Oliver Jobson

Q: Photos app sharing causes app to become unresponsive

When I try and share an image from Photos, the app becomes unresponsive - it just beeps at me when ever I click on a button and all the menu options become greyed out. I have tried to share via different social channels, messages, email but I get the same result no matter which option I choose.

 

The strange thing is I can still browse through photos using the keyboard, but any button clicks will result in a system alert sound.

 

I can't see an open dialogue box open anywhere else and hitting escape does nothing.

 

My only option is to restart the mac or force quite the app. The force quit app's dialogue box doesn't report that iPhoto has become 'unresponsive' which it often does when an app goes awry.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch,Early 2015), OS X El Capitan (10.11.4), 16gb, 500Gb SSD

Posted on May 11, 2016 3:07 PM

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Q: Photos app sharing causes app to become unresponsive

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  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad May 11, 2016 3:34 PM in response to Oliver Jobson
    Level 10 (141,137 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 11, 2016 3:34 PM in response to Oliver Jobson

    Do you have the iCloud Photo Library enabled and set to have only optimized photos on your MBP?  If so has the uploading of the library been completed?  You can check in Photos' iCloud preference pane to see if it's been enabled and if the uploading has been completed or if it's in progress.

    OTsig.png

  • by Oliver Jobson,

    Oliver Jobson Oliver Jobson May 12, 2016 12:35 AM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (46 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 12, 2016 12:35 AM in response to Old Toad

    iCloud Photo Library is enabled and 'Download Originals to this Mac' is turned on and the library is up to date.

     

    I've been using Photos for a while. However, I don't often share from the app, so I can't be sure that this is a recent problem: I only noticed it yesterday.

    -----------------

    Correction: share to iCloud photo stream works, it's all the other sharing options (Facebook, mail, airdrop, twitter etc) that produces the aforementioned symptoms.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie May 12, 2016 2:15 AM in response to Oliver Jobson
    Level 10 (107,210 points)
    iCloud
    May 12, 2016 2:15 AM in response to Oliver Jobson
    The strange thing is I can still browse through photos using the keyboard, but any button clicks will result in a system alert sound.

    Photos may have opened a panel, that needs a response, but you cannot reply, because the panel is hidden by other windows.

     

    But until you respond to the panel, Photos will beep and the user interface is unresponsive.

    Try to hide all other applications, before you start Photos. 

    Is the menu entry "Window > Bring all to Front" still active, when the problem occurs?

     

     

    If it does not help, try to remove Photo's preferences files.

    They are stored in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Photos/


    I'd drag  the complete folder ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Photos/  to the Desktop and restart the Mac, then try again. Your user library may still be hidden.To reveal the hidden User Library:

    • Bring the Finder forward by clicking on the Desktop or the Finder icon in the Dock.
    • Select your user/home folder (with the house icon in the Finder sidebar)
    • With that Finder window as the front window, press the key combination ⌘J to bring up the View options.
    • In the View options panel enable ’Show Library Folder’. That will make your user library folder visible in your Home folder.
    • Open your Home folder, then the Library folder, then Containers.
    • Move the complete folder ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Photos to your desktop. Move the entire folder, not just the contents.


    Now restart the Mac and try again.  If all is well, delete the folder from the Desktop.


    You may also want to remove the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Photos.plist

    if it exists.


  • by Oliver Jobson,

    Oliver Jobson Oliver Jobson May 12, 2016 2:56 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (46 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 12, 2016 2:56 AM in response to léonie

    I think you are on to something here - I took your advice and tried hiding all other apps before opening up photos and trying to share an image, but the same behaviour occurs.

     

    I quit the app, located the folder you mentioned and dragged it to desktop. I then restarted. On opening Photo's I was met with the new user welcome screen, so I think I definitely removed the preferences, however when trying to share images the same behaviour occurs.

     

    I have also toggled my display settings whilst Photo's was open (I have seen odd behaviour with windows being out of view before and this has usually sorted the issue). But all to no avail.

  • by Oliver Jobson,

    Oliver Jobson Oliver Jobson May 12, 2016 3:07 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (46 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 12, 2016 3:07 AM in response to léonie

    I have tried turning off/on spaces. Also reset SMC and PRAM as a last ditch effort to fix this. All to no avail.

  • by Oliver Jobson,

    Oliver Jobson Oliver Jobson May 12, 2016 3:28 AM in response to Oliver Jobson
    Level 1 (46 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 12, 2016 3:28 AM in response to Oliver Jobson

    Ok, so after a little digging and trying to run some scripts to resize windows back on screen (that I found on stackoverflow superuser) I noticed that when the problem occurs I get a new process in Activity Monitor called 'ReportCrash'.

