How to Fix Sync Issues w/iCloud Photo Library

Hi, I have spent far more time than I'd like troubleshooting sync issues with iCloud Photo Library. Here are some tips for troubleshooting sync issues, including what worked for me.

I was seeing inconsistent counts between libraries on a MacBook Pro running Photos in Yosemite, a new MacBook running a clean-install of Yosemite, an iPhone 5 on iOS 8.3, and iCloud in the browser. The MacBook Pro is the original source of the photos, and its library contains all the originals. This library has been migrated and upgraded many times over the years from earlier versions of iPhoto.

If you are seeing differences in the number of photos across your devices, read on:

FIRST, THINGS TO NOTE TO SAVE YOUR SANITY

• Library counts differ depending on your current view in Photos. This is not a bug, but it's super annoying. To make matters worse, counts and where to find them are displayed inconsistently across Photos on OS X, Photos on iOS, and Photos in iCloud. C'mon!
• In Photos.app in Yosemite:
  • "Photos" view (click at the top of the left pane) shows you a count of all your photos + videos. The count is at the bottom of the main window. This count does not include any hidden photos.
  • "Albums > All Photos" shows you a count shows you a combined count of photos + videos + hidden photos. The count is at the top of the window. This count is the full number of items in your library.
  • You may also have some number of 'items' in your library, which are neither photos nor videos. I have one such 'item' and I don't know where it is or what it is. This 'item' is only broken out in totals on iOS. See below.
  • No views include Recently Deleted photos in their totals, so you can ignore those in your counts.
• In Photos.app on iOS:
  • "Photos" view breaks out photos, videos, and 'items' (if you have them. I haven't figured out what this is yet). This view does not include hidden photos in its count.
  • "Albums > All Photos" includes photos + videos + items + hidden photos, similar to Yosemite. This should be the total number of everything in your library, and should match other devices.
  • No views include Recently Deleted photos in their totals, so you can ignore those in your counts.
• On iCloud.com
  • Counts for photos and videos are combined and not broken out. This total includes hidden photos.
  • No views include Recently Deleted photos in their totals, so you can ignore those in your counts.

A FEW MORE THINGS

• Even perfectly synced Photos libraries will likely not have the same exact file structure across multiple Macs. This makes it impractical to DIFF the libraries using Terminal or other utilities, because it will highlight normal differences which aren't problems.
• You can carefully browse the contents of your library with 'View Package Contents', but actually I have found you can investigate everything better using just the Photos UI and Console to get hints from log files (see below).
• Photos no longer lets you Reveal in Finder. This makes troubleshooting harder, but you can open iPhoto and search for the same image, and Reveal in Finder to show you the path to the item, then go find it in the Photos Library, if needed.
• The migration from iPhoto to Photos, and from Photos to iCloud Photo Library is often not creating problems, but actually revealing problems which may have existed in your iPhotos library, undetected for years. So, don't be too mad at Photos got your problems. But you can be irritated at Apple for providing almost no way to identify and fix these issues.
• I have rebuilt my library multiple times, but doing that didn't solve any problems. It will cause everything to re-upload to iCloud and this could be handy if you need to force it to try again.

MAKE A SPREADSHEET

• For each device/service (iPad, iPhone, Mac OS X, and iCloud, etc.) enter in the totals on a separate line and add them up. This will help you keep track of what you're solving for. Be sure to break out the items into:
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Hidden
  • Items
• The total of which should be the same across all devices. You can ignore Recently Deleted, since these counts aren't totaled up anywhere.
• Because of the way the various services and devices total things, up, the spreadsheet makes it handy to quickly check the math in different ways.

FIXING STUCK ITEMS

• My MacBook Pro finished uploading most of its 15,000+ items after a few days, but then remained stuck on 'Uploading: 1 item remaining'. This was frustrating, and it took me a while to find the problem, which was a corrupt .mov.
• Open Console and search for clues. I have found that some images which have been edited over the years may have lost their originals, or possibly a corrupt file is causing Photos to get stuck. Searching Console (all logs) for cloudphotosd will list all the errors related to Photos uploading to iCloud. If search for things like file:/// or rdmaster or the path to your Photos library (/Pictures/Photos) you should start finding some log entries which lead you to the path of the problem, or at least some clues.
• If that search in Console leads you to a file name, such as IMG_1062.JPG, copy that name and search for it within Photos to see if the photo's intact. In my case, searching Photos for that file name led me to a video in Photos. The video was corrupt. Once I deleted it (and deleted it from Recently Deleted), uploading completed successfully.

FINDING/FIXING MISSING ITEMS

In my case, my MacBook Pro total count was higher than all my other devices. This turned out to be caused by items which were resident on the MacBook Pro, but couldn't be uploaded to iCloud. One was a corrupt video file (see above), and the others were due to missing masters. I looked back in old backups and discovered these items were broken or corrupt for years. My backup from several years ago had the same problem, but I was never aware of it.

Use Keywords

• Keep digging through the log files in Console to find errors with path names. Copy the file name in such logs and search for it in Photos
• If you find a broken image (just a white square) when you search in Photos, assign a keyword to that broken photo. I created a new keyword 'Missing' and applied it to mine.
• You can sometimes find these broken images in iPhoto and export them to the desktop and import them to Photos. Or search a backup for them one by one. If you find the missing photo and import it into Photos, as soon as you import it, click on Last Import, select the image(s) and assign a keyword. You'll need this later. I assigned 'Restored'. Don't delete the broken image yet.
• Once you have fixed missing images, search for your 'Missing' keyword. You should see all the broken images you identified earlier. You can click 'View Moment' from the search results to see this broken image in context of your library. If all went well, you should see your 'restored' image next to it (I mean, provided you have some idea of what the missing image looked like). You can then safely delete the broken/missing image.

FINALLY, FIXING INCONSISTENT LIBRARY COUNTS

• If you have two Macs, one with more items than the other, you can use this method
• In my case, both machines had the full versions of images downloaded to them (Optimize Library was turned off)
• On the machine with FEWER images:
  • Open the Keywords pane
  • Create a new keyword which you will use to mark all the items in the library (I used 'Sync')
  • Go to Photos view
  • Select All
  • Apply this keyword to all items. You will get a warning asking if you want to apply to all. The count in the warning should look familiar - this should be all items except hidden and Recently Deleted
  • Click OK
  • Ensure all machines are connected to the network and Photos is running on each. Allow some time (15 mins?) for the keywords you just assigned to propagate to the library on the other machine
• On the machine with MORE images
  • Create a new Smart Album where ALL are true:
    • Keyword IS NOT 'sync' (or whatever you used)
    • Photo IS NOT hidden (this is because when you selected all, that view did not include hidden images and so they are not keyworded)
  • If you are lucky, you will now see JUST the images which failed to upload
  • Delete them if you don't want them, or export them, then delete them, then try to reimport them later
  • Once you clean these up, counts should be the same across all devices

Good luck!!