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

Close

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

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

first Previous Page 9 of 15 last Next
  • by oldsoulsound,

    oldsoulsound oldsoulsound Apr 25, 2015 4:47 AM in response to CaneZMD
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 25, 2015 4:47 AM in response to CaneZMD

    Same exact issue here. Uploading 13,500  photos and its been stuck for days.

  • by cyfargier,

    cyfargier cyfargier Apr 25, 2015 6:19 AM in response to oldsoulsound
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 25, 2015 6:19 AM in response to oldsoulsound

    Same here, uploading stuck , i tried everything i read wo any improvement

  • by koocmj,

    koocmj koocmj Apr 25, 2015 6:28 AM in response to cyfargier
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 25, 2015 6:28 AM in response to cyfargier

    Hi. I don't know if any of my points will help you?  I was having a complete nightmare with this.  My last post details what I found.  Since sorting these issues I have managed to get 1400 photos up in the past 24 hours.

     

    Hope you get it sorted.

  • by koocmj,

    koocmj koocmj Apr 25, 2015 9:19 AM in response to koocmj
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 25, 2015 9:19 AM in response to koocmj

    In addition to my upload resolutions, I have found a little app called photos geotag.  It is doing a nice job of adding geotags to my Photos library.

     

    The process is to export the photos from the Photos app.  Do the geotagging.  Delete the originals from the photos app. Reimport the geotagged items, which get put back into the Photos app in the same place, but with the location data.

     

    I noticed that having deleted the original items, they were now missing from my iPhoto event folder.  By adding them back to the iPhoto event folder they came from all is restored.

     

    Hope this helps!

  • by Liverpool Webmaster,

    Liverpool Webmaster Liverpool Webmaster Apr 25, 2015 12:51 PM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 25, 2015 12:51 PM in response to G.Lenn

    Greetings Everyone. I have posted several times in this thread and thought I'd give an update (my last unless I discover something new). As of today, I have now been running the Photos program for a total of around 72 hours and iCloud for around 40 hours. Not continuously, but for long continuous time periods (10 hours, 24 hours, 20 hours, 22 hours). For a lot of that time I also let iCloud run on the computer. I let NO other programs run (WARNING: Mail does not "play well" with Photos, at least in this uploading stage. Mail runs slow and has crashed several times). In the beginning of the photograph uploading you can following the uploading of pictures on iCloud. At the bottom of the iCloud > Photos, on the screen it gives you a photo upload count roughly every 20 - 30 seconds. These updates stop after 5 minutes, then you have mouse click your browser's REFRESH button, and the counter will run for another 5 minutes. At least that way you can see if your photos are being updated. I was loading around 700 - 800 photos per hour at a rate of around 1Mbps (I have FIOS and should have gotten better upload speeds, but did not). I had 28,000 photos, the process took over 30 hours just to upload the photos. (NOTE: once you have over 20K photos, it takes the computer a LONG time to count the photos (30-60 seconds!).

     

    HOWEVER -- that is not all that Photos is doing. At the same time it appears to be building and/or activating the Photos software. At first I could not edit any photos, then later I could use Rotate, Crop and Filters -- but none of the other 6 features. Still later in the process I could use Enhance and some of the Adjust features. Now, I can use ALL of the Edit features.

     

    Also, the longer you let Photos and iCloud run, the more "stuff" gets uploaded to iCloud AND appears in Photos. At first I was just getting photographs in iCloud > Photos. Later, in Photos, I started to get SOME events and SOME projects, in iCloud is had SOME Albums. At first, the events I got did not have the iPhoto name nor did it contain all the photos in that event. Eventually the event names populated the folders, as did the photos. Now, I have almost all the events on iCloud and in Photos (and all the projects in Photos). iCloud and Photos both store you photos by date taken (kind of like all the events you made, but photos are now in individual folders labeled by date, and the SAME photos are also in another group of folders arranged by event name). It looks to me that full photographs were integrated first, then the thumbnails were uploaded later (or repopulated from the iCloud storage by Photos?). I'm not sure of HOW this is all working, I can just relay what I am seeing.

