Photos was unable to open the library “Photos Library”. (4302)

[robjreed]

MacOS Big Sur 11.5.1 update - Photos was unable to open the library “Photos Library”. (4302)

So today i ran the MacOS Big Sur 11.5.1 update from the last as i always keep up to date. When i rebooted after the update i was unable to access my Photos library from my external hard drive. I got this message:

Photos was unable to open the library “Photos Library”. (4302)

After spending loads of time with Apple support, the answer is apparently this: Apple no longer supports MSDOS formatted external drives to hold the photos library after the Big Sur 11.5.1 update!

• Im so frustrated about this as the only solution for me personally is to purchase another hard drive and format the new drive in the appropriate way below. Then copy the library from the old drive to the new one. I have a 128GB MacBook Pro and the external drive is also 128GB and nearly full so there is no other way to do this in my case! If you had the space you could just drag the file locally then re-format the drive. Another way i was recommended by the advisor is to have the Photos library local and use TimeMachine to back up but again i personally don't have the space to do this.
• Apple File System (APFS): The file system used by macOS 10.13 or later.
• Mac OS Extended: The file system used by macOS 10.12 or earlier.

Does anyone else have any comments on this?

 

[Photos not working 11.5.1]

I have the exact same issue, my sister's Mac who hasn't updated can open my photos on her photos app fine, what should I do?

I have a 256gb Mac so there is enough space for me to copy it locally and then copy it back to the hard drive again? Is that what you meant?

 

[PatrickCocoa]

Does anyone else have any comments on this?

1. Thanks for the heads up on this! I don't use external MSDOS formatted hard drives but it's helpful for me to know this in case it comes up at some point.

2. Apple's corporate software philosophy is to jettison parts of apps and operating systems that Apple feels are no longer needed. Their reasoning is that the resultant code base will be smaller, faster, easier to maintain, and less buggy. Are they right? Maybe. Maybe not.

3. If you want an operating system that will support whatever you're doing forever and never remove features or capabilities, consider Windows. Microsoft's corporate software philosophy is that every OS release must be able to reproduce whatever the previous release did. I think the latest Window still plays MSDOS games from the 1980s, even those games that relied on bugs in the MS-DOS code itself. Their reasoning is that if we piss off fewer people, we'll make more money. Are they right? Maybe. Maybe not.

 

[HDFan]

the only solution for me personally is to purchase another hard drive

You should probably do that anyway If your care about your photos you need a 3-2-1 backup strategy in place.

 

[NoBoMac]

^^^This. And seeing that OP is running out of space on the external, need to bite the bullet anyway.

Re: no longer supporting MSDOS filesystems: a bit surprised that they ever did. Or maybe more correctly, "some" file systems. Probably comes down to type of MS filesystem. And in case of Photos, there are hard links in play if/when a person converts their iPhoto library to Photos.

When the library gets converted, a hard link is created to the original iPhoto file, so as not to duplicate the file for new Photos. Upside of not having to change anything in the old library's structure, just reference it in the new. If I recall correctly, NTFS has the concept of hard links, but MacOS does not write NTFS natively. exFAT supports symbolic links, but not sure if similar to what *nix systems do, but still useless for Photos hard links, and the hard links are probably resulting in the file copying twice in exFAT (guessing on that as a hard link is supposed to look/act like a ordinary file) when a library is moved from internal drive to external.

Guess, since Apple is pushing people toward APFS, they might see added benefit today or in the future of pushing everyone to a journaled filesystem for Photos. Hence, kill off MS formats for Photos. Will tick off some people, but then again, others probably will not notice.

 

[robjreed]

I have the exact same issue, my sister's Mac who hasn't updated can open my photos on her photos app fine, what should I do?

I have a 256gb Mac so there is enough space for me to copy it locally and then copy it back to the hard drive again? Is that what you meant?

Copy the file over locally, reformat the external drive to journaled file system then copy it back

 

[strkeout]

I was able to resolve this issue by copying the Photos Library to the Mac hard drive, reformat the external drive to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" and then copy the Photos Library back onto the external drive. If you are out of space on the Mac hard drive then maybe try to move it to a flash drive temporarily. Flash drives these days are pretty cheap and serve the purpose for things like this.

 

[Magnificent]

The issue still continues after 11.5.2 I've just realized the problem last night after updated the latest software to my Mac. It seems the most convenient method is en new external hard disk Because I want to keep and look at my photos and videos on the "Photos app".

 

[jimmieb45]

The issue still continues after 11.5.2 I've just realized the problem last night after updated the latest software to my Mac. It seems the most convenient method is en new external hard disk Because I want to keep and look at my photos and videos on the "Photos app".

I just updated my MBP to 11.6 (today) and the issue has fixed itself.

My hard drive has remained exFAT, two days ago I was in the exact same boat as ya'll on 11.5.2, updated, tried to open the photos library on the drive, huzzah!

 

[Magnificent]

I just updated my MBP to 11.6 (today) and the issue has fixed itself.

My hard drive has remained exFAT, two days ago I was in the exact same boat as ya'll on 11.5.2, updated, tried to open the photos library on the drive, huzzah!

Wonderful news. I'll update my Mac if the issue is fixed with 11.6

Edit: I have just updated my Mac to MACOS 11.6 and the issue is solved. 👍🏼

 

[Bucluc]

MacOS Big Sur 11.5.1 update - Photos was unable to open the library “Photos Library”. (4302)

So today i ran the MacOS Big Sur 11.5.1 update from the last as i always keep up to date. When i rebooted after the update i was unable to access my Photos library from my external hard drive. I got this message:

Photos was unable to open the library “Photos Library”. (4302)

After spending loads of time with Apple support, the answer is apparently this: Apple no longer supports MSDOS formatted external drives to hold the photos library after the Big Sur 11.5.1 update!

• Im so frustrated about this as the only solution for me personally is to purchase another hard drive and format the new drive in the appropriate way below. Then copy the library from the old drive to the new one. I have a 128GB MacBook Pro and the external drive is also 128GB and nearly full so there is no other way to do this in my case! If you had the space you could just drag the file locally then re-format the drive. Another way i was recommended by the advisor is to have the Photos library local and use TimeMachine to back up but again i personally don't have the space to do this.
• Apple File System (APFS): The file system used by macOS 10.13 or later.
• Mac OS Extended: The file system used by macOS 10.12 or earlier.

Does anyone else have any comments on this?

Same here, I just updated mac to last update (11.6 Big Sur) and nothing happened, same error. I search for the Photos Library in Finder/Images and I delete Photos Library.photoslibrary, after delete I opened again Photos from dock and it was updating by itself and everything working fine.