iCloud Photo Library upload killing internet connection

I had the same problem many years ago. Whenever I turned on my computer the whole internet connect just went dead. Finally nailed down to the iPhoto uploading (syncing) to the cloud. Turn it off. The idea is good but the syncing will take up all the bandwidth.

Bamboo33 wrote:

I had the same problem many years ago. Whenever I turned on my computer the whole internet connect just went dead. Finally nailed down to the iPhoto uploading (syncing) to the cloud. Turn it off. The idea is good but the syncing will take up all the bandwidth.

Only FIOS from Verizon (available in home in some areas) offers fast upload speed -- broadband is about download speed.

One consideration when using ICLOUD to synchronize pictures across devices - only keep in the system photo library pictures you want to show other people. Apple does tell you to back up your Photos on your device - means don't use ICLOUD as your only backup.

See these PHOTOS Apple support pages

photo getting started

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204655

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204410

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204264

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204414

One consideration when using ICLOUD to synchronize pictures across devices - only keep in the system photo library pictures you want to show other people.

What is your basis for the above statement? While you make a good point about keeping a separate back-up of your photos, iCloud Photo Library is not intended solely as a means of storing a specific subset of one's photo library -- at least if you take Apple's marketing and support material at face value:

"Access all your photos from anywhere."

"iCloud Photo Library automatically keeps all your photos in the cloud..."

"iCloud Photo Library stores every photo and video you take..."

"iCloud Photo Library stores all of your original photos and videos in iCloud..."

jonschweitzer wrote:

One consideration when using ICLOUD to synchronize pictures across devices - only keep in the system photo library pictures you want to show other people.

What is your basis for the above statement? While you make a good point about keeping a separate back-up of your photos, iCloud Photo Library is not intended solely as a means of storing a specific subset of one's photo library -- at least if you take Apple's marketing and support material at face value:

"Access all your photos from anywhere."

"iCloud Photo Library automatically keeps all your photos in the cloud..."

"iCloud Photo Library stores every photo and video you take..."

"iCloud Photo Library stores all of your original photos and videos in iCloud..."

Marketing is all flash and pop - and never shows the additional options.

I base it on the Apple Support pages - on Iphoto (and also the ICLOUD one that says max size 1 terabyte.

And its apple that is telling you to back them up.

As to the ICLOUD - or any CLOUD there was an article on BBC tech including comments by Steve Wozniak - discussing the cloudy legal areas of the cloud.

photo getting started

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204655

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204410

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204264

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204414

Understood. As I said, Apple's marketing and support materials (from which I quoted) do not make any statements saying that iCloud is solely intended for a subset of one's photos -- quite the opposite, in fact. I'm on board with the rest of your statements.

jonschweitzer wrote:

Understood. As I said, Apple's marketing and support materials (from which I quoted) do not make any statements saying that iCloud is solely intended for a subset of one's photos -- quite the opposite, in fact. I'm on board with the rest of your statements.

The fact that you can have multiple PHOTO libraries --and only The designated system library is synchronized means that you do not have to have all of your pictures and videos in the cloud.

ditto to all the points. Iphoto needs to allow a qos style setting to keep from over running the carrier. In my case TWC. Two routers, two cable modems, and a service call later just to figure out that iphoto is overloading the system. I appreciate the solution of a rate limiter. Now we need one that only applies to iphoto,

Me too. My 'ping' goes from 18ms to over 400ms - making PC gaming impossible + FaceTime / Skype almost unworkable too. I'm now the most unpopular guy in the house (if I wasn't already 🙂 ) - and have been requested by family members to uninstall the app many times!

Seems to me that at the very least, there should be an option to set the uploads within specific times, e.g. midnight to 6am, then again during periods when everyone is at work or school. I appreciate that there is the pause / resume feature - but I'm not always at hand to make the switch, so much better if I could set the parameters once - then just leave it.

Let's pray that the dev team are reading these posts and improve matters for a future release....

I found the following in another forum and followed it it works great!!

I've been struggling with Photo for a few weeks and this finally solved it.

mayallApr 22, 2015 1:36 PM Re: Any way to throttle photo upload?
Re: Any way to throttle photo upload?in response to David Krug

This is geeky but seems to work: Use Apple's Network Link Conditioner (NLC) to limit the upload speed from your computer.

