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Photos Face Name Circle Misbehavior

When I click in Info to add a face name, and the little circle comes up in the center of the picture, I can’t move the circle to the face. When I try to do that a thumbnail of the picture appears and moves with the curser—it acts as if it’s trying to move the entire picture. I can’t expand the circle. If I type the name in, I can then move the circle to the face. (Except—when I’m working in a smart album that’s “person not Richard,” and I enter the name “Richard” before I move it, the picture disappears, so I can never move it.)


I have repaired the library, to no effect. I have logged on as another administrative user, repaired the library to gain permissions, and it behaves normally. But, after awhile, it begins acting up. The same applies to a library created with the new user. 


In Safe Mode, it’s slightly different: I can move the circle, but when I click to enter a name, the circle pops back to the center of the picture. If I enter the name i can then move the circle (if I’m not in the before mentioned smart album.) This behavior has also occurred before I tried Safe Mode.


This has been going off and on for months, maybe. Any ideas?


----Mac Air, M1, 16 GB, MacOS 12.4, Photos 7.0, 250GB disk space remaining

Posted on Jun 23, 2022 12:08 PM

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Posted on Jun 24, 2022 9:54 AM

OK-- I'm rather stupid. It used to be, I swear, that when you clicked on Add-a-Face a circle appeared and the active window switched to the picture. Now, usually, it seems, the active window remains the Info window, so when I click and drag on the picture it thinks I'm selecting the whole picture. If I click on the picture and then click and drag the circle, it works. So there's an extra click. Usually. Except sometimes when the circle seems ready to drag immediately.


I have always wondered about the significance of the blue circle that sits off-center from the Add-a-Face circle in the Info window. It appears when there are no faces found. On a picture with some face, even unnamed or found by me rather than the computer, the blue circle isn't there. And why off-center? Hmm.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 24, 2022 9:54 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

OK-- I'm rather stupid. It used to be, I swear, that when you clicked on Add-a-Face a circle appeared and the active window switched to the picture. Now, usually, it seems, the active window remains the Info window, so when I click and drag on the picture it thinks I'm selecting the whole picture. If I click on the picture and then click and drag the circle, it works. So there's an extra click. Usually. Except sometimes when the circle seems ready to drag immediately.


I have always wondered about the significance of the blue circle that sits off-center from the Add-a-Face circle in the Info window. It appears when there are no faces found. On a picture with some face, even unnamed or found by me rather than the computer, the blue circle isn't there. And why off-center? Hmm.

Photos Face Name Circle Misbehavior

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