G.Lenn

Q: 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

Screen Shot 2015-04-10 at 11.13.19 AM.png

iCloud Settings in System Preferences

Screen Shot 2015-04-10 at 11.31.30 AM.pngScreen Shot 2015-04-10 at 11.32.01 AM.png

 

System Prefs > iCloud > Options Pane

Posted on Apr 10, 2015 8:39 AM

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

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  • by loïcfernandezcastrillon,

    loïcfernandezcastrillon loïcfernandezcastrillon Apr 23, 2015 1:59 AM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (112 points)
    iPhone
    Apr 23, 2015 1:59 AM in response to G.Lenn

    About the new messages (iPhoto to Photos) or troubles about getting your photos uploaded to iCloud, here is a solution that works fine for your photos:

    Go to iCloud.com -> Photos and upload them from there, it will come to Photos on your Mac and your iOS devices.

     

    I have the same problem as you, as soon as I try to upload a video, because iCloud.com only allows .jpg files. When I place a video in Photos on my Mac, it get stuck on uploading even if the video in only 5Mb or 10Mb...

     

    I tried to fool iCloud.com by changing a .mov into a .jpg, it started uploading so I was like "Wow I fooled you **** idiot!" but at the end of the uploading I had a message telling me that this file has a problem and cannot be uploaded...

     

    Hope they will fix that issue on the next update. Bad experience so far...

  • by koocmj,

    koocmj koocmj Apr 23, 2015 2:06 AM in response to loïcfernandezcastrillon
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 23, 2015 2:06 AM in response to loïcfernandezcastrillon

    HI I did see your suggestion.  Does that transfer I photo data such as faces, places over to iCloud?

  • by loïcfernandezcastrillon,

    loïcfernandezcastrillon loïcfernandezcastrillon Apr 23, 2015 2:10 AM in response to koocmj
    Level 1 (112 points)
    iPhone
    Apr 23, 2015 2:10 AM in response to koocmj

    No, I'm sure because I started to edit faces, then when I tried to upload a video, it was like my Photos Library was stuck and even after restarting, it did not sync anymore, so I had to turn off iCloud Library, delete the Photos file located in Images. Recreate one and restart the sync. Then all my photos came back, but faces didn't keep anything...

     

    So the advice is, don't spend hours or so to edit all faces until Photos is updated without issues.

  • by OtterStCatch,

    OtterStCatch OtterStCatch Apr 23, 2015 2:00 PM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 23, 2015 2:00 PM in response to G.Lenn

    After days of wrestling with this, my PhotoApp seems to be uploading (at glacial speeds).  But I'm not trusting it: I purchased a month of cloud space back when I was hopeful, but I've downgraded again and will not pay a dime for this.

     

    I'm further baffled by Apple's refusal to include a "show in finder" feature (as iPhoto had).  When I put this to Support, they asked, "Why would you WANT to show the photo in finder?"

     

    Because it's mine and I want to, and that should be good enough.  (In fact, I wanted to know because I'm now downloading all my pictures to a terabyte outboard drive.  This is getting surreal.)

     

    Whoever said this feels a great deal like the old Microsoft days was dead on: it's Kafkaesque. 

  • by OtterStCatch,

    OtterStCatch OtterStCatch Apr 23, 2015 4:39 PM in response to OtterStCatch
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 23, 2015 4:39 PM in response to OtterStCatch

    ETA: My upload failed. 

  • by koocmj,

    koocmj koocmj Apr 23, 2015 10:39 PM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 23, 2015 10:39 PM in response to G.Lenn

    Uplate on my progress.  Fingers crossed, I have got another 400 pics up in the last 10 hours.

     

    i Took my MacBook photos app offline.  I the. Deleted everything since the library seemed to be getting messed up.  I had taken a copy of the photos library and saved it on my backup hard drive before every I started the iCloud process,  thus I started with a copy of the library as just imported from iPhoto.