1. Download the NLC system preference from the Apple Developer's site. It is part of the Hardware IO Tools.
2. Install the NLC system preference.
3. Open the NLC system preference and create a new profile.
4. Limit the Uplink speed. I chose about 60% of my available uplink bandwidth and that seems to work OK.
5. Set the Downlink limit to something at least close to your ISP's bandwidth or above.

You'll probably need to play around with the limits. Remember that it affects all of the network traffic in and out of the computer so something like a Time Capsule backup might go really, really slowly.

Here's the setting I used:

I too have struggled with this problem and found parts of this post to be very helpful. I found some success with the Network Link Conditioner. Dialed down to 1MB/sec, I was able to stay connected to the internet. But my job was large (200GB) and my upload speed is 6MB/sec, so I wanted things to go faster. I also didn't understand why I wasn't able to get more than 1MB/sec upload speed without losing internet connection. This is application specific. I can upload from other applications and get the full 6MB/sec. I can combine uploads from Photos and other applications and get 6MB/sec. But I can't get more than 1MB/sec with Photos for very long before my internet connection is dropped.

Next I had the Xfinity tech come and run tests and replace cables, etc. One interesting test was to monitor the connection through a splitter and stop and start the Photos upload and see if anything could be observed. Nothing. As far as Xfinity is concerned, the internet connection was good. This indicated that the problem was with my modem or with my router.

I have/had an Arris Surfboard modem and early in this debugging had tried replacing it with the same to no effect. Now I decided to try replacing it with a Zoom 5341J with the Broadcom chip, not the Texas Instruments chip, per the recommendation of another poster. What is very interesting about this is that according to the Activity Monitor, the I still was getting just shy of 1MB/sec WITHOUT the Network Link Conditioner on! No loss of internet connection. All stable, but still not 6MB/sec.

This led me to look into the specs of the new modem and I discovered that it employs a process called "Flow Control." Apparently there are different types of this. The idea is that the receiving router communicates to the sending router when the latter is sending faster than the former can receive. The sending router, if it has flow control technology, with then throttle the sending, much in the way that the Network Link Conditioner does. The Arris Surfboard does not have this technology or it doesn't work. I don't know if it's choking because it's misinterpreting communication from the receiving router or because it's in effect getting backed up trying to send too much data too fast.

The takeaway is that Apple must not have the door wide open, so to speak, to Photos uploads. It must be limiting the upload speed. I couldn't find anything on limits for Photos specifically posted by Apple, but I did find this:

From Apple Help:

My Photo Stream upload limits

The My Photo Stream limits below are based on anticipated upload patterns. These are the My Photo Stream upload limits:

Uploads to My Photo Stream per hour: 1000 photos

Uploads to My Photo Stream per day: 10,000 photos

Uploads to My Photo Stream per month: 25,000 photos

If you exceed one of these limits, your uploads to My Photo Stream will pause temporarily, and you might see a notification on your device. Your uploads will resume automatically when you no longer exceed the limit, such as in the following hour or on the following day.

iCloud Photo Sharing limits

These are the iCloud Photo Sharing hourly and daily limits:

Maximum combined number of photos and videos from all contributors per shared album, per hour: 1000

Maximum combined number of photos and videos from all contributors per shared album, per day: 10,000

These sharing limits are separate from the upload limits above. For example, in the same day you could upload 10,000 photos to My Photo Stream, then share those 10,000 photos or 10,000 other photos.

Anyway, if you're still struggling, you don't need to replace your router, you just need to use the Network Link Conditioner, dial it to 1MB/sec max, be patient and complain to Apple.

Photos hogs the entire upload bandwidth witch in turn kills downloads.

in photos preferences you can pause for a day, but there are no other more usefull options, like pause for an hour or until midnigh, or only use 60% of my maximum demonstrated bandwidth or limit upload to 1mbs..

And if God forbid you sign out of iCloud you are forced to reupload everything all over agin even though is already in the iCloud.com library aparenty it can't md5 or rsync for some mind boggling reason, so you then get to spend another week waiting to reupload unable to use internet because photos hogs it all.

