Photos stopped scanning people in MacOs sierra. About 2/3's complete. I have done everything as directed by having MacBook connected to power and app closed.

Killing processes did not work for me. I suspect that this was serendipitous rather than causal. I had a similar experience that I briefly thought was a solution. Originally, it was scanning fine. I clicked on the "View People Album" button and started using it, including the "confirm additional photos" function. After that is when I discovered that scanning had stalled at about 10,000 scanned with about 26,000 left to go. Suspecting that my use of the "confirm" function had somehow fouled things up, I made a copy of the the Photos database for safety and used Time Capsule to restore yesterday's version of the Photos database, before I had used the "confirm" function. (Restoring was a nightmare of it's own, but never mind.) I had it "keep both" copies when I restored, so now I had 3 versions of the database: A = the active DB at the time I started all this, B = the copy that I made manually with the finder, and C = the version restored with Time Capsule. Then I switched the database in Photos. (Photos > Preferences > General > Library location) After switching back and forth between the three a few times, I noticed that it had started scanning again. So I thought I had confirmed my theory about using the "confirm" function. I let it keep scanning. Later I realized that it was scanning the A database -- the active one when the problem started -- so my theory could not be correct. Over the next few hours, it got up to 13,570. Then it stalled again. I tried all sorts of things, switching the database, rebooting in safe mode so that no startup items could interfere, running disk utility, resetting the PRAM. Nothing worked. I've noticed other little glitchy things with Sierra too. Sometimes the startup is incredibly slow, sometimes it can't find my external monitor but sometimes it can, etc. I suspect we just need to wait for an update to the OS. I read that one is already in the works.

I just checked and I see that Photos is scanning again. It went up to 13,578 while I was typing this. Wow! +8! At that rate, if I leave my computer on 24/7 and don't let it sleep, it should be all done by Thanksgiving!

This worked for me. After 6 hours being stuck with no further progress and a reboot without success, this procedure seems to have kickstarted the scanning again. Thank you for this.

To Rolahoy22 and clipper99: Did it continue to scan? Did it finish?

I've tried killing processes multiple times. It definitely isn't working for me. Doesn't make sense to me that this would work. Rebooting kills all processes. Why wouldn't that work.

I left mine running while I was out of the house for a couple of hours. It scanned 42 pictures in 2 hours.

Problem solved. It was just very slow, but after two days and two nights, it completed the scan!

@

did you completely quit the app or was it just minimized?

Thanks

Minimised. Apple seems to be clear about keeping the app open. However, I must say that even when it was closed, there was a process (photoanalysid) that was working hard on the background. (much like when it updates the photostream, it does it even with the app closed)

...

Actually, this only worked once. It went on to scan about another 400 pictures and has stopped again for the last 24 hours. I did do a repair on my library and it scanned another 4 pictures after that and has been stuck now for about 12 hours. With 60,000 images in my library it has managed to get up to about 23,000 scanned in the last week since Sierra has been released. At this rate it may be done by Christmas. So far you can colour me unimpressed.

I even tried installing the latest Sierra public beta with no success. I have also tried changing my networks by using an extertal USB network interface but that has also not worked.

I have tried to kill the processes mentioned above and have rebooted my MacBook Pro many times. Photos is stuck at 420 pictures to go and has been at this level for two days now. Sure would be nice if it started working again but at this point I am not holding my breath.

A reboot should have the same effect, then, right?

Here the same. I left Photos open after I've tried to kill the process (that didn't work) and after some days the scan was completed 🙂

I have been running Sierra for 4 days now and the unscanned pictures are still sitting at 420. Come on Apple!!

I have tried all the mentioned suggestions to date too.

Reboot, stop processes, minimize, etc., unplugged the power and reconnected it. Scanning is still stuck after 4 days, no progress.

Yep, same here. Also tried those hints here, but it didn't work. All the time are 296 pics left. The interesting thing is, that new added photos were scanned immediately. Just the "old" 296 pics stuck.