     

    i Then deleted all videos, having exported them from iPhoto.  I had noticed that the videos were causing bother.  This was possible thanks to Welout.  Their post above showed how to see what photos are being worked on.

     

    SO far it is uploading and populating all my albums.  I hope I haven't jinked the process!  I will let you know how this finished.

  • by Liverpool Webmaster,

    Liverpool Webmaster Liverpool Webmaster Apr 24, 2015 12:05 AM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 24, 2015 12:05 AM in response to G.Lenn

    Greetings again! While I realize this thread is about uploading photos to iCloud, I have discovered a few other things about Photos that you might find useful. As I wrote in an earlier post, I was able to finally get all 28K photos and 8 tiny videos uploaded. I also reported in this thread on some issues I am having with the photos stored in iCloud and Photos. This morning I started to experiment with EDIT in Photos and spent several hours trying to use the features.

     

    Much to my chagrin there were a number of editing features that simply did not work. For example, ENHANCE did not work. You mouse click on the magic wand and nothing happens. ROTATE, CROP,  and FILTERS worked. ADJUST has 9 sub-features (like LIGHT, COLOR, SHARPEN, etc.). Three of the 9 features worked for me (BLACK/WHITE, DEFINITIONS AND VIGNETTE worked, the others did not).  In addition, once I edited and saved a photo, I could NOT export it to the desktop. I got the error statement: "The export operation failed to create a file for the photo identified below. Unknown error (1.005)." If I tried exporting the original photo it did so with no problem.

     

    I had to leave the computer for about 6 hours, but I left Photos running (along with Mail and Safari). When I returned to the computer Photos, Mail and Safari were all running very, very slow. I had to force quit Mail, then quit Safari and Photos and restart the computer. I started Safari to write this post up, and I started Photos so I could check the accuracy of my notes as I wrote this post. WELL ... much to my surprise, some things have changed! In ADJUST -- LIGHT, COLOR, WHITE BALANCE and LEVELS now work. Only SHARPEN and NOISE REDUCTION (2 of the 9 sub-functions of Adjust) do not work at this time.

     

    Also, now edited photos will EXPORT to the desktop.

     

    Besides the Editing, photos are filling in my albums in Photos. Where I only had 1-2 photos in an album (when in reality some had over 100), I am now finding many more "filled" albums with the proper number of photos. Also, instead of only seeing 45 of my 315 albums, I how have too many to count, but they all appear to now be in Photos!! Most of them were in a folder called "iPhoto Events." They even had the correct name associated with it. I still have some "empty folders" - hopefully they will fill in as time goes by. I also still have a lot of empty folders labeled with just a date. I have no idea what that is about, but they are all grouped in ANOTHER folder that also has the name "iPhoto Events."

     

    My PROJECTS (softcover and hardcover books I've made) is still short a LOT of books I have made. However, the books I do have there now contain the photos associated with them (before only 4 of the books had photos). Also, I have one additional Project from the last time I counted them.

     

    Finally, in iCloud, a LOT more of my Albums are populating with the correct album name and photos!!

     

    I check with the App store to see if any Photo updates had been added, negative. (Although there is an update for iMovie that is ready for uploading).

     

    My only idea at this point is to let Photos keep running. Even after all your photographs are uploaded, apparently PHOTOS has a lot of other work to do matching up Album / Project names with their correct folder and photos, etc. Why some of the editing functions didn't work this morning and do so now is a mystery. Perhaps different functions become active as different amounts of photographs have been uploaded? (That doesn't even sound logical to me ... but it seems to be what I am observing.)

     

    BOTTOM LINE: As time goes by, more and more of the Photos program and iCloud storage work as advertised. I'm hoping by letting Photos continue to run day and night that perhaps most (dare I suggest all?) the issues will work themselves out.

  • by attiki77,

    attiki77 attiki77 Apr 24, 2015 3:54 AM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 24, 2015 3:54 AM in response to G.Lenn

    hi,

     

    I was having as well a stuck upload but after disabling photo library and after re-enabling (in settings) , when i opened again the photos app, it told me that I had to reupload all 37,000 items!! How can i "tell" the photo app that the library was already uploaded??

