mleahagon

Q: Subscribe button in Shared Album invitation email leads to message saying Photo Sharing not available on my device.

I'm not able to subscribe to a shared album because of my device, but my Mac is brand-new (1 month old) and I'm logged into iCloud. Why is it telling me I need iPhoto or Aperture in order to subscribe? Haven't both of those been discontinued and they were replaced with Photos? I made sure my Photos is up-to-date and went ahead and updated all of my Apps to see if that would help. I have OS X 10.11.3. This is what opens up when I click on the Subscribe  button within the email invitation.

 

 

iCloud Photo Sharing is not available for this device

To subscribe to [Contact]’s “[Album Name]” shared album on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac, open your invitation in the Mail app, and click the Subscribe button in the message.

To subscribe you need to be signed in to iCloud on:

 

  • an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 6 or later, or
  • a Mac with OS X 10.8.2 or later and iPhoto 9.4 or Aperture 3.4 or later

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch,Early 2015)

Posted on May 1, 2016 9:21 PM

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Q: Subscribe button in Shared Album invitation email leads to message saying Photo Sharing not available on my device.

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  • Helpful answers

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN May 1, 2016 9:36 PM in response to mleahagon
    Level 10 (84,752 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 1, 2016 9:36 PM in response to mleahagon

    What version of th OS and of Photos do you have installed on your computer (on each program use click on teh program name in the menu bar and then  the About [this program] menu

     

    LN

  • by mleahagon,

    mleahagon mleahagon May 1, 2016 9:47 PM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 1, 2016 9:47 PM in response to LarryHN

    OS X 10.11.3 and Photos 1.3

  • by gail from maine,Apple recommended

    gail from maine gail from maine May 1, 2016 10:00 PM in response to mleahagon
    Level 7 (26,158 points)
    iCloud
    May 1, 2016 10:00 PM in response to mleahagon

    Have you turned on iCloud Photo Sharing in Photos>Preferences>iCloud?

     

    Cheers,

     

    GB

  • by mleahagon,

    mleahagon mleahagon May 1, 2016 10:37 PM in response to gail from maine
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 1, 2016 10:37 PM in response to gail from maine

    Yes, I have iCloud Photo Sharing enabled. I've also gone to System Preferences > iCloud > Photos > Options and checked the box for iCloud Photo Sharing.

  • by léonie,Apple recommended

    léonie léonie May 1, 2016 10:53 PM in response to mleahagon
    Level 10 (107,210 points)
    iCloud
    May 1, 2016 10:53 PM in response to mleahagon

    Are you reading your email notifications with Apple's Mail or with a different Mail client? An error like this could be caused by an older, incompatible Mail Client, compiled before the release of Photos.

    Try to read the message and to accept the invitation from the native Mail application.

    If the native Mail.app is not recognizing Photos try the fix in this support document:  If Share options or Markup is missing after upgrading to OS X Yosemite or El Capitan - Apple Support

     

    Also, consider to update to OS X 10.11.4.  This update has many bug fixes. Use the Combo Updater.   Download OS X El Capitan 10.11.4 Combo Update

  • by mleahagon,

    mleahagon mleahagon May 2, 2016 7:09 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 2, 2016 7:09 PM in response to léonie

    I just upgraded to OS X 10.11.4 and opened the invitation with the Mail application, but this comes up after I click on Subscribe.

    Screen Shot 2016-05-02 at 6.24.52 PM.png

    I also visited the Share options/Markup page and went through those recommended steps, but that didn't seem to help. We haven't arrived at a solution just yet, but I do very much appreciate the ideas!

  • by léonie,Apple recommended

    léonie léonie May 2, 2016 11:26 PM in response to mleahagon
    Level 10 (107,210 points)
    iCloud
    May 2, 2016 11:26 PM in response to mleahagon

    A "please try again later" is frequently caused by a time out error when trying to connect to a server. Either Apple's servers are down or too much traffic, or something on your own network is blocking the connection.  Do you have any firewalls or antivirus software set up, that could be intercepting the connection to Apple's servers?

    It could also be a problem with the authentication or your AppleID.

     

    Does the Mac App Store work for you, for example? Can you purchase some free app from the AppStore? If there should be any problem with your Apple ID or payment mthod it is easier to fix by trying to buy directly from the App Store. 

     

    Are you using two-factor authentication? 

    This can interfere with Photos trying to access Apple's servers.


    If the two-factor-authentication is interfering it usually helps to create an app-specific password for the app you are using, in this case Photos. Then you can keep the two-factor authentication active.  It helped in similar cases, for example Mail, see this discussion:

     

    This solution is for those of you using 2-step verification for your Apple ID and are using iCloud as the mail server that you are trying to mail photos with.

     

    I too had this issue. The problem in my case occurred because I had setup 2-step authentication for my Apple ID. If you have done this then you will get the error message "the mail server did not recognize your email/password...". To solve the problem go to:

     

    https://appleid.apple.com

     

    • Click "Manage Your Apple ID"
    • Verify your identity with the device you selected (if this step does not show up then you have not likely set up 2-step authentication and this is not your solution)
    • Click Password and Security in the left column
    • Click Generate an app-specific password
    • Enter iPhoto as the name of the app
    • Copy the password and paste this into the password box in iPhoto where you would normally enter your apple ID (in the mail account section in iPhoto preferences).

     

    And...voila' (I hope)