     

    Even after 72 hours of running iCloud and Photos, it is still NOT finished. I am getting close but both iCloud and Photos STILL have events to fill in with photos.

    Make sure you start by going to System Preferences > Energy Saver > Computer Sleep and set it to NEVER. (You can leave the Display Sleep active). Make sure to follow Apple's directions for both making sure iCloud is ready to go, and for how to upgrade iPhoto. Before you start the process make sure NO other programs are running (they will either CRAWL or CRASH and will slow down your uploading process). I suggest not even opening another window in your browser except for the iCloud link. I am now letting them run when I'm asleep or will be away from the computer for extended periods of time.

     

    It's a slow, slow process. The more photos / movies you have, the longer this process is going to take. Take a few notes on what seems to be completed and what isn't completed in both iCloud and Photos, and what editing features work and which ones do not in Photos. The reason I figured this out was that I wrote myself a few notes on what was working and not working, and then compared the notes with what I saw after letting the computer run for another 10-15 hours. I also suggest quitting/logging out and restarting the computer every 24 hours. That also seemed to pick up the pace of what was happening.

     

    As far as I can tell, there is no status bar or indicator that "things" are actually happening (except the upload count on iCloud mentioned above.). Because this process takes so long, there SHOULD be some kind of onscreen box that explains what the computer is doing with Photos / iCloud at that moment, what it's finished, what it has left to do, along with an estimated time remaining. Most of the time I did not see any, moment by moment, updating being completed. Only after letting the computer continuously run for hours, and comparing the current status with my notes, was I able to see that progress was actually being made. MY POINT: Just because it doesn't LOOK like anything is happening ... that assumption might not be correct.

     

    My  last guess is that if you have lots and lots of photos and videos (I have 28,000 photos and 8 videos totaling less than 4 minutes), it's going to take a long, long time for your process to complete itself. I'm now over 72 hours of online activity with what I've got to work with. If you have 100K photos and 1K videos, it could be WEEKS before your process gets completed.

     

    Good luck to all!! Thank you for all your help.

  • by loïcfernandezcastrillon,

    loïcfernandezcastrillon loïcfernandezcastrillon Apr 26, 2015 8:55 AM in response to Liverpool Webmaster
    Level 1 (112 points)
    iPhone
    Apr 26, 2015 8:55 AM in response to Liverpool Webmaster

    Hello everyone,

     

    Instead of struggling to get your Photos almost sent, or trying to find what the software does.

    The simplest solution is to go to iCloud.com -> Photos -> Import.

     

    Safari will do the job according to your internet speed.

     

    If you want to import videos, I've found a way:

    Send your video from your Mac to your iPhone with AirDrop. The video will be on your iPhone and it will send it to iCloud without issue, here again according to your internet speed.

     

    If you're afraid about your iPhone storage, check in the Photos preferences to manage storage.

     

    That way your don't have to bother about Photos for Mac, and you can upload your entire Library without thinking about it!

  • by dogsnack,

    dogsnack dogsnack Apr 26, 2015 1:10 PM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (129 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 26, 2015 1:10 PM in response to G.Lenn

    It took 3 hours for  Photos to update 6000 photos but when I open the app it only shows 52 photos. All albums are there but grayed out. I have re booted and checked other suggestions re above. ?.

  • by Lord of chance,

    Lord of chance Lord of chance Apr 26, 2015 5:18 PM in response to kennethfromshort hills
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 26, 2015 5:18 PM in response to kennethfromshort hills

    Signing off icloud from my Mac and reloging worked for me.

  • by dogsnack,

    dogsnack dogsnack Apr 26, 2015 6:02 PM in response to Lord of chance
    Level 1 (129 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 26, 2015 6:02 PM in response to Lord of chance

    thank you...I set the wrong library to default. Can someone direct me to actual directions for the new app? I cannot drag and drop photos, I highlight photos and assign albums but nothing moves, trying to rename existing albums just opens a map...I was blindsided by this as i thought I was just doing an update of iPhoto.

