Sync problem with Photo Frame between Google Nest Hub Max and Google Home app

[sir_timbit]

HI there. I've had a Google Nest Hub Max for several years. When it's not doing anything, I have it confiured as a photo frame, displaying my various albums from Google Photos. I'm not sure when it started to act up, but it's no longer syncing properly with the Google Home app on my iPhone.

1) It shows most of the older albums I've created over the years, but not anything from the past year or so.

2) When I go into the Home App > select the Nest Hub Max > Photo Frame > Google Photos, all my albums are listed, including the new ones that I want it to show, but it doesn't matter which albums I turn on or off. For example, if I turn off all my photo albums except for "2024" and "2025", all the other albums are greyed out. But the Nest Hub Max still displays photos from all the other albums I unchecked.

3) In the Home App > select the Nest Hub Max > Photo Frame > Google Photos, under the list of albums is a preview window. It never shows any preview photos there anymore. If I tap on an album, whether it's on or off, it shows "loading preview images..." but just shows grey squares (no images.)

4) I tried removing Google Photos and Google Home apps and reinstalling them. No change.

5) I tried removing the Nest Hub Max from my device list in Google Home, then added it back in. No change.

6) I tried step 5 again, but this time also did a factory reset on the Nest Hub Max, then added it back in. No change.

7) On the Nest Hub Max, if I say "Hey Google, change photo frame", I can see my albums including the new ones listed. I can put a checkmark on the new ones, but it doesn't change them. It still shows photos from albums that I've unchecked, but not new ones.

😎 Unsure if related, but in Google Photos, if I select an album and try to cast it to the Nest Hub Max, the Nest's display just shows the Google Photo icon instead of the photos.

9) Some other suggestings I've read, like Photo Curation > Live Albums only didn't make a difference either. Nor did going to Google photos via a PC > Settings cog > Turn activity-based personalization on or off.

Other photo frame settings seem fine. I can add the frog (weather), or change the display to show Google's curated art collection, etc. It just seems to be a problem with syncing my album settings.

I'm not sure what else to try, so I'm hoping someone else has found a fix that worked for them. I read in another post here that the Nest Hub Max can't display albums that have more than 100 photos in them, but I have plenty of albums that have way more and those display just fine. The new albums I'm trying to get to display have less than 100 though.

Thanks!

Sir_Timbit

[sicsacol · Accepted solution]

Hi @sir_timbit,

Thanks for reaching out to the community. I understand you're experiencing a syncing issue with the Photo Frame feature on your Google Nest Hub Max because when you select the album you want to display, your Google Nest Hub Max shows your old albums and not the albums you selected. I appreciate the detailed information shared and the troubleshooting steps you've already tried, including checking the Photo Frame setting in the Google Home app and the Google Photos app, removing and reinstalling both apps, and also performing a factory reset, with no positive result. No worries, let's work together to get this resolved. To better support you, I have a few questions for you:

• Did you try creating a new album and selecting it to show on your Google Display? Did the issue also happen then?
• What's the Google Home app version? 
• What's your Google Display firmware version? Please check out the next article to find your device's firmware version.

Also, let's try the following step:

• Open the Google Photos app.
• Tap Photos settings > Apps & devices > Photo Frames.
  
• Tap your Google Display where the album should appear.
  
• Verify that the selected albums match those set in the Home app.

Any additional details you can provide will be helpful.

Regards,
Jonathan

[sicsacol · Accepted solution]

Hi @sir_timbit,

Thanks for reaching out to the community. I understand you're experiencing a syncing issue with the Photo Frame feature on your Google Nest Hub Max because when you select the album you want to display, your Google Nest Hub Max shows your old albums and not the albums you selected. I appreciate the detailed information shared and the troubleshooting steps you've already tried, including checking the Photo Frame setting in the Google Home app and the Google Photos app, removing and reinstalling both apps, and also performing a factory reset, with no positive result. No worries, let's work together to get this resolved. To better support you, I have a few questions for you:

• Did you try creating a new album and selecting it to show on your Google Display? Did the issue also happen then?
• What's the Google Home app version? 
• What's your Google Display firmware version? Please check out the next article to find your device's firmware version.

Also, let's try the following step:

• Open the Google Photos app.
• Tap Photos settings > Apps & devices > Photo Frames.
  
• Tap your Google Display where the album should appear.
  
• Verify that the selected albums match those set in the Home app.

Any additional details you can provide will be helpful.

Regards,
Jonathan

[sir_timbit · Accepted solution]

Hi Jonathan,

I just created a new album and added about six photos. The album showed up in the Google Home app, already selected, but the photos aren't being displayed in the Home app's preview section, and don't appear on the Nest Hub. So, same problem as before.

I have all albums unchecked except for my new test album and the one listed as "Select family & friends. Create an auto-updating album of people." When I tap on that one, it displays "Can't create albumn. Sign in to the Google Photos app as me then try again." I didn't see an option to sign out of Google Photos on my phone, only to remove the account. So I removed it and then added it back in again. No change there either.

The display is listed as a "Google Nest Hub Max" with system firmware version 26.20250116.103.2900 and Cast firmware 3.76.463359. The Google Home app version is 3.36.56.

Thanks for the other settings though! On the Google Photos app, I clicked on my account profile > Google Photo settings > Apps & Devices > Photo frames > this display. All the albums are listed here as in the Google Home app, but here they are all turned on except for the brand new album I just created. So I unchecked all the albums here and selected my newer albums, and that worked!

I've never had to go and select the albums from here before. Didn't even know the same settings were available here, but regardless, this worked, so thank you very much  🙂

[sicsacol]

Hi @sir_timbit,

Thanks for your update and the information shared.

I'm glad to hear that you've fixed the album display issue with your Google Nest Hub Max by creating a new album and checking the settings in the Google Photos app. As a recommendation, please continue monitoring your Google Display behavior. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to reach out – we're always happy to help in any way we can.

Cheers,
Jonathan