alex.chi85

Q: Blank thumbnails for people under macOS Sierra

Hello to everyone! I'm using an iMac 21.5’ (late 2013) with the last macOS Sierra update (10.12 at the moment).

 

I’ve found a strange behavior of the app Photos, when using the People album.

Using Photos under Mac OS X El Capitan, I’ve gone through the long process of defining all the faces of my friends for every image of my iCloud Photo Library; I also removed all the unwanted faces by pressing the x-button.

 

Under Sierra, the app Photos went through another scan for faces again: all the faces that I confirmed under El Capitan are still there but in addition there are loads of new white thumbnails in the “add people” section that I can’t remove nor use.

 

I thought that something during the people scan went wrong so I rebuilt the photos library but nothing changed.

 

It turned out that the blank thumbnails are of the people I removed (under El Capitan) by pressing the x-button. In fact, if you duplicate one of the pictures affected by this problem, you will find that it recognizes new faces and the app correctly lists them under the “add people” section. If you open the image and remove the circles of these faces, you will find that the “add people” section now have black thumbnails.

 

I think this is a bug. Next week I will call the Apple support to report it.

In my opinion, the right functionality should be what follows:

  • If people are recognized on a new photos, these are listed under the “add people” section;
  • If you want to hide them, faces are still recognized by the software but they don’t appear in the people list;
  • If you want to remove them (pressing the x-button on the circle), the should disappear from the “add people” section or from the “hidden people” section. You should be able to rescan single image, group of images or the entire library if you want to go back to the previous state.

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013), macOS Sierra (10.12)

Posted on Sep 22, 2016 2:59 AM

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Q: Blank thumbnails for people under macOS Sierra

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  • by manivo,

    manivo manivo Sep 22, 2016 3:17 AM in response to alex.chi85
    Level 1 (53 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 22, 2016 3:17 AM in response to alex.chi85

    I do have the same issue, but no solution.

    And i think the "add people" screen is not very useful, just making it more complicated (Hiding Photos In Sierra Photos)

     

    All recognized photos should go in to the "Persons" list where I can either name or delete them (I like your rescan proposal to get them back).

    I would like to use "Hide" to get less known people out of the main list. But according to léonie it also excludes their photos from Memories.

  • by alex.chi85,

    alex.chi85 alex.chi85 Sep 22, 2016 7:09 AM in response to alex.chi85
    Level 1 (47 points)
    iPhone
    Sep 22, 2016 7:09 AM in response to alex.chi85

    Do you know if it excludes these photos from all the Memories? I think that it should not generate memories between me and the person I hide.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Sep 22, 2016 7:17 AM in response to alex.chi85
    Level 10 (85,054 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Sep 22, 2016 7:17 AM in response to alex.chi85

    Probably not - tell Apple what you want  --  http://www.apple.com/feedback/

     

    Hiding is not a security feature - it is a simple organizational feature to allow you to not view certain photos in moments only - it does not eliminate them from anything except moments

     

    LN

  • by léonie,Helpful

    léonie léonie Sep 28, 2016 5:38 AM in response to alex.chi85
    Level 10 (107,891 points)
    iCloud
    Sep 28, 2016 5:38 AM in response to alex.chi85

    I am seeing blank, white person thumbnails for two reasons: 

    1. If it is a face that ha s been detected on a photo that has been hidden from the moments (mage > Hide), the thumbnail of the person album will be empty.
    2. If the faces circle has manually been removed from the photo by clicking the tiny "x" you will be left with an empty faces thumbnail.

    The problem "1" can be resolved by unhiding the photo. The second problem looks like a bug and we will have to wait for a bug fix.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Sep 28, 2016 4:35 AM in response to manivo
    Level 10 (107,891 points)
    iCloud
    Sep 28, 2016 4:35 AM in response to manivo

    manivo wrote:

     

     

    I would like to use "Hide" to get less known people out of the main list. But according to léonie it also excludes their photos from Memories.

    This is described in the iPhone User Guide: http://help.apple.com/iphone/10/#/iph9c7ee918c

    Hide and unhide people. Tap Albums, tap People, tap Select, tap the people you want to hide, then tap Hide. To unhide people, tap Show Hidden People, tap Select, tap people, then tap Unhide. Photos that contain hidden people don’t appear in Moments, Collections, Years, and Memories but are visible in albums.

    I tested, and Photos on Sierra does the same.  All People I have hidden vanish from the memories until I make them visible again. But the Photos Help for Sierra does not mention it:  https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.2/?lang=en#/phtad9d981ab