Finder Crashing when using Photo with an external hard drive

impolite_cake wrote:

• I seem to be having 2 distinct issue at the same time: I am using an external hard drive where my very large Photo library is stored (I have used it for the past 10 years with a 2013 MacBook Pro with no issue until I purchased my current 2021 MacBook Pro).

Issue 1 is that Photos makes me "restore/repair" my library but the process stays on 0% without making any progress and there is no way to get out of this state. So I can no longer view or synchronize my photos!

•

Issue 2 is that whenever I quit Photos (because it is not doing anything) and/or when I try to navigate in the external hard drive's folders, finder gets blocked. I am then forced to force quit it but the problem is it never gets launched again. The only solution is to restart the Mac completely. And then the cycle repeats itself.

It seems to me that part of the issue is the hard drive, but I do not understand why this is a problem on a new MacBook running on MacOS Tahoe.

HDD or SSD...(?) 10years old(?)

All drives will fail in due time—

I would seriously consider trying to make a copy those files to a new drive if things are going sideways, before a catastrophic failure.

Finder is simple trying to read the drive...if it is working in a state of failure you have an issue

you can try running the First Aid on that external drive

Utilities>  Disk Utility> run the First Aid on your external HD

Today's macOS and SSD in particular benefit from the external drive partition scheme & format as GUID/APFS

Agree that it sounds like a failing/failed drive. As to 'why now', did you just start using this 2021 MacBook Pro? Your 2013 MBP topped out at Big Sur, and I recall somewhere along the way from then, macOS needed to update my Photos library more than once with macOS upgrades to the Photos app. Also, if you have Apple Intelligence enabled on your M-series Mac it will 'assimilate' your Photos library. All of those are disk access-intensive activities that will stress a failing drive.

I cannot really help with the Photos issue, but I am confused by when this issue first occurred which will likely confuse others. Did you have this issue with the new 2021 MBPro before upgrading to macOS 26 Tahoe, or did the issue only start after upgrading to Tahoe (since you posted in the Tahoe section of the forums, I'm assuming you are currently running Tahoe). This is a very critical distinction.