@TomHutch99 - My solution:
Okay, I FINALLY figured out how to get all photos to display again.
DISCLAIMER
- I don't know what truly caused the issue to start, but I suspect it was a change due to either/or both Google Photos and to those users who are also members of a Google Home created/owned by someone else. And, it even be related to those users being a member of a family plan.
BACKGROUND
Here's the background/preconditions to my scenario
- I have a home set up in Google Home (maybe even originating from my Nest app "Home).
- I have a Google Family plan, with my spouse being a member of that plan.
- My spouse was also a member of the Google Home, with the role of Admin.
- We have a Google Photos album that my spouse owns, and of which I am am a member of - we have both added photos to this album. The albums if full of 2,000+ pics of our toddler.
- I set the ambient screensaver/wallpaper of our three TVs and Nest Hub Max to display only the Toddler album pics.
- Around Nov 27, 2024, it all broke - the toddler pics stopped showing and were only showing random, stock photos.
- When I tried to add the Toddler album again, it would only even show a few of the really old photos, but also still mixed in with random stock photos. As it turns out, the few pics that were still being shown from the Toddler album were ones that I took, i.e., were in "my" Google Photos.
WHAT I DID ON DEC 31,2024 THAT RESOLVED THE ISSUE
- First, I tried resetting the Nest Hub Max, but that did NOT resolve the issue.
- I then removed my spouse from the Google Home and added her back as a Member (not an Admin).
- Then, from her phone/account, we went into the Google Home, and into the Nest Hub Max and into the Ambient/screensaver settings, and into Google Photos - this is where we noticed that it was showing both her and myself (presumably as the only two users in the Home, and beside her avatar it showed "OFF" for Google Photos! BINGO! So, when we tapped on her avatar and selected the Toddler photo album, all of the photos, we thought this would fix the issue... but it did not. Why? Well, we think it was because she was just a "Member" with no access to update settings. And, her only being a member was also blocking her from signing into the Nest app (to see our old Nest IQ camera which is set up over our toddler's bed -- we want to keep using the Nest app for the superior timeline viewing experience).
- So, next I removed my spouse from the Google Home app and re-added her as an Admin again.
- Once she was an Admin, she could (a) set the ambient/screensaver for all TVs and the Nest Hub Max to show the same Toddler album as I was showing, and this now showed ALL photos, i.e., the ones she took/owns and the ones that I took/own; and (b) she could sign back into the Nest app using her Google Account.
Here's a visual of the setting that was "Off" for my spouse when in the Ambient mode "Google Photos" setting as a member of my Google Home:
Now, the same Toddler album still works on my sister-in-law's Chromecast and her parent's Chromecast. The commonality there is that both my sister-in-law and their mother are also members of the Google Family Plan, but my spouse is not a member of their Google Home.
CONSLUSION
It looks like some additional setting/permission was set up where all Google Home members need to enable a setting before any pictures in their Google Photos can be displayed on a screen in the home. I believe this to be the case because the pictures still display fine in other homes that the photo owner is not a member of, but has shared the album with some who is in the home (a gap, perhaps).
That was not fun to figure out.