  • by scheeko,

    scheeko scheeko Apr 27, 2015 1:50 AM in response to loïcfernandezcastrillon
    Level 1 (42 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 27, 2015 1:50 AM in response to loïcfernandezcastrillon

    Loïc,

    for many of us that's not really an option. Sure you can import the pictures, but you loose many organisational aspects, like the Faces information, or, more importantly in my case, all of the albums. I have 300 albums and don't want to spend the time fishing for all the photos and organize them again.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Apr 27, 2015 5:15 AM in response to Liverpool Webmaster
    Level 9 (51,382 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 27, 2015 5:15 AM in response to Liverpool Webmaster

    Liverpool Webmaster wrote:

     

    My  last guess is that if you have lots and lots of photos and videos (I have 28,000 photos and 8 videos totaling less than 4 minutes), it's going to take a long, long time for your process to complete itself. I'm now over 72 hours of online activity with what I've got to work with. If you have 100K photos and 1K videos, it could be WEEKS before your process gets completed.

     

    Good luck to all!! Thank you for all your help.

    Why guess? it is a simple math problem to calculate the duration of the upload if you know the upload speed and size (which within limits you do)

     

    So, why guess?

  • by tnorris,

    tnorris tnorris Apr 27, 2015 8:02 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (36 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 27, 2015 8:02 AM in response to Csound1

    My original upload to Photos Library a few weeks ago went fine and took a couple of hours.  There was a status detailing photo counts and time remaining.  Now, Photos just says "Updating" perpetually, with no details regarding what is being updated.    I've left Photos running for a number of days, with no status change.  Activity monitor does show some network traffic, albeit slow.  Is anyone else seeing this?

  • by Paddy674,

    Paddy674 Paddy674 Apr 28, 2015 12:32 AM in response to tnorris
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 28, 2015 12:32 AM in response to tnorris

    Seems there are a variety of issues here.

    My Photos upload got stuck after the "preparing stage" and at the "uploading" stage. My photo library also stopped updating across all my devices so new photos were not reflected.

     

    I tried:

    • Turning off icloud on photos
    • logging out/in to icloud (across all devices)
    • restarting all devices

     

    Eventually I decided to sacrifice a few recent photos/videos taken on iphone and shared via icloud across my mac. I think one of the videos corrupted when I tried to export it from photos on my mac.

     

    If you find that your Photos prepares all for upload and then gets stuck at the upload stage you may have a corrupt file.

    Be sure to check and delete from "recently deleted" across all devices

     

    Mine is now uploading slowly but surely

  • by Kim GE,

    Kim GE Kim GE Apr 29, 2015 6:24 AM in response to G.Lenn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 29, 2015 6:24 AM in response to G.Lenn

    Hi there.

     

    I had the same problem uploading photos.  However, there is a reply somewhere in this post to this question saying to turn off sleep mode.

     

    It works!

     

    Photo Mac is uploading around 1000 photos a day to icloud!! I noted the number every morning and evening.    I check photos on icloud.com and they are there.

     

    It is quite slow I feel, but at least it is doing the job.

     

    With this speed, it will take 46+ days to upload everything (my library is 46000 photos + video)...  now I still have 36000+ left to upload...

     

    Cheers!

  • by timbarrick,

    timbarrick timbarrick Apr 29, 2015 1:23 PM in response to Kim GE
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 29, 2015 1:23 PM in response to Kim GE

    Just talked to Apple Support for Photos. I was told that the Apple iCloud servers are swamped and are not able to handle all of the traffic with the uploading of photos from everyone. Aargh.

     

    A suggestion was to uncheck "iCloud Photo Library" and try again in two weeks after (hopefully) Apple iCloud resources have been increased.

     

    Also suggested was to turn on iCloud Photo Library on one device at a time when multiple devices share the same WiFi network (iPhones, iPads, Macs), then wait for it to complete on the one device before turning it on at the next device.

first Previous Page 9 of 15 last Next