Category: Stress

How to fix sync issues with Apple Photos on macOS

  1. Notice that a selection of photos on one Mac are not syncing to the rest of your devices.
  2. Restart Photos.
  3. That didn’t work.
  4. Restart the Mac.
  5. Nope.
  6. Open Activity Monitor and kill all processes with the word “photo”.
  7. Hmm. No change.
  8. Kill “bird”. You’re not sure what it does, but the internet says it’s part of the problem.
  9. Nothing.
  10. Delete the Syndication.photoslibrary deep in ~/Library/Photos.
  11. Wait and be patient. Maybe days?
  12. Ok, turn off iCloud in Photos preferences. Get nervous because that sounds dangerous. Wait, wasn’t all of this kinda risky?
  13. Turn on iCloud in Photos preferences. Wait while you waste bandwidth and time.
  14. The photos are syncing. Well some of them. Not ones that are edited. For some reason. 
  15. Wait, again. 
  16. Those dozen or so photos are still not syncing.
  17. Rotate those few images to see if that helps.
  18. It says it’s syncing! Yay
  19. It does not sync all of them.
  20. Quit Photos and then back to Activity Monitor again. Kill all process with the word “photo”.
  21. Restart Photos. Wait.
  22. Nothing at all.
  23. Repair the library.
  24. That was not it. Wait more than 24 hours.
  25. Create an album with photos that won’t sync.
  26. Share that album.
  27. That almost works, except for any photos from the recent import that were edited. 
  28. So then you turn off (and on again) iCloud in Photos preferences. 
  29. Wait two days and it’s all fixed. ಠ_ಠ 

CFXFVWP7V1

My wife bought a pair of AirPods Pro off of someone online. They were brand new, unopened. She looked up the serial number in the listing on Apple’s website. All checked out. She went and bought them for $70.1

When she got home the serial number on the box was different from the listing (CFXFVWP7V1). She doubled checked on Apple’s site. Purchased date of October 2023, with a Limited Warranty until October 2024. Ok, it still all checked out ok. Using Apple’s website to verify a serial number, according to the top Google search result (and common sense/logic), is the best way to check that they are legit. Until she went to use them.

They were fake.

The serial numbers on the individual AirPods are different than what Settings show. They pair up just like a real pair, but switching between the various audio modes does nothing.

Searching on Google, the serial number shows other fake listings (from random folks around the world!) with the same serial number. So I’m writing this post in hopes that I can prevent another innocent person from getting taken advantage of.

Fake as a $3 bill

She ended up buying a real pair off of Amazon. The slightly newer version with USB-C. Can you tell the difference?

Fakes on right