Hugh_Jarse

Q: iCloud photo library is not downloading all images to my Mac or iPhone

Screen Shot 2016-02-11 at 09.02.45.png

 

I set up iCloud Photo library when it was released to the public, and it has worked very well, apart from the fact that there are about 100 images (out of my library of 5k) that do not download to Photos on either my MacBook Pro or my iPhone 6. have an issue where, for some reason, a fairly large number of photos in my iCloud Photo library are displaying as blank with a small cloud symbol instead of the image. I assumed it was still downloading the files in the background, however, this has been the case for weeks and there is no activity indicated. I have restarted my iPhone, my iPad and my Mac, and done all sorts of other troubleshooting ideas, but they seem to refuse to download. Help!I have all the latest updates installed.

They are dotted throughout my library and do not seem to have anything in common. I assumed it was still downloading the files in the background, however, this has been the case for weeks and there is no activity indicated. I have restarted my iPhone, my iPad and my Mac, and done all sorts of other troubleshooting ideas, but they seem to refuse to download. When I click on one to see it larger it does not come back with an error, but just shows an empty pane.

OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Feb 11, 2016 1:15 AM

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Q: iCloud photo library is not downloading all images to my Mac or iPhone

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Feb 11, 2016 1:25 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    Feb 11, 2016 1:25 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse

    Do you have "Optimize Storage" enabled on you iPhone or your Mac?

     

    Have you checked, it the photos actually have been uploaded to iCloud?  Open the Photos.app at the iCloud web interface www.cloud.com and check, if the photos in question are showing the same problem in iCloud.

     

    Added:  I am seeing the white rectangle with the cloud icon, whenever I edit a photo. The icon goes white, until the edited version has been uploaded to iCloud and synced back.  If you are seeng many of these cloud icons a large prt of the library is not yet in sync.

     

    Is there a progress bar in the iCloud Preferences on your Mac?  

  • by Hugh_Jarse,

    Hugh_Jarse Hugh_Jarse Feb 11, 2016 5:15 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2016 5:15 AM in response to léonie

    Thanks for your reply Léonie

     

    I do have optimise storage checked on my iPhone and iPad, but not on my Mac - in fact on my Mac I have "download originals" selected. The weird thing is that all photos existed locally on my Mac in iPhoto before I moved to Photos and iCloud Photo Library, so they have basically disappeared from my Mac.

     

    All other photos are synced between all my devices, and have been for weeks. New Photos propagate between all my devices quickly - it is just these existing photos that seem to be 'stuck'. There are no progress bar in the iCloud Preferences on my Mac - it all seems to think it is up-to-date.

     

    The photos are all there via the iCloud website. I have tried various tricks that I have read online to try and get it to re-sync on my iPhone, iPad and Mac, but nothing has worked

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Feb 11, 2016 5:35 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    Feb 11, 2016 5:35 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse

    Have you checked, if these white thumbnails are duplicates of photos you are having twice in your library?  Look at the Info panel to see the filename. Then search for this filename, to see if you are having a second version.

  • by Hugh_Jarse_69,

    Hugh_Jarse_69 Hugh_Jarse_69 Feb 11, 2016 2:48 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2016 2:48 PM in response to léonie

    Thanks again - but they are unique photos that are not else where in my library. Nice idea though ...

  • by Nigel Goodman,

    Nigel Goodman Nigel Goodman Feb 12, 2016 3:12 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse
    Level 1 (40 points)
    iPhone
    Feb 12, 2016 3:12 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse

    I have had this problem - in my case it was just missing thumbnails. Have you tried repairing the Photos library.

     

    Information here: Photos for OS X: Repair your library

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Feb 12, 2016 5:13 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    Feb 12, 2016 5:13 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse
    The photos are all there via the iCloud website. I have tried various tricks that I have read online to try and get it to re-sync on my iPhone, iPad and Mac, but nothing has worked

    Download them from the iCloud website to a folder and check the photos, if there is something problematic with them. Try to reimport a few of them to your Photos Library.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Feb 12, 2016 5:16 AM in response to Nigel Goodman
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    Feb 12, 2016 5:16 AM in response to Nigel Goodman

    Nigel, rebuilding the library is usually a good idea, but if the library is an iCloud Photo Library, I would only use it as the last resort, because after a rebuild, the complete library will start to upload again to iCloud, and in his case, the upload doess not seem to work. I would be reluctant to try it.

