“1 item left”...forever: iCloud Photo Library Stuck Uploading from rMBP

[rhyzome]

I’ve been trying to finish syncing my iCloud Photo Library with my rMBP but it has been stuck for days uploading the last “item”. It just says uploading 1 item and won’t stop. (This is after nearly completing upload of a library of nearly 50k items)

I’ve got the 2 TB plan and the libary is like less than 10% that size, I’ve tried repairing the Photos library (optn cmnd click to open Photos app), restarting, clearing the PRAM...what else can I do?

Anyone else have/had this problem too?
[doublepost=1535739588][/doublepost]Does anyone at least know of a way to identify what this last item is? I can just remove it from the library if I could figure out which photo the troublesome item is...

But I tried making a smart album with the criteria of unable to upload to iCloud and nothing shows up in it!

 

[rhyzome]

Bump...help this problem still persists!

 

[afir93]

At the risk of stating something obvious you might have already tried, but seeing as the non-uploaded item is most likely among the photos you most recently added to your library, couldn't you just check from another Apple device (iPhone, iPad, or even from a web browser) which one of the most recent photos is missing, compared to the library on your Mac, to figure out the one that isn't uploaded?

Otherwise the only way I can think of to easily figure that out is the method you already mentioned with a smart album for unuploaded items.

Some months ago I once had that issue aswell that my iMac was stuck with uploading an item for whatever reason (even though I later tried to upload it through a web browser and it worked just fine). In the end, I decided it would be the easiest to just delete my local Photos Library from my Mac and create a new one and just let my Mac download all the photos from my iCloud Photos Library from scratch into that one, which worked out perfectly. I only had like 10GB of photos in it at the time so re-downloading them from iCloud wasn't a big deal at a time, but if you have around 200GB of photos in your library (as you mention 10% of a 2TB storage plan), then that might not be such a feasible solution.

 

[rhyzome]

Yeah there are 50k photos...ive been meaning to trim it down...some of them are garbage but many are precious.

I had other problems with icloud recently..it all started after i was fooling around with the settings and turned it off and on on my devices. A number of photos disappeared from icloud and from all of my devices in the process. Ive since restored them but makes me afraid to delete the local. I do have time majine/capsule...maybe worth a try.

 

[rhyzome]

Bump...is there any other solution besides doing redownloading the whole library like afir93 said?

...also, afir93, how exactly did you delete your local Photos library and make a new one and download everything from scratch again? Do you just turn iCloud Photo Library off and on in System Preferences? Which options are you supposed to use? Theyre a little confusing.

I think it is a possible solution...I tried it before and it didn't seem to work, but that was before Mojave...so I'm trying to fix this again now that I'm updated on all devices and still have the problem.

Photos is syncing across devices correctly for now, and the iPad Pro and iPhone aren't perpetually uploading 1 item...only the Mac still says "Uploading 1 Item".

 

[afir93]

Bump...is there any other solution besides doing redownloading the whole library like afir93 said?

...also, afir93, how exactly did you delete your local Photos library and make a new one and download everything from scratch again? Do you just turn iCloud Photo Library off and on in System Preferences? Which options are you supposed to use? Theyre a little confusing.

I think it is a possible solution...I tried it before and it didn't seem to work, but that was before Mojave...so I'm trying to fix this again now that I'm updated on all devices and still have the problem.

Photos is syncing across devices correctly for now, and the iPad Pro and iPhone aren't perpetually uploading 1 item...only the Mac still says "Uploading 1 Item".

I believe I just created a new library from within the Photos app (hold "alt" while launching the app and it gives you the option to do so), then turned iCloud sync on for that one in the settings panel (think I needed to confirm that this new one became my new "standard" library or something since iCloud sync will only work with one library per user account on a Mac). Let the sync do its thing in the background afterwards, and 2 or so hours later it was done and basically everything was as before, minus the stuck upload. Deleted the "old" library file afterwards to free up storage, no need to keep both around obviously.

About just turning off and on iCloud Photo Library in System Preferences, I don't think that deletes the local library? So it might not fix the issue/remove whatever photo is stuck uploading; but I haven't tried it. Maybe it gives you the option to delete the library from there aswell. Setting up a clean library should since it sorts out whatever item is stuck uploading.

 

[rhyzome]

Thanks afir93...I’m giving your idea a try...the process is underway and going smoothly, though it will probably take another 24 hours before it is finished and I can see if the problem has gone away.

I have also been having problems with iCloud Drive in Desktop and Documents folders and in Books. Changes seem to sync across iOS devices but the Mac isn’t updating with those changes. And everything in my Books library is missing on my Mac. It only has the names of Collections, but they are all empty with no PDFs or eBooks.

Is there a solution analagous to the one you suggested that could apply to iCloud Drive? Specifically Documents and Desktop folders and Books?