Everything looks stuck

When nothing seems to be happening, two screens tell you why. Settings → Services shows the live state of every part of Storage Studio, with a one-click fix where there is one. Background Activity (Job Insights) shows each background job, when it last ran, and anything that didn't finish. Remember too that Storage Studio works slowly on purpose and gives way to you — quiet isn't always stuck.

Likely causes

• Automatic actions are paused. The Home screen says Automatic actions are paused.
• The external drive isn't connected, so moves and transfers are waiting for it.
• The background service has stopped or isn't responding.
• Your Mac is busy. Background work yields to what you're doing, and some of it waits for quiet hours, power or a less busy moment. See Why Storage Studio works slowly on purpose.
• One job keeps failing, and the details are waiting in Background Activity.

%% caption: Finding out why nothing seems to be happening
flowchart TD
  A[Nothing seems to be happening] --> B{Does Home say automatic actions are paused?}
  B -->|Yes| C[Click Resume]
  B -->|No| D[Open Settings, then Services]
  D --> E{Any row red or amber?}
  E -->|Yes| F[Use the fix button on that row]
  E -->|No| G[Open Background Activity from the More menu]
  G --> H{Any job that needs a look?}
  H -->|Yes| I[Read its notice and follow it]
  H -->|No| J[It is probably waiting for a quiet moment]
  F --> K{Still stuck?}
  I --> K
  K -->|Yes| L[Restart Storage Studio from the menu bar icon]

How to fix it

1. Resume if paused. If the Home screen shows Automatic actions are paused, click Resume.
2. Open Settings → Services. Every row has a dot: "Running", "Sleeping or waiting", or "Stopped or needs attention". It "updates every 5 seconds". Rows include Background service, External drive, Data Transfers, Data Parking, Cloud accounts, App permissions and Self-healing monitor. A row that needs attention says what's wrong and, where possible, offers a button such as Restart now. See The Services pane.
3. Open Background Activity. Choose Background Activity… in the More menu (in the Advanced view it's Job Insights…). The header says "Everything's running smoothly." or how many jobs "need a look", and each job shows "… successful · … didn't finish". See Background Activity and Job Insights.
4. Check your drive. If it's unplugged, plug it back in — waiting moves carry on by themselves.
5. Restart Storage Studio. Right-click the menu bar icon and choose Restart Storage Studio. If the background service won't come back, see "Service is stopped" won't go away.

Storage Studio fixes a lot by itself

The Self-healing monitor row in Services re-checks Storage Studio regularly and repairs common problems on its own. When it has, the row says "Storage Studio fixed a problem automatically. No action needed." See Self-healing.

Still stuck?

Use Contact Support in the More menu and include your diagnostic logs — see Sharing diagnostic logs with support.

See also: Pausing or stopping everything · Performance modes · Something's not working: start here