  • by Hugh_Jarse_69,

    Hugh_Jarse_69 Hugh_Jarse_69 Feb 13, 2016 2:03 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 13, 2016 2:03 PM in response to léonie

    Hi Léonie - thanks again for your suggestions. I tried downloading one of the ‘blank’ images from Photos on my Mac and it came up with an error:

    Screen Shot 2016-02-13 at 21.56.46.png

    Then:

    Screen Shot 2016-02-13 at 21.56.59.png

     

    However, when I found that exact image on the Photos app within iCloud website in Safari, it downloaded fine and opened up in Photoshop with no issues. It is evidently a problem with syncing rather than the image itself. How can I make it download the original. It seems to be saying it cannot connect to the internet to download the original, but that is nonsense as I immediately after downloaded it from iCloud website ...

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Feb 14, 2016 12:23 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse_69
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    Feb 14, 2016 12:23 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse_69

    Photos is probably using different servers than the web interfaces to iCloud.  Do you have any antivirus software or firewalls enabled, like kaperski?

     

    can you connect to other services, like the iTunes Store or App Store? To Facebook?

  • by Hugh_Jarse_69,

    Hugh_Jarse_69 Hugh_Jarse_69 Feb 14, 2016 6:44 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 14, 2016 6:44 AM in response to léonie

    Hiya - I only have the built-in OSX firewall turned on. However, I am having the same issue with the same images on my iPhone and iPad, not just my Mac. The web interface is the only place I can see them. Surely there must be a way to trigger a sync manually in this scenario?

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Feb 14, 2016 8:42 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse_69
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    Feb 14, 2016 8:42 AM in response to Hugh_Jarse_69

    If the photo are all readable at www.cloud.com,  you could try to start over with a new Photos Library.  Create a new, empty Photos library and make it your system Photo Library and enable iCloud Photo Library for it.  Then all photos will download from iCloud to this new library.  If you do not have enough free storage on your internal drive, create the new library on an external drive, or move your current library to an external drive to make space for the new library.

                  Use multiple libraries      

     

    Starting with a new library will restore your current library from iCloud, but one drawback will be, that all faces thumbnails will be missing. You will only have the searchable faces tags left.   Use Photos and iCloud Photo Library on multiple Mac computers - Apple Support

  • by ventureman,

    ventureman ventureman Feb 14, 2016 4:45 PM in response to Hugh_Jarse
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Feb 14, 2016 4:45 PM in response to Hugh_Jarse

    This is a screen shot of my Photos screen (ignore the one photo that actually is previewed; my question is about all the others). This is the default view in Photos so called "Photos" at the top of the navigaton panel on the left. All of the missing photo previews DO appear in my iCloud.com Photos. And at the bottom of this screen, you will see a message that seems permanent: "Downloading 233 images". (Isn't it amazing that I have 77,183 photos!? About a third of those are duplicates and that's part of my question.) Where is the reference copy of each image stored? If it's stored in iCloud and I am deleting images in Photos on one Mac, will the deletion be synced back to iCloud? (But right now that sync seems broken, so it's hard to trust it either direction!) If is broken, how do I fix it? This happens on my other two Macs (Macbook Air for travel and iMac at work) as well, so I am getting really confused abut where my photos are actually stored and whether, if I delete on one computer, I won't be accidentally deleting more than one copy!

     

    Where do I go to get definitive information about this?! I'm even willing pay to get this solved because I can't really use my photos in this state.

    Screen Shot 2016-02-14 at 4.37.38 PM.png

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Feb 14, 2016 10:49 PM in response to ventureman
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    Feb 14, 2016 10:49 PM in response to ventureman
    If it's stored in iCloud and I am deleting images in Photos on one Mac, will the deletion be synced back to iCloud? (But right now that sync seems broken, so it's hard to trust it either direction!)

    The deletion will sync back, if you let Photos delete photos in a Photos library , that is syncing with iCloud Photo Library. So deleting single photos from your library using photos will delete them from iCloud.  So you first need to download the photo from iCloud, using the web interface, and then delete the broken version from your Photos library.

     

    But if you simply starter with a new, empty library and make it your iCloud Photo Library, all photos will download to that new library and you can delete the old library, that is no longer syncing with iCloud.  Only one library at a time can sync with iCloud.

  • by Hugh_Jarse_69,

    Hugh_Jarse_69 Hugh_Jarse_69 Feb 16, 2016 1:55 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 16, 2016 1:55 PM in response to léonie

    Thanks again - but I was hoping there was a way just trigger a new sync as I don’t want to create a whole new library file and have to re-download thousands of images as it seems risky. Maybe I will just have a quick guess as to how many are ‘broken’ and download them from iCloud and import them to Photos one by one if there are not too many?

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