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Apr 24, 2015 7:39 AM in response to Liverpool Webmaster
    Level 9 (51,382 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 24, 2015 7:39 AM in response to Liverpool Webmaster

    Liverpool Webmaster wrote:

     

     

    BOTTOM LINE: As time goes by, more and more of the Photos program and iCloud storage work as advertised. I'm hoping by letting Photos continue to run day and night that perhaps most (dare I suggest all?) the issues will work themselves out.

    Exactly what happened with me, everything transferred, seemingly at random intervals and it took a long while to complete.

  • by mdb288,

    mdb288 mdb288 Apr 24, 2015 7:45 AM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Apr 24, 2015 7:45 AM in response to G.Lenn

    not a satisfying answer...

     

    i had many many photos...and it took over a day...but it did finally complete...

     

    it look like nothing was happening...but it was in fact working...

     

    i rebooted...reinstalled...

     

    but when i just let it sit...it finished...it looked stuch but it was not...

  • by LIZZYLAB,

    LIZZYLAB LIZZYLAB Apr 24, 2015 7:55 AM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 24, 2015 7:55 AM in response to G.Lenn

    Finally, after 10 days and too many hours, my pictures have finally uploaded to Mac and synced with my iPhone and iPad.

    It was stuck uploading for days but what made it finally happen was setting my computer to never sleep in energy saver and leaving my photo preferences uploading. It then took 2 full days but its finally done. I had less than 2500 photos but it duplicated many so now I have over 5000 photos - I think because I restarted the process so many times when it got stuck. Now the tedious task of deleting duplicates. Really, Apple- you could have done better with this program!!

  • by Parrish Jones,

    Parrish Jones Parrish Jones Apr 24, 2015 10:01 AM in response to LIZZYLAB
    Level 1 (109 points)
    iPhone
    Apr 24, 2015 10:01 AM in response to LIZZYLAB

    The Photos experience has been frustrating. I just got signed up for Lightrooms synching between my ipad and laptop. I loaded some photos on my ipad I had taken with my Phantom 2 Drone and by the time I got home and opened my computer they were available on it. I do believe most of our problems are the onslaught of persons trying to use icloud for Photos that resulted in the sudden release of Photos. I suspect it will get smoother.

  • by JDP98,

    JDP98 JDP98 Apr 24, 2015 2:41 PM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 24, 2015 2:41 PM in response to G.Lenn

    I honestly do not know what I just did, but it actually changed from updating to preparing 1700 something (though I have 4381 photos). I went to system preferences (the app), clicked on iCloud from there. Then clicked on photos, options. The minute I did that, from the corner of the screen where I had left photos to update in the background, it automatically triggered it to begin the process, I am so hype. Hopefully it can get all the pictures downloaded.

  • by koocmj,

    koocmj koocmj Apr 25, 2015 1:32 AM in response to koocmj
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 25, 2015 1:32 AM in response to koocmj

    To update, I have nearly uploaded everything. It is chugging along quite well.

     

    i Had started over with a fresh copy of the library.  Issues for me (apologies if you read this and think "idiot", but I am relatively new to Mac and OSX:

     

    1. 2 large videos of 30 mins which I had not noticed were stalling the process.

    2. Mac going to sleep, obvious I guess!

    3. Auto log off. This is has been my main issue with the process appearing to stick.  I did not realise that my MBP logged me off after 1 hour of inactivity.  This explains why so little was achieved each night!

     

    Like I say,  you may think "idiot" but some of these newbie errors may help others who are battling.  These three items seem to be the main issues I was having.  The constant playing around also screwed up the library.  By starting afresh and fixing the above the process has been quite painless.

     

    One other question I have relates to geotagging.  It seems that, unlike iPhoto, I cannot geotag photos taken on my digital camera.  Has anybody come up with a good solution for geotagging with this new program.  I tried importing a test photo to iPhoto, geotagging it then importing to Photos, but the geotag data doesn't appear to have come across.

