Broken movie file somewhere in Photos, won't sync, can't find it

TidBITS Talk
1

I curate my photos in macOS Photos, and sync selected folders to my iPhone. I don’t use iCloud Photos. I’m getting the following error message when syncing:

“6870954C-BC33-4300-ADE5-86D2C77DC58C.mov” was not copied to the iPhone “redacted” because it cannot be played on this iPhone.
Some videos were not copied to the iPhone “redacted” because they cannot be played on this iPhone.

I assume there’s something wrong with this video, so I either need to convert or delete it. However, I can’t locate the file.

It’s not searchable in the Finder. I’ve created a smart album in Photos for “filename contains 6870954C” with no results. I’ve selected the Videos pinned group, opened the Info window, and arrowkeyed my way through all the videos, and none had that filename.

So now I’m stuck. Any suggestions for how to find this file?

2

I use Find Any File to find any file.

3

I’ve gotten this from time to time. Especially with old videos that were originally shot on devices like a 2nd generation iPod Touch or an iPhone 4. I have also seen this when trying to migrate/import these videos to a new Photos library.

I think this is because QuickTime (and the iOS equivalent) has retired some of the oldest CODECs, making old videos unplayable. And apparently also unsyncable.

4

You could try, from the command line:

sudo find / | grep -i 6870954C

You’ll get some error messages from some non-searchable locations, but it should show you the path to the file.

5

Yes, that’s what I was thinking as well. But I’m more concerned about what to do now, not why it happened.

6

Very nice! “Find Any File” got inside the PhotosLibrary and found a video under the folder Originals, three JPGs in various subfolders of Resources/Derivatives, and a DAT file under Resources/Caches. All of the non-MOV files have much later Created dates.

Do you think it is safe to just delete these files? I’m loath to break the database.

7

If you delete it, the app won’t break, but you may see errors when the system tries to access this video. I personally wouldn’t try it.

Perhaps you can try to play the video (use VLC if Preview won’t play it) to figure out what it is. Then you can (hopefully) find it in Photos and delete it from there (after making a backup copy of the file, of course).

If you can play it, you may want to try using a tool like Handbrake to convert it to a more modern format and then re-import it back to your Photos library.

1 Like
8

All fixed. Thanks for everyone’s help!

I was able to play the video, and found it (based on file date) in Photos. I opened the video in Handbrake and converted it from MOV to MP4. I then deleted the movie from Photos and emptied the trash. This also removed the three JPGs and one DAT identified earlier.

The movie file itself was titled P1020013.mov. It would have been a LOT EASIER if Apple gave me that filename. I’ll submit feedback shortly.

I then re-added the video and adjusted the creation date so that it would sort properly. All looks good now.

6 Likes