Photostream not updating on M1 Air

[robjulo]

Brand new M1 Air. Photos will not show up in Photostream on the Air. I've turned photostream on and off...no joy. Rebooted, didn't help. The photos taken with my iPhone do show up on my iPad and iPhone Photostream album without issue and instantaneously.

Any ideas on what to try next? I noticed at least one other person having this issue in the M1 issues thread but no answers.

 

[robjulo]

Nevermind. Woke up this morning, turned photostream back on, and it worked. No idea.

 

[SBlue1]

Old thread but I just found out that made my M1 MacBook Air disconnect the Photostream. You won't believe it. I was trying for two days and nothing worked. Then I read somewhere that I should try to plug it in. I connected my MacBook Air to the power and the Photostream started instantly!!! WTF! No mention of this feature nowhere on Apples support sites! I just wasted two days on this.

 

[Starfia]

That sounds reasonable from what I've heard: I think some of the syncing for Photos is done closer to the system level, and it's done at a super-low priority so that it works over time but doesn't tap your CPU, network bandwidth, or battery when you expect those to be fully available for your active use. (There should be some mention of this in Photos help or support if there isn't currently, of course.)