     

    Thanks all!

  • by scheeko,

    scheeko scheeko Apr 25, 2015 3:53 AM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (42 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 25, 2015 3:53 AM in response to G.Lenn

    I seem to be on the same boat as most complaining here and I've tested all the solutions provided here (rebooting, restarting iCloud, killing processes, repairing library, clearing CloudKit cache...) and nothing has worked.

     

    I have a few more bits of informations form some testing, maybe helps someone, but I haven't yet been able to solve it.

     

    Context: I have one photo library I imported from Aperture (about 240 GB, 38.000 pictures). I have this library on an external drive connected to an iMac, let's call it the "main library". Then I have a MacBook and iOS devices, let's call them "subsidiary libraries". All of them are connected to iCloud Photo Library and only the iMac main library has the "Download from iCloud" option, the subsidiaries are on "Optimize Storage".

     

    The library imported very well and then started uploading. At some point, after about 5000 it got stuck. It says uploading, but nothing ever happens. At this time, all the subsidiaries received these ~5000 pictures as well as the structure of the library: all the albums are there, even if empty.

     

    Every time I try to reboot the upload process with one of the many solutions provided, if Photos decides to restart the process, it starts with "Processing ~5000 pictures" and then a progress bar "uploads" them until it stops at the same point. I don't think it's actually uploading them all again, but just checking with the servers. In any case, during that time the cloudphotosd process is active. Once it hits the stuck point cloudphotosd goes mute.

     

    However, if I now import pictures into the library (or say, export an album and reimport it), Photos uploads them and cloudphotosd again does it thing until, once again, it goes mute and the rest of the pictures stay put. No more uploading. These new pictures propagate fine to the subsidiaries, and the contrary is valid too. Anything I add to one of the subsidiaries, or any edit I make, propagates across all devices, including the main library. So, it seems there something actually stuck on the main library figurative cogs – beats me.

     

    And to finalize, the even more odd things:

    • Importing pictures into the subsidiaries and editing them show up everywhere, including keywords. However, faces do not show up on my main library. The odd thing is that the information of that face does get transmitted, as a new name tagged on a subsidiary shows up on the faces drop down list on the main, but the pictures is not itself tagged.
    • Importing pictures into the main, as with the example I gave, uploads them and propagates them across the subsidiary libraries. However, and contrarily to the point above, edits on the main are not being uploaded and propagated.
    • This one is the kicker, and may say there are bigger errors beneath. I purged my Aperture library of RAW files, as not have huge files uploaded. When I import them, all are JPGs on the new Photos main library. However, within some of the ~5000 pictures that were uploaded and downloaded, in one Album there are RAW files showing up on a subsidiary!

      I have a theory for this, but no real way to verify it. I had been using iCloud Photo Library on my iOS devices (no Photos Beta though) for a while. At a trip, I imported some photos into my iPad using the SD Card dongle. For a while, I didn't realize it imported RAW+JPG as a bundle that you can't separate, or even see it's there, except for the fact your storage space goes away really quickly. When I did realize this, I deleted everything and only added JPGs. It might have happened that I may have uploaded some RAW files to iCloud Photo Library – these photos are from that trip, so that is consistent. While preparing for the new Photos app, I deleted all photos from the iCloud Photo Library, but I'm not sure if I purged them. When the new main library came along (I had since imported these photos again to Aperture), it might be that iCloud matched a deleted but not purged photo, and just matched it. On the main library, nothing happens, as it's still trying to finalize it's initial setup with iCloud, but on my Macbook subsidiary, it downloaded the RAW from iCloud. I can't double check on iOS devices because they don't display the RAW file indication, even if it exists. This is pure speculation, I have no idea how to check any of this.

     

    I really have no idea of what's going on. Maybe and update clears up some bugs. Maybe I'll try all over again. It's a little disheartening.

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