switch back. Easy peasy.

mallchin

Level 1

8 points

Jun 12, 2015 3:30 AM in response to cp_kid

Once the iPhoto library has been migrated to Photos it's not trivial to switch back, and iPhoto doesn't support the new iCloud syncing method, right?

cp_kid

Level 1

11 points

Jun 12, 2015 3:37 AM in response to mallchin

I haven't had an issue. Switched back w no problem using newer Photos library, and updates have been fine.

mallchin

Level 1

8 points

Jun 12, 2015 3:44 AM in response to cp_kid

Is it using Photostream or iCloud Photo Library?

cp_kid

Level 1

11 points

Jun 12, 2015 4:50 AM in response to mallchin

Photostream

Jun 13, 2015 12:11 PM in response to cyfargier

I also had the issue with Photos. I solved the issue by Delete com.apple.photo.icloud.myphotostream and com.apple.photo.icloud.sharedstreams folders

I followed the procedures described here: Photos not sharing to iCloud or My Photo Stream. Help!

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Photos for Mac, stuck on "updating" trying to upload to iCloud Photos Library