Hi all, I'm at a bit of a loss with my photos library.
I had it on an external SSD and somehow it got corrupted.
"No worries" I thought, I'll create a new one, set it as a system library and restore from backup.
But every time I try to do that, the photos app locks up and freezes. I've also tried recreating it on the main OS disk with the exact same result (freeze). any ideas?
M1 mac, Ventura 13.1
Video of the behaviour https://youtu.be/TwBi2Ow2bz4
Instead of asking one at a time, lets check all the steps. Have you
That's the problem!
Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support
Have you tried Safe Mode yet? That would be a good next thing.
By the way-- just because Photos was working on a hard drive for a while doesn't mean that it is problem free. We've seen that over and over.
Have you ever had Time Machine on the hard drive. TM will make a volume unusable for Photos, and problems may not show up immediately.
Instead of asking one at a time, lets check all the steps. Have you
That's the problem!
Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support
Have you tried Safe Mode yet? That would be a good next thing.
By the way-- just because Photos was working on a hard drive for a while doesn't mean that it is problem free. We've seen that over and over.
Have you ever had Time Machine on the hard drive. TM will make a volume unusable for Photos, and problems may not show up immediately.
It is not possible to make library on an external drive your system Photos Library, if the external volume is not compatible with Photos. Did you prepare the external drive exactly as described here?
See: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
The external drive needs to be formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, it needs a wired connection, not a network share, and the external volume must not be used for Time Machine or other backup software.
In the end, getting the mac in safe mode and creating a new library worked.
I’m still confused as to what may be causing the behaviour in normal mode… it leads me to believe that photos is trying to do something its not allowed to do.
the mystery continues. Many thanks to the community and @Richard.Taylor for the in depth response!
Safe Mode bypasses processes that are loaded by 3rd party programs at login, cleans up the hard drive some, and it clears out some old stuff left lying around. It's possible that this on its own will fix the mess, and you can go back to using your computer like usual. But you should be careful about 3rd party software-- especially system type programs like those that profess to protect you from viruses and sweep your hard drive clean.
Check your login items-- Settings>Users>Login Items, to see what's automatically loading. I have none listed-- I got rid of them all and nothing bad happened.
How is the external drive formatted?
Indeed I did, like I said, I had the original photo library in the external SSD already, it was all working just fine.
APFS. The drive is not the issue as it also doesn't work in the onboard boot Mac drive.
Have you tried launching the library with the Option+Command keys held down to repair the library?
yep, no progress, it just says it can't repair it.
Have you set the "Ignore ownership on this volume" flag, or is it not possible?
It was already set, like I said, it was working :)
I think this is a deeper Mac Ventura bug.
Can't create new system photo library
