Photos Library Sync Problem

I have encountered a situation concerning sync that I have been unable to clear up. I have my home folder less a few named folders being sync to an external drive. This seemed to be working OK until recently. Now, all of a sudden starting about 10 days ago the Pictures folder containing the Photos Library.photoslibrary file is being repeatedly appearing in the trash folder about once every five minutes. It is strange because there are other files and sub-folders in this Pictures folder that do not appear in the trash. It took me a while to determine the cause. When I paused the Hazel rule that syncs, the situation stopped. My photos are all there in my home Pictures folder and I have not lost any photos and the library is in sync with iCloud... at least it says it is. Another thing I noticed is that my Photos Library is over 55GB, but the copy (I guess it's a copy) in the trash is significantly smaller... just a few GB. I have it stopped right now, but I'd like to fix the situation if someone may know how. I happy to furnish more data, but I am not sure what may be needed.

Are you using the Sync action? If so, any files replaced by a sync end up in the trash.

Yes, as mentioned I am using sync. So I understand what you wrote about files being replaced going to trash and that may very well be what is happening I guess. But then why would it affect only the Photos Library.photoslibrary file? My folder Pictures does contain this file along with the Photos Booth Library file and four other folders full of dozens of files. This situation has only occurred with this one file in this folder. Although it has also occurred with the Desktop folder when something is in that folder. I don't usually have anything in the desktop folder.

Are those other files actually being replaced? It only happens when there are changes.

Not sure I fully understand your question, Paul. The folder (Pictures) is not changing very often... at least not by me. However the Photos Library.photoslibrary is syncing to iCloud and it is available to my spouse and daughter, so I suppose it 'syncs' and therefore changes anytime one of us take a photo that gets included in the common iCloud Photos Library.

Still, that, in my small brain, doesn't seem to account for the file being moved to trash so regularly... like every five minutes or so... Unless it just happens to be the iCloud syncing process.

I think mayhaps I should remove the Hazel sync of this particular file and, because I want a local copy, just copy or sync it separately with a time constraint. Unless, of course, you have a better solution.

Ken

How often it syncs is based on the conditions in your rule. If you post your rule, I can better analyze but that is what determines the frequency.

The rule I am using is here: https://imgur.com/a/6PGv15s

My Home folder is 'kenlind'

My external drive is titled 'Production'

Are these files appearing more than 113 minutes apart?

No... Significantly more frequently. For example 11:06, 11:14, 11:23, 11:28, 11:32, 11:36, 11:44...

Try checking the preview and rule status to see why it's matching and running that often.

Rule status shows could not sync file/folder under date matched column.

Ok, so it keeps retrying because there is an error. Check the logs to see what the error is. Go to Help->View Logs.