I upgraded my iCloud account to the 2 TB version, and added about 400GB of images from my cameras. This was done on my Mac Studio, and everything uploaded correctly (though it was slow, and Cox says I have blown through 75% of my internet data allowance for this month). I can see the image folder (and the images) on the Mac Studio (of course) and on my iPad Air and my iPhone. But my MBP16 refuses to synchronize - I can see my iCloud data (as it was before the update), but not the new image folder. iCloud on the MBP seems to be stuck uploading 2 MB of data (the info says 2 MB of 2 MB have been uploaded - but it is hung at that point). The whole point of putting the image files on iCloud was so that I could access them on the MBP. Any ideas about how to get the MBP to actually synchronize with the iCloud data? (I can also see the correct data on icloud.com, so I know it is present in the “cloud”.). I am wondering if turning off iCloud in settings on the MBP and then back on might get it going, but I want to make sure I have a backup copy of everything before I try that.
On the MBP, what exactly does it say in the status at the bottom of the Days of All Photos views?
You might check whether there is some specific photo or video hung in upload by creating a Smart Album with the single criterion (“Photo” “Is” “unable to upload tp iCloud Photos”) and see if it contains anything.
It sounds like, as you say, the process on the laptop is “hung”. The daemon that handles that is named bird. Open Activity Monitor, find bird, select it and click Quit. The daemon will instantly restart – you might not even notice that it quit – but probably the synchronization will immediately resume.
I have been finding lately that bird on my Mac frequently gets stuck. The above procedure always fixes it. But I have no idea why it is freezing in the first place.
Thanks for these suggestions. Bird was in fact hung - I force quit it, and it started up and ran for a while but didn’t change anything - still missing the image folder. At that time, I made sure I had a backup of the iCloud files and turned off iCloud in settings. I got a message that it needed to finish uploading two files (and it showed a progress indicator indicating that they had completed - 2MB to upload, 2MB uploaded - but still hung). I got a dialog about this, and proceeded with the shutdown of iCloud Drive, which did finish. Then I turned on iCloud Drive again, and got a message saying iCloud Drive was starting - and that hung again without any progress for at least 30 minutes. At that point, I restarted the MBP - and then wonder of wonders, I saw the complete set of folders (including the image folder). At this point I can only say that this looks like really buggy software - which is a bit scary for something as fundamental as iCloud Drive.
Again, thanks for the suggestions. I was hoping that “the bird is the word”, but it isn’t quite that simple.
I wrote about iCloud Drive needing resetting a while back. It’s truly annoying.
Interesting about the new File Provider Extension. I have my iCloud working now - but I have an application (DxO PL5 - an image editing program) that can’t view or input images stored on iCloud. This app runs on both macOS and Windows, and doesn’t use the standard Apple APIs. It used to work - but I think now that it doesn’t work now because it got caught in the changes in Mac OS 12.3 (I am at 12.6 now). Moreover, DxO now offers a new app that supports their Deep Prime noise reduction feature, but is not a complete image editor - it is meant to be the first step in the image editing pipeline. This new app can view and process images in iCloud. I have a request in to their support and I am hoping that they will add this support to the DxO PL application. But again, thanks - I think I understand what is going on now.