Señor Josué

Q: iCloud Photo Library upload killing internet connection

The new iCloud Photo Library is killing my cable internet connection. It will upload for a little while, greatly slowing down my internet access until eventually it just kills my connection. I have to reset my modem, and Photos will upload a bit more before grinding my connection to a halt again. This is ridiculous, and if I can't get it resolved I'm not going to use this "great new feature" and will stop paying for the extra storage, which I won't need if I go back to Photo Stream.

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Apr 13, 2015 7:37 AM

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Q: iCloud Photo Library upload killing internet connection

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  • by kimhelliwell,

    kimhelliwell kimhelliwell Apr 19, 2015 11:41 AM in response to kimhelliwell
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 11:41 AM in response to kimhelliwell

    I should have said my library is 50 GB, NOT 50 MB!

  • by kimhelliwell,

    kimhelliwell kimhelliwell Apr 19, 2015 12:46 PM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 12:46 PM in response to Csound1

    You are correct. I meant 50 GB.

     

    I have tested my upload (and download) speed both with and without the Photos upload running. When it's not running, I get 18 Mbps down and 600-800 kbps up, which is close to the advertise 20/1 Mbps. When it is running, I get 3-5 Mbps down and 140 kbps up.

     

    In other words, the upload kills both directions of my internet connection. From what the knowledgeable network gurus are saying on this thread, I conjecture there's a bug in icloudd, the iCloud daemon.

     

    That's just a guess. I imagine there may some other explanation.

  • by Tim Bloom1,

    Tim Bloom1 Tim Bloom1 Apr 19, 2015 1:12 PM in response to kimhelliwell
    Level 1 (110 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 1:12 PM in response to kimhelliwell

    Kimhelliwell, I believe your problem is different than others. You have 1 megabit uplink. Naturally, you only will saturate that to 80% because of overhead traffic. 1 megabit equals roughly 128 Kilobytes/sec or .1 megabytes per sec. This equals a 15MB average picture uploading in about 2 minutes. This is considered pretty low these days (5-10 is about average), and will cause you issues with "cloud" services, since you do need to get that data up to the cloud first. At best, it would take about 5 days at 100% saturation to get your library up to the cloud.

     

    Now about upload and download. To download (or really to do) anything, you need to send a request for said action first. If your upload is saturated, that request has to get in line (queue) with your other outgoing requests (your pictures). The time to wait to send that request is counted against you in your speed test, because the test doesn't know any better.. it's just running a timer, an then dividing the size of the file by the amount of time.  In short: a saturated upstream will affect your perceived downstream, and this is completely normal.  We have ways to manage and negate this in the world of networking, but home networks just aren't going to be managed well. What iCloud photos uploader could do is allow you to monitor and cap upload a little better, but as far as getting it up to the cloud faster, you're bottlenecked by your ISP here.

     

    You're going to see the most improvement by bumping your internet speed at least temporarily while your initial upload is going.

  • by Andrew Alderete,

    Andrew Alderete Andrew Alderete Apr 19, 2015 1:13 PM in response to Señor Josué
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 1:13 PM in response to Señor Josué

    It's just gonna happen until your library finishes its upload.

  • by Mack Palm Springs,

    Mack Palm Springs Mack Palm Springs Apr 19, 2015 1:21 PM in response to MRextreme
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 19, 2015 1:21 PM in response to MRextreme

    Arris TG862 -- my modem - Connected to an Apple Airport Extreme (lastest AC model).  Mac is Ethernet attached directly to the Apple Airport Extreme.

  • by kimhelliwell,

    kimhelliwell kimhelliwell Apr 19, 2015 2:17 PM in response to Tim Bloom1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 2:17 PM in response to Tim Bloom1

    Tim:

     

    Thanks for that explanation. Given what you say, and given my sudden realization that network speeds are in bits/second while the Activity Monitor is giving uploads in Bytes/sec, it appears I'm getting all the speed I ever will achieve with my current connection. Your explanation of why the download speed is affected also makes perfect sense.

     

    Unfortunately, I live in Idaho and my connection is from CenturyLink (formerly Qwest), and there is no higher speed tier available to me at this time. So I guess I will have to live with what I have at the moment. Fortunately, I think in a week or two all the pix will be uploaded and life can get back to normal.

     

    And it appears I do not have a problem with my connection or with the software. So I guess I'll just tiptoe out of here and be happy my network isn't being killed, just slammed, by the upload process.

     

    BTW: even when I lived in San Jose, CA I doubt I had upload speeds greater than I have here. In fact, my download speed here is faster than I had there, if I'm remembering correctly. In spite of being the "Capital of Silicon Valley", available speeds there lagged sadly behind much of the rest of the country. As of 2 years ago, anyway.

  • by eneisch,

    eneisch eneisch Apr 19, 2015 2:45 PM in response to kimhelliwell
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 2:45 PM in response to kimhelliwell

    I have an Arris CM820A. Router is an Airport Extreme (4th Generation).

  • by extricated,

    extricated extricated Apr 19, 2015 2:46 PM in response to Señor Josué
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 2:46 PM in response to Señor Josué

    Same issue here as well.
    I average about 12 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up; not blazing by some standards, but pretty decent for what I do.
    After transitioning (or attempting to transition) to iCloud Photo Library my internet just crashes.  I don't mean that it slows down, I mean it shuts down completely and won't come back up until I reboot my modem. I also use iTunes Match, so I understand slow connections and taking a few days to upload a large library.  This is completely different.

