Photo app hangs

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Level 1

23 points

Photo app hangs

My photo app hangs often when I try click on a thumbnail of an older photo. Most (not all) photos imported into older versions of Photo have a little ? or a little disk symbol in the upper right corner of its thumbnail. If I click on a thumbnail with a disk symbol, I get a message: "Missing File. Photos with unavailable original files cannot be opened". I have the option to "Find Original" or "Cancel". Fine, both buttons work.

BUT, If i click on a thumbnail with a ?, more than half the time, I just get a blurry, larger thumbnail and no message about a missing file. The only thing I can do is hit the back button, and then I get the spinning ball of death, and I have to force quite the program.

This happens A LOT, and it is a pain, and time consuming. What can I do to fix it? Thanks for your help. I have the latest OS and programs.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Apr 4, 2021 7:00 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

197,297 points

Apr 4, 2021 11:21 PM in response to RFeather

What does the info for the photo show? Are the files with the "?" badge JPEGs or is it a different file format? Some older file format are no longer supported on macOS 11 Big Sur?

Do the thumbnails with the "?" badge overlay also show three sliders as an indication, that they have been edited? In that case try to use the command "Image > Revert to Original" for the edited versions.

What has happened , before you could no longer open the older photos? Did you move the library to a different location or restore it from a backup? Did you run any cleaning application to remove duplicates?

Are the Photos Library and the referenced original files in a safe, supported location? If the referenced files are on an external volume the file system format needs to be MacOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS. The volume needs a wired connection, no network access, the volume must not have been used for Time Machine backups or have any backup software installed. Set the "Ignore ownership on this volume" flag as described here: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

RFeather Author

Level 1

23 points

Apr 5, 2021 11:14 AM in response to léonie

The files with the ? are mostly .jpg, though some are .jpeg. Most, or all of the older photos have not been edited. And they are old. The oldest ones are from the late 90's, when I got my first digital camera. I don't know when they got a ?. I think things changed when I upgraded from iPhoto to Photo.

I do have have the actual photo of all the thumbnails on an external hard drive. Some of these oldies are not the problem. Photo app has the thumbnail, and asks me where the original is. (Someday I will get around to telling it where the hundred or so photos are it can't find. It is able to find another hundred or so old photos, so I don't know why it can find some, and not others, who's originals are stored in the same place).

The bigger problem is when I click on some the thumbnails with a ? and the Photo app doesn't ask me where the original is. It only just bombs, the spinning ball. (and I can't tell before hand if it will bomb or not).

So there are three situations: the old photos it can find; the old photos it can't find and politely asks me where they are; and the old photos it can't find and rudely bombs.

The original of all the old photos are in a safe location, a Mac formatted external disk that is hard wired into my MacBook Pro. No network connection. This external disk with old photos is backed up onto a SEPARATE time-machine backup drive. (so I have to external hard drives wired into my computer, my time-machine back up drive and a drive with old photos).

Thanks for your help.

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Photo app hangs

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