Photos App places maps not displaying

Thanks for the response. Re: your earlier post - the “map” option displays a grid with a series of placeholder images

For “satellite” I get a similar screen only it is darker. For “grid” I get a white screen with photo placeholders arranged by location.

I checked my Firewall settings and added Photos and iPhoto to the “whitelist” but there is no change to the Places display options. They remain as described above.

I notice you specify above that Wi-Fi should be enabled? I only use ethernet when editing photos (that means Siri doesn’t work either using Sierra). Therefore, if this is true, I cannot use Photos for any image editing.

Tested with Firewall enabled and Maps (additionally) enabled. Same result. Tested with Firewall off. Same result. Tested with Stealth Mode disabled. Same result.

I have no connections listed in the Firewall options that are being blocked. Perhaps the Photos/iPhoto/Aperture Library (libraries - since I use a consolidated version from the many I’ve created over the years) is corrupted?

Okay. I took the MBP 17” (2011) out into the wild and the Maps app performed nominally using public Wi-Fi connections. Upon returning back to the office I reconnected to our local network and examined the Time Capsule settings for DHCP and NAT.

Years ago I had configured port mapping settings for iChat AV (remember when you could share a video call with up to three friends/family members? What a concept!) pointing the designated ports to a manual set IP address for this machine only. I deleted the old settings for the iChat port mapping; set my Network ethernet TCP/IP to DHCP, getting a new IPv4 address and then used it to reset my network to "DHCP with manual" then re-configured port mapping in the Time Capsule settings for DHCP and NAT to the same iPv4 address, saved my settings, and restarted the Time Capsule.

Viola! The Maps app is now working nominally.

I’ll try the Safe Mode option in a bit.

First some hardware BG. I normally use a MBP 17” 2011 i7 2.2 Ghz 16gb RAM OS X Sierra 10.12.4 for my video/photo work. All db’s and library files are stored on external FW800 drives.

I traced the issue to the Maps app. In order for it to work, it requires WiFi to be enabled -- same as Siri in OS X Sierra. This completely flummoxes me. Having said that, I did the following -- in order:

Repaired the iPhoto db; rebuilt the iPhoto thumbnails; repaired the Photos db; rebooted into Safe Mode. No change in the results except the Photos/iPhoto Places map was black instead of a grid.

Broke out my MBA 2013 13” i7 1.7 ghz 8 gb RAM OS X Sierra 10.12.4 and launched iPhoto and Photos. Places map displayed properly for both. Map app also worked nominally.

Rebooted the MBP normally. Launched iPhoto and the Places map worked --- only briefly. Run a utility to clear memory and subsequently relaunched both iPhoto and Photos -- the Places map no longer worked. Neither does the Map app with Wi Fi enabled or with ethernet.

Could this be a hardware issue?

This apparently has something to do with the Maps app. I have been able to get it to work on my Mac Mini Core 2 Duo (2010) so vintage can be ruled out -- at least in this case.

I have run hardware diagnostics on the MBP, as well as MalwareBytes and ClamxAV (caught an html exploit that was sucking up memory), but Maps on this machine will not display properly hence neither will Places in Photos or iPhoto.

This is the third logic board for this machine (all replaced by Apple) -- the last one went wonky with a bad graphics chip. So I don’t know if it is an issue or not.

I am going to try two more things: first take the MBP into the wild and see if the Maps app is still mis-behaving and if so the second thing will be to replace the memory. If both fail, I’m just going to have to live with it.

Location services is enabled for Maps and other apps.