mikie00mike

Q: "PHOTOS APP" LIBRARY TRANSFER OPERATION CANNOT BE COMPLETED "ERROR CODE -50"

Hello. I have a late 2012 Macbook Pro Retina that I am trying to transfer the "Photos" Library to a Network Attached Storage Drive.  It is a 3TB WD My Cloud brand new. The laptop has a 120GB hard drive that is full, mostly with pictures, so I am trying to copy them to the My Cloud.  All the photos are store in the "Photos" app library file, so I copied and pasted the library to the My Cloud (mounted disk)  Each time I attempt a transfer, it gives me a notification saying...

 

"The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)."

 

The actual library file shows up on the disk but is grayed out.  The size matches the copied library file, but is unaccessible.

 

After trying this around 5-6 times over the past 4 days, I gave up and attempted to perform a full Time Machine Backup.

 

I followed the instructions and mounted the WD My Cloud Time Machine disk, and signed in as Guest.  It is properly configured in the Dashboard, set to public etc.

 

The Time Machine backup starts, but is moving extremely slow.  It says "Calculating Size" the whole time, and has backed up only 24.97GB of 88.69GB over the past 48 hours.  It is moving slowly in 1MB increments.

 

After the first day, I stopped the backup and thought maybe there was a problem with the Macbook Pro hard drive, so I went into Disk Utility and verified and repaired disk permissions, as well as verify and repair disk.  The results showed no problems and everything was good.

 

I reached google for error code -50 and there was next to no information about this.  The only thing I found was: "error -50 paramErr: error in user parameter list"

 

If anyone knows of a possible diagnosis or fix attempt, I would be greatly appreciative.  Thanks for your time.

 

Note: The Macbook Pro does not have an ethernet port, so directly connecting it to the My Cloud is not an option.  Thanks.

 

 

 

Yosemite 10.10.3 version (14D136)

2.5 GHz Intel Core i5

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012)

Memory 8GB 1600MHz DDR3

Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB

Serial Number C02JMB44DR53


MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3), 8GB RAM - 120HD Late 2012 - i5 2.5

Posted on Dec 29, 2015 8:02 AM

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Q: "PHOTOS APP" LIBRARY TRANSFER OPERATION CANNOT BE COMPLETED "ERROR CODE -50"

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  • by judysings,

    judysings judysings Dec 30, 2015 2:35 PM in response to mikie00mike
    Community Specialists
    Dec 30, 2015 2:35 PM in response to mikie00mike

    Hello mikie00mike,

    Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

     

    I see that you're trying to transfer your Photos library to a NAS in order to save some space on your Mac, and you're receiving an error.  In order to be able to store a Photos library on an external hard drive, it needs to be physically attached to your Mac, rather than using a NAS.  If you use it on a NAS you can run into a multitude of issues, such as photos not properly updating, and permissions errors.  Thus I recommend that you instead use either a USB or Thunderbolt attached hard drive to have the best experience. This article explains more (even though it's titled for iPhoto, the same applies to Photos). 

     

    For help with moving your Photos library over to an external hard drive, please follow the steps below.

     

    1. Connect an external USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt drive which has enough free space to contain the library.
    2. Select this drive in the Finder.
    3. Choose File > Get Info.
    4. In the Info window, find the Sharing & Permissions section. You may need to click the disclosure triangle to see the details for this section. 
    5. Click the lock in the lower-right corner of the Info window. Enter an administrator name and password when prompted.
    6. Select the option to Ignore Permissions on this volume (usually selected by default).
    7. Copy your Photos library to this drive.

    portable drive

     

    Take care.