     

    I didn't make the connection initially and at first thought something was going on with my ISP.
    They verified that I was without internet, but that the problem was not on their end.
    It only took two instances before I made the definite connection between the internet crash and opening Photos.

     

    I just now downgraded my iCloud storage and changed settings in the Photos app.
    I won't use this service again until Apple fixes it.

  • by gjlamb,

    gjlamb gjlamb Apr 19, 2015 3:23 PM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (28 points)
    iCloud
    Apr 19, 2015 3:23 PM in response to Csound1

    I measure my speed regularly and the speed when measured from speed test sites always reflect the routers own statistics.  with a 1000Kbps up speed, the library should be well and truly uploaded after a week.  I've got roughly 16 percent uploaded.  Even when left on with nothing else on uploading or downloading, after several hours or overnight, there is no difference in the count left.  Given that so many others in many different locations are having exactly the same issue, basic troubleshooting would point to something different other than my connection.

     

    Excuse the typo in the previous post on speed but the problem is still the same.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Apr 19, 2015 3:28 PM in response to gjlamb
    Level 9 (50,412 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 19, 2015 3:28 PM in response to gjlamb

    1000Kbps = 1Mb/s

     

    The upload will take a very long time, your connection is slow (about 5 times slower than the national average)

  • by gjlamb,

    gjlamb gjlamb Apr 19, 2015 3:41 PM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (28 points)
    iCloud
    Apr 19, 2015 3:41 PM in response to Csound1

    Yes, that fact has been cited several times on this thread and as someone who has worked in IT since 1986 i'm very aware of how many bits are in a byte.  Let me make it extremely clear as you seem to be hung up on something.  I know that a 50GB library is going to take a very long time to upload with a max upstream of 1000Kbps.  What I'm saying is that even after a week of monitoring I still only have 16% of that library uploaded.  After turning everying off for 5.5 hours at least (sometimes leaving for 8 hours overnight)  and letting only the Photos upload run, the count of the number of photos to upload has not changed at all or changed only by 1.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Apr 19, 2015 3:45 PM in response to gjlamb
    Level 9 (50,412 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 19, 2015 3:45 PM in response to gjlamb

    gjlamb wrote:

     

    Yes, that fact has been cited several times on this thread and as someone who has worked in IT since 1986 i'm very aware of how many bits are in a byte.  Let me make it extremely clear as you seem to be hung up on something.  I know that a 50GB library is going to take a very long time to upload with a max upstream of 1000Kbps.  What I'm saying is that even after a week of monitoring I still only have 16% of that library uploaded.  After turning everying off for 5.5 hours at least (sometimes leaving for 8 hours overnight)  and letting only the Photos upload run, the count of the number of photos to upload has not changed at all or changed only by 1.

    At this time you do not know accurately how much is uploaded, only after uploading is completed do the figures become accurate.

     

    But you're the IT guy so you don't need me to tell you.

  • by gjlamb,

    gjlamb gjlamb Apr 19, 2015 3:53 PM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (28 points)
    iCloud
    Apr 19, 2015 3:53 PM in response to Csound1

    Are you for real?  There is a count of number of photos left to upload in the application!  It is decreasing but extremely slowly and as I've stated several times already, often not at all for a very long time.  Are you actually using these apps or just inputting conjecture?

  • by kimhelliwell,

    kimhelliwell kimhelliwell Apr 19, 2015 4:40 PM in response to gjlamb
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 4:40 PM in response to gjlamb

    gjlamb:

     

    5.5 or 8 hours seems extreme for only 1 photo uploading in that time. What I have observed is that the photos go up in batches. You should not see the count decreasing by only 1 at a time (unless perhaps for a video). I see it decreasing by 20 or maybe 40 at a time. The count sits for some time until that batch gets uploaded, then gets decremented by the size of the next batch. The size isn't alway exactly 20 in my case, either, but some number around that, and it seems to vary. You and I have the same upload speed, but perhaps you have many more multimegapixel photos than I do. You SHOULD see progress over time, however slow it might be.

     

    As I've said several times already, there are a couple of ways to make sure of progress. You obviously monitor the Preferences pane for Photos for the number of pix remaining to be uploaded. You can also monitor the Network pane of the Activity Monitor. Finally, you can log into iCloud on a browser to see what pix are there. If you scroll to the end of the available pix, you should see a count of the pix already there. That number plus the number remaining should equal roughly the total number of pix you have, minus whatever pix are in transit. One caveat: I suspect that each frame of a video counts as one photo in the count reported in the preference pane, because my count started at over 10,000 photos, while Photos itself says I have 8000+ photos and videos.

     

    If I'm right about that last conjecture, then you might appear to be stuck when a very large video clip is being uploaded. Just a thought, anyway.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Apr 19, 2015 4:56 PM in response to gjlamb
    Level 9 (50,412 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 19, 2015 4:56 PM in response to gjlamb

    gjlamb wrote:

     

    Are you for real?

     

     

    my upload speed is only 1000Mbps

     

     

    Only an IT guy could post that and not notice how absurd it is, feel free to sort it out yourself, I don't need your attitude

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