     

    So, looks like there's some kind of error capturing process going on here and this is reported in console each time it happens:

     

    12/05/2016 11:16:05.478 ReportCrash[1718]: Unable to find containing app bundle for /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ShareKit.framework/Versions/A/PlugIns/ShareMa il.appex/Contents/MacOS/ShareMail. Will not read AppStore receipt

    12/05/2016 11:16:06.545 ReportCrash[1718]: Invalid connection: com.apple.coresymbolicationd

    12/05/2016 11:16:09.989 ReportCrash[1718]: Saved crash report for ShareMail[1717] version 1.0 (454.21) to /Users/xxx/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/ShareMail_2016-05-12-111609_MacBook-P ro-2.crash

    12/05/2016 11:18:24.860 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.ReportCrash[1759]) Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.ReportCrash

     

    and:

     

    12/05/2016 11:18:24.869 ReportCrash[1759]: Unable to find containing app bundle for /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ShareKit.framework/Versions/A/PlugIns/Faceboo kPost.appex/Contents/MacOS/FacebookPost. Will not read AppStore receipt

    12/05/2016 11:18:25.971 ReportCrash[1759]: Invalid connection: com.apple.coresymbolicationd

    12/05/2016 11:18:29.508 ReportCrash[1759]: Saved crash report for FacebookPost[1757] version 1.0 (454.21) to /Users/oliver/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/FacebookPost_2016-05-12-111829_Mac Book-Pro-2.crash

     

    So I googled "Will not read AppStore receipt" and found this apple support thread that points to this apple support document for users who have just upgraded to El capitan. This doesn't include me as I am on a new (as of October) rMBP. and I'm not sure whether to risk running it or not:

     

    Follow these steps if the issue occured immediately after upgrading to Yosemite or El Capitan.

    1. Open the Terminal app, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
    2. Type this command in Terminal:/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Framework s/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -seed
    3. Press Return and wait for the Terminal prompt—which ends in $—to reappear. It may take a few minutes.
    4. Quit Terminal.

     

    Hmmm.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie May 12, 2016 3:39 AM in response to Oliver Jobson
    Level 10 (107,210 points)
    iCloud
    May 12, 2016 3:39 AM in response to Oliver Jobson

    What this Terminal command will do:

     

    It will tell the system to reindex the launch database and to register all share options again. As far as I know it is safe to use.

     

    this fix will help, if not all Share options are appearing in the Share menu, but in your case, the share options are available, they are just not working.

     

     

    Do you have any firewall or antivirus software installed, that could be intercepting the connections to external servers?

     

    Did you recently install any new third party software?

     

     

    As a test restart the Mac in safe mode and try to share photos while in safe mode.  Safe mode will disable non standard system additions.

    See this link:   Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up - Apple Support

  • by Oliver Jobson,

    Oliver Jobson Oliver Jobson May 13, 2016 12:58 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (46 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 13, 2016 12:58 AM in response to léonie

    Yeah, tried that and nothing changed. The problem also occurs in Safari's sharing menu too so this isn't just a Photos problem, but a OS X issue by the looks things.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie May 13, 2016 2:31 AM in response to Oliver Jobson
    Level 10 (107,210 points)
    iCloud
    May 13, 2016 2:31 AM in response to Oliver Jobson

    Have you checked the crash logs mentioned in the Console?

     

    /Users/xxx/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/ShareMail_2016-05-12-111609_MacBook-P ro-2.crash


    Can you use the Share menu, if you test from a different user account?  It would help to know, if the problem is restricted to your user account (caches, preference files) or if it is system wide and requires reinstalling the system.


    And you will probably get better support, if you ask this in the El Capitan forum (OS X El Capitan). It does not seem to be a Photos question.



  • by Oliver Jobson,Solvedanswer

    Oliver Jobson Oliver Jobson May 13, 2016 11:53 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (46 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 13, 2016 11:53 AM in response to léonie

    Thanks for all your help léonie - after an evenings googling I found the following apple support discussion which seems to have fixed the share menu issue I experienced.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie May 13, 2016 12:24 PM in response to Oliver Jobson
    Level 10 (107,210 points)
    iCloud
    May 13, 2016 12:24 PM in response to Oliver Jobson

    Thanks for posting back with the solution.  So reinstalling and rebuilding the caches did it?  Good to know. It looked like a system problem.