High Sierra Photos stuck on "Updating x Items"

[msisaac]

I'm posting this info here in the event it helps someone else down the line. I've got a fresh install of 10.13.3 on my system. Everything works, except for Photos. When I enabled the iCloud Photo Library option in Photos, the app would just sit with the message "Updating x Items", but nothing would ever download. Nothing seemed to work. I spent a couple weeks on this trying every suggestion I came across. Today, I opened the Console and saw several messages stating something about the network quality not meeting a minimum speed. The messages stated that the speed detected was 0.00mb/s. I'm using a USB wifi adapter. This made me think that High Sierra wasn't able to somehow meter my third-party USB wifi connection, which might be causing the hanging. So on a whim, I bridged the wifi connection and the standard ethernet connection in the Network pane of System Preferences and Photos immediately started working!

So here are some instructions for anyone else stuck in the same boat I was:
1. Open System Preferences
2. Open the Network pane
3. Click on the padlock icon to unlock the preference pane, if necessary
4. Click on the small gear icon in the bottom left part of the window
5. Select "Manage Virtual Interfaces..."
6. Click on the plus (+) icon
7. Select "New Bridge..."
7. Select your wifi connection and the ethernet connection
8. Name the bridge whatever you want and click Done
9. Click Done again
10. Click Apply

After a few seconds, your bridge should get an IP address and hopefully, Photos starts working for you!

 

[camhunt]

Thanks! That finally worked for me.

Additional note: I have a Bluetooth USB adapter and I had to delete that from the network interfaces (and I picked the option to keep it deleted when macOS restarts, never gonna use it anyways) to get it to work. I'm guessing the virtual bridge must be the only network interface?

 

[msisaac]

One thing I found out after I posted these instructions: before creating the bridge, make sure the wifi connection is listed first in the service order.

1. Open System Preferences
2. Open the Network pane
3. Click on the padlock icon to unlock the preference pane, if necessary
4. Click the small gear icon in the bottom left part of the window
5. Click on Set Service Order...
6. Drag the USB wifi connection to the top of the list
7. Click OK

Now follow the instructions in my first post to create the bridge. When I tried running through my instructions again, I had problems getting everything to work until I changed the service order.

 

[jefndi]

Thanks for that. Did the trick!

 

[tuxedomask]

You have solved a week of hair-pulling troubleshooting insanity for me. Thank you!

 

[borediniraq]

Same! Dammit man. Thank you!!

 

[aaronkw]

Wow that worked for me also!

 

[yanaiw]

Thx man!!! That was hard to figure out

 

[molko1234]

oh my god you legend! I have been trying to sort this for literally weeks! Worked like a dream, thank you!

 

[manmoth]

thanks for this solution. GB's are now flowing perfectly
Has annoyed me for weeks.