Q: Unable to "Buy Book" in Photos
Hi all
I'm really struggling with this...
I've previously purchased many photo books using iPhoto - no problems. Now I've migrated to Photos, made a new book, it previews correctly, but when I press "Buy Book" I get the error "Store is not available. Back in service shortly" message. Also, "Photos>Print Product Store Account…" is greyed out.
But the store IS available - I've checked using Photos on another machine in the same city.
More mysterious - it also works when I boot my machine from my one-month-old backup disk, i.e. problem occurs ONLY when I use the current boot disk.
Just to confirm, I have tried everything I could find on these discussions:
- re-entered all AppleID info
- ensured the Print Products Store in "Photos>Preferences>General" is set to the same country as my billing address
- ensured time zone in System Preferences is set to the same city/country
- signed out of iCloud and signed in again
- purchased an app from the App Store and a movie fro the iTunes store
- re-applied OSX 10.11.6 using Combo Update
- cleared caches using Cocktail, including Photos caches
Some details:
- iMac mid-2010, OSX 10.11.6, Photos 1.5
- I have multiple Photos libraries — problem occurs on all
Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated. Thanks.
iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), Airport Extreme
Posted on Aug 8, 2016 4:19 AM
Community Specialists
Hello wjwt,
Thanks for reaching out to the Apple Support Communities regarding your issue ordering a photo book. It looks like you're getting the following error message when you try placing your order: "Store is not available. Back in service shortly". Also, you've noticed that Photos > Print Product Store Account is greyed out in the Photos app. I can certainly understand that you'd want this feature to work correctly; I'm happy to assist.
Before we begin, please create a full backup of your data using Time Machine. You can find more information about this process here:
Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac - Apple Support
To help isolate this issue to something user-specific or system-wide, I'd recommend creating a "test" user account on your Mac. Take a look at this website for more information:
How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac - Apple Support
Once you've created the test user account, log in and try placing an order to see if the problem continues. If it does, I'd recommend that you re-install the Photos app as a next step. Since Photos is an app built into OS X, you'll need to re-install OS X using the instructions found here:
How to reinstall OS X - Apple Support
Cheers!
Posted on Aug 9, 2016 3:16 AM