How frequently is Photo Stream synced to Aperture?

Question

I've been experiencing considerable delays between the time I take a photo and the time it shows up in Aperture's synced Photo Stream. Specifically, the photos show up on other devices that consume the iCloud Photo Stream, but Aperture seems to lag them substantially.

Is there a way to force Aperture to refresh its Photo Stream so that it matches the Photo Stream on iOS devices (and thus, presumably, its state in iCloud).

Answer 1

Normally Photo Stream should sync across devices within seconds, so long as the device that took the photo is on WiFi. However, I've also run into cases where Aperture's PhotoStream folder lags in showing recent images. When this happens I've been able to fix the issue by disabling and then re-enabling Photo Stream in Aperture's settings. It will re-sync everything in the Photo Stream folder, and new pictures show up almost instantly.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I have multiple Aperture libraries on my computer, and I often notice that Photo Streams don't sync when I switch to one of the libraries synced with my Photo Stream.

To fix this problem, I have success most often when I open up 'Photos' on my iOS device, then open the 'Photo Stream' section. Then, I open Aperture, switch to the Library that syncs to my Photo Stream, and quit Aperture. Open Aperture once more, and a refresh/update should be triggered.

It would be nice if Apple just gave a simple 'refresh' button, because the syncing isn't as automatic as it should be, at least as far as Aperture is concerned.

Answer 3

And my previous answer was also responding to your question's title: there is no frequency for any of iCloud's services, it is a push-only service (most of it I think). So a sync will only happen if there is change.

And so far, I haven't seen any command or buttons or web page to help reset any of iCloud's services. Had a problem today with a friend's calendars, had to use a backup of iCal pre-iCloud: stop the sync, erase all calendars on iCloud's web site, same on his computer, then restore with the pre-iCloud backup, then start sync again. So either Apple believe there is no need for a reset switch (which would be incredibly stupid just looking at the extreme complexity involved behind the thing), or they haven't implemented one yet. I guess future will tell. For now, it looks like we're stuck at doing this manually...