Why isn't this page iPhone friendly????

yes I know most people have access to true broadband But about 20% of us don't . Cellular tethering is $10 gb, satellite has 50 gb cap, I have DSL and no options that would not cost $2000.00 plus a month

so having to reupload is very painful!!!!!!!

I used rsync 15 years ago, it only syncs changed bits !!!!

If apple wasn't so busy trying to justify its beats acquisition maybe they would've gotten photos right

It's simple if you saturate upload bandwidth nothing will download, most ISP's, modems work this way. 90% of traffic is downstream and most people just simply never noticed, Including the young bandwidth spoiled SF apple programer - testers!

My Issue is mainly is, why upload the same photo or movie twice????

I used rsync 15 years ago, it only syncs changed bits !!!! (with the right settings)

WHY would any sane person transfer 100's of gigs twice if the file already exsits on the other side??????????????

My file are all uploaded at iCloud.com but, every mac i connect to it with an identical set of photos, it wants to re-upload the exact same photos agin??

and you can't do anything until it does!

Photos hogs the entire upload bandwidth witch in turn kills downloads.

in photos preferences you can pause for a day, but there are no other more usefull options, like pause for an hour or until midnigh, or only use 60% of my maximum demonstrated bandwidth or limit upload to 1mbs..

And if God forbid you sign out of iCloud you are forced to reupload everything all over agin even though is already in the iCloud.com library aparenty it can't md5 or rsync for some mind boggling reason, so you then get to spend another week waiting to reupload unable to use internet because photos hogs it all.

Why isn't this page iPhone friendly????

yes I know most people have access to true broadband But about 20% of us don't . Cellular tethering is $10 gb, satellite has 50 gb cap, I have DSL and no options that would not cost $2000.00 plus a month

so having to reupload is very painful!!!!!!!

I used rsync 15 years ago, it only syncs changed bits !!!!

If apple wasn't so busy trying to justify its beats acquisition maybe they would've gotten photos right

There is no way to sign out of iCloud without having to re-upload everything????

I have the same problem! re-uploading 120gb on dsl Unacceptable!

I cannot buy faster internet at my house! believe me I have tried they all want $10 a gb for sat or cell witch would come to $2,500.00 per month. for 250gb

I had to sign out of iCloud and when I signed back in 1 min later it wants to re-upload! I'm screwed I give UP it killed my internet for a week and i had to go sit at Starbucks 60mbs up-down Google-Starbucks wifi for 6 hours! not doing it again.

There is no upload time calculator!

There is no pause for 2 hours option, so it restarts after i fall asleep watching Netflix !

There is no suggestion to remove videos

There is no explanation that it will convert each video as it gets to it and will NOT upload until that conversion is done! and it won't convert till upload is done!

There is no way to pre-convert video's so you could then go some where with fast upload!

There is no way to sign out of iCloud without having to re-upload everything

There is no explanation that it uploads the newest pictures and videos first and works backwards in time to oldest pic.

Its as if they don't even know what RSYNC is !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why the jrgxf8onrg87cf would it re upload the exact same 120 gb????????

Unacceptable!!!!!!!!!!!! rqedy2tyjy3fjuv

Look I understand that photos converts videos before uploading and after this basically analog conversion the video MD5 hash's would not match, But that dosn't mean you can't tag the files in a meta tag so photos knows they were originally a match! , and then not reconvert it and re-upload it.

Another Motorola cable modem owner, another frustrated Photos user who's dreams of having his family's photo catalog sync'd across multiple laptops and iOS devices dashed against the rocks. And yes, I've had Crashplan upload multi-hundred GB HDs from multiple computers without any problems, though for accuracy purposes the last multi-hundred GB upload to Crashplan was *before* I got the Motorola modem.

Hoping Apple work on tuning this better.

I'm taking the advice of many to download and install the Network Link Conditioner from the Apple IO Tools site - but I can't find it! I've no doubt that it's staring at me - but would really appreciate if someone can point out exactly where to find it!

Thanks

There are instructions and the link on this page:

https://mayallit.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/how-to-fix-apple-photos-icloud-photo-l ibrary-upload-using-network-link-conditioner/