Photos locking frequently since upgrade to High Sierra

[offtheback]

Hi all-Have a 27"Imac late 2013.Photos worked well in Sierra.Since upgrading to High Sierra it freezes after adding a couple of folders and/or albums.May also freeze when deleting album or folder or renaming album.I have been speaking to Apple for 2+months and it's not fixed.They've had me run diagnostic tests and given them to engineers.My Photos library from the Imac copied to an external HD will not work on my MBP which runs Sierra.
Is there a way to revert to Sierra?I was told that Photos is part of the op system.Want to be certain everything still works if I can go back to Sierra.Thanks!

 

[Fishrrman]

"Is there a way to revert to Sierra?I was told that Photos is part of the op system.Want to be certain everything still works if I can go back to Sierra."

Yes, one can always "go back" to an earlier version of the OS that worked.

BUT -- unless you made a fully-bootable cloned backup of your internal drive using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper BEFORE you upgraded, it's going to be a lot of work.

I won't detail it all here, because I don't know if you're willing "to do what it takes" to get back. But, you will need a few things:
- an external drive that is large enough to hold the contents of your internal drive
- a USB flashdrive 8gb or larger
- a copy of the High Sierra installer app
- CarbonCopyCloner (or SuperDuper). Both are FREE to download and use for 30 days.

 

[offtheback]

"Is there a way to revert to Sierra?I was told that Photos is part of the op system.Want to be certain everything still works if I can go back to Sierra."

Yes, one can always "go back" to an earlier version of the OS that worked.

BUT -- unless you made a fully-bootable cloned backup of your internal drive using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper BEFORE you upgraded, it's going to be a lot of work.

I won't detail it all here, because I don't know if you're willing "to do what it takes" to get back. But, you will need a few things:
- an external drive that is large enough to hold the contents of your internal drive
- a USB flashdrive 8gb or larger
- a copy of the High Sierra installer app
- CarbonCopyCloner (or SuperDuper). Both are FREE to download and use for 30 days.

[doublepost=1540227009][/doublepost]Thanks so much for the detailed response.One more if I may-Would upgrading to Mojave be better worse or the same.You do have a crystal ball?

 

[Fishrrman]

"One more if I may-Would upgrading to Mojave be better worse or the same.You do have a crystal ball?"

You are already at Mojave, are you not?
I think you meant to say something else.

As I said above, both Low Sierra (10.12) and High Sierra (10.13) are "mature" OS's.
That means that they've been refined several times with updates.

Mojave is on its first release (10.14.0). There may be a lot "under the hood" that is yet in need of refinement.

I'm still using Low Sierra on a 2012 Mac Mini and have no plans to "go further".
I'm happy where I am and I don't give a hoot about running "the latest and greatest".
I go with what works for me.

 

[offtheback]

"One more if I may-Would upgrading to Mojave be better worse or the same.You do have a crystal ball?"

You are already at Mojave, are you not?
I think you meant to say something else.

As I said above, both Low Sierra (10.12) and High Sierra (10.13) are "mature" OS's.
That means that they've been refined several times with updates.

Mojave is on its first release (10.14.0). There may be a lot "under the hood" that is yet in need of refinement.

I'm still using Low Sierra on a 2012 Mac Mini and have no plans to "go further".
I'm happy where I am and I don't give a hoot about running "the latest and greatest".
I go with what works for me.

The problem Imac runs high sierra

 

[Fishrrman]

"The problem Imac runs high sierra"

When you upgraded from Low Sierra to High Sierra, did your drive get "converted" to APFS?
Wondering if that might have had something to do with it?

 

[offtheback]

How do I tell?

 

[danielwsmithee]

From my experience with Photos almost every problem can be traced back to a corrupt picture or video file in your library. My guess is even if you downgrade you will still have a problem, as something likely happened in the upgrade process that corrupted file/files. The only real way to clean it up track down which file it is and remove it from the library.

 

[offtheback]

From my experience with Photos almost every problem can be traced back to a corrupt picture or video file in your library. My guess is even if you downgrade you will still have a problem, as something likely happened in the upgrade process that corrupted file/files. The only real way to clean it up track down which file it is and remove it from the library.

How do you do that?

 

[danielwsmithee]

How do you do that?

For my issue. I had to export different portions of the library at a time until I found the files that would cause Photos to crash on export. I started exporting the 1st half of the library, if that worked, I knew the problem files were in the second half of the library. I kept doing that in Binary Search pattern until I found a group of 4-5 files that would cause Photos to crash. It would be really good to have a health analysis tool of some sort that would help you track down corrupt image files.