mbrun

Q: stuck analyzing photos for face detection

I converted my iPhoto library and, beyond a lost album, thought it had transitioned well. I now see that face detection isn't working. It did bring what seems to be all my faces from iPhoto, but the Faces screen only shows those previously recognized and at the bottom it says "analyzing photos" and has for days (I left it open for over 24 hours). I was able to manually add a few face labels but I'm not sure what to do to get it past this.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on May 9, 2015 7:14 AM

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Q: stuck analyzing photos for face detection

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  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill May 9, 2015 7:23 AM in response to mbrun
    Level 10 (103,368 points)
    Apple TV
    May 9, 2015 7:23 AM in response to mbrun

    Have you tried relaunching the application.

  • by mbrun,

    mbrun mbrun May 9, 2015 7:37 AM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 1 (110 points)
    May 9, 2015 7:37 AM in response to Winston Churchill

    Yes, several times.

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill May 9, 2015 7:41 AM in response to mbrun
    Level 10 (103,368 points)
    Apple TV
    May 9, 2015 7:41 AM in response to mbrun

    I know someone who had this happen to them, let me see if I can get them to chime in.

  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat May 9, 2015 12:13 PM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 6 (19,578 points)
    May 9, 2015 12:13 PM in response to Winston Churchill

    I think it was due to some non-standard or very old graphic file/document formats, but hopefully he'll let us know himself.

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill May 9, 2015 12:15 PM in response to Alley_Cat
    Level 10 (103,368 points)
    Apple TV
    May 9, 2015 12:15 PM in response to Alley_Cat

    Yes I remember now, was it PICT files.

  • by R C-R,

    R C-R R C-R May 9, 2015 12:19 PM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 6 (17,633 points)
    May 9, 2015 12:19 PM in response to Winston Churchill

    Winston Churchill wrote:

    I know someone who had this happen to them, let me see if I can get them to chime in.

    That might have been me. I eventually figured out I had some old Quickdraw format (with the .pct extension) pictures in my iPhoto Library that were migrated along with everything else into Photos. Removing them from Photos (easy to do using the search feature with "pct" as the search term to find them all) allowed Photos to complete the analyzing step.

  • by mbrun,

    mbrun mbrun May 9, 2015 1:36 PM in response to R C-R
    Level 1 (110 points)
    May 9, 2015 1:36 PM in response to R C-R

    I don't have any .pct files. I cannot help but think it might be due to the fact that the old library was a referenced library. Not all the images were referenced (as apposed to copied into iPhoto) but about half were. Many were .dng files. In addition to that a hard drive crash wiped out many of those referenced images. I cleaned out all the files that were missing after the migration put them in the deleted images.

  • by mbrun,

    mbrun mbrun May 19, 2015 5:24 AM in response to mbrun
    Level 1 (110 points)
    May 19, 2015 5:24 AM in response to mbrun

    I just noticed I said "analyzing photos" when the message is actually "Analyzing Photos..." at the bottom of the Photos faces window.

     

    There still has been no resolution to this problem. I attempted to clean out all missing images, repaired permissions using the built-in app repair for iPhoto then performing the migration to a new library. Even deleting hundreds of old photos imported before my iPhone was the primary camera did not work.

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill May 19, 2015 7:30 AM in response to mbrun
    Level 10 (103,368 points)
    Apple TV
    May 19, 2015 7:30 AM in response to mbrun

    I suspect you have some photos that are specifically causing this, even if they aren't pct.

  • by mbrun,

    mbrun mbrun May 19, 2015 9:19 AM in response to mbrun
    Level 1 (110 points)
    May 19, 2015 9:19 AM in response to mbrun

    mbrun wrote:

     

    I just noticed I said "analyzing photos" when the message is actually "Analyzing Photos..." at the bottom of the Photos faces window.

    "Analyzing Faces..." is what meant.

     

    I will report back as I learn more.

  • by mbrun,

    mbrun mbrun May 21, 2015 7:11 AM in response to mbrun
    Level 1 (110 points)
    May 21, 2015 7:11 AM in response to mbrun

    Possible solution for anyone who needs it: delete all your recognized faces from Photos.

     

    I tried deleting images in iPhoto (and emptying the trash) in stages, then converting a new library in Photos. Each time it failed to solve the problem of the "Analyzing Faces..." message. After about half my image library had been deleted and 7 or 8 migration attempts I figured I might just need to start with a fresh new empty Photos library.

     

    The solution came when I tried deleting all the faces that Photos had imported from iPhoto. Once I did that the "Analyzing Faces..." message went away and it was ready to start fresh. Now I wish I had done this prior to deleting half my iPhoto library. I'll need to add the images back into Photos as well as go through the faces recognition process all over. Certainly the initial cause could have been the fact that my iPhoto library consisted of RAW, PSD, TIFF and JPG files (some referenced and some copied into the program) and the broken file path to many of the referenced images (due to an external hard drive failure years ago). But, after removing all known trouble files and half my library, nothing worked.

  • by Krayonde,

    Krayonde Krayonde Jun 2, 2015 4:44 AM in response to mbrun
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 2, 2015 4:44 AM in response to mbrun

    Hi mbrun,

     

    at least I can confirm that this gets rid of the problem - I just duplicated my photos library, deleted all faces, restarted Photos and now it is happily recognising faces.

    Not the most viable solution for people with a huge database, but then - if you have a huge database, you should not use Photos...

     

    Thanks!

  • by conchobhar,

    conchobhar conchobhar Jun 20, 2015 8:42 PM in response to mbrun
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 20, 2015 8:42 PM in response to mbrun

    I'm having this problem too, but the above method— deleting all faces and restarting— isn't working for me. I've also tried rebuilding my library but it hasn't changed anything; Photos sits there "Analyzing Faces..." forever.

     

    I find that if I make a brand-new library and re-import my old photos, Photos will happily start recognizing faces. So I know that it can work. But I'd really rather not have to extract all my photos from the library, re-import them, and re-make all my albums. Is there any way I could fix the existing library I have to start analyzing faces?

  • by poleary2000,

    poleary2000 poleary2000 May 7, 2016 2:09 PM in response to conchobhar
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 7, 2016 2:09 PM in response to conchobhar

    I know this thread is a year old, but a year later I am having the same problem.  Covered 60k photo library from iPhoto.  Analyzing Faces...  is stuck.  I do not want to delete the faces I already have.  The ones that are names are my kids from when they are born.  8 years worth of faces.  I do not want to start that over. 

     

    I opened a case with Apple Support.  They said to reinstall the OS.  Haven't tried that yet.

     

    Any other thoughts?