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Can't Sync Photos on iPhone

Using my iPhone 3G for 18 months no problems, even synching photos. Just got a new iMac and went to sync, and now my Photos won't sync. When I try, it just sits there saying, "Synching iPhone" for hours, even if only trying to upload 1 photo. What gives? How can I get photos onto my iPhone?

IPhone 3GS, Mac OS X (10.5.3), Latest iTunes version and latest iPhone OS version

Posted on Dec 6, 2009 8:41 AM

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20 replies

Dec 17, 2009 8:34 AM in response to GDMACK

I guess you'd need to know that iPhoto recognizes your iPhone first of all. Does it appear in the source column in iPhoto?

Second, if it does appear there, many of us have suffered with a bug in the latest iPhoto in that it won't sync photos if you have slideshows with music in iPhoto. There's a bug, I guess, in that some music-enabled slideshows that contain non-standard characters in the filename will cause this problem.

I just fixed my sync issue by deleting several slideshows and then disabling music in the rest of them.

Maybe this will help you!

Jan 12, 2010 1:34 PM in response to GDMACK

I had this same problem on XP. But I seem to have managed to fix it, though I don't really know why it did.

XP sees the Iphone as a camera device. I opened explorer and right clicked on the iphone. Select "Properties" and under actions, enable save pictures. Point it to the folder that I tunes it trying to sync to. Apply this change. Then disconnect and reconnect the iphone. (I had I tunes running at the time). When the iphone is reconnected XP will automatically save your photo library to the desired directory. (I was happy with just this). However when I next synced the phone ITunes roared into life and synced all the photo's!! I have tested two way additions and deletions an Itunes photo sync now works perfectly. Can't explain it but it works!!

D

Jan 13, 2010 6:50 PM in response to Elvin77

So far I have tried deleting the ipod photo cache (both in pictures and iphoto library DB). I have reset my sync services and rebuilt my iphoto library per the other suggestions I have seen on these boards. Still I cannot get any pictures to synch from my mac to my iphone from iphoto or any other folder.

Any suggestions?

Jan 19, 2010 3:05 PM in response to GDMACK

I was in the same position (5mins ago!). Working one day, not the next.

I don't use iPhoto, just sync from some folders. So it's not iPhoto related.

Had deleted the cache files, checked and unchecked photo syncing in all combinations and nothing forced it to start syncing photos again.

Then literally as I was typing this I thought "check free space on the iPhone".

250Mb free. Photos are 132Mb.

So I think, free up some more space. Uncheck sync movies (deleted 1.2Gb).

Lo, photos now start syncing. All done.

Next, recheck sync Movies. Yep, it goes back on the iPhone.

Add some more photos into my syncing folder? Didn't work, and moreover deleted all the photos again!

Remove the movie, puts the photos back on.

Smaller movie? All works fine.

So in my case it looks like it's lack of free space on the iPhone. iTunes reports plenty of free space, but you can't use it all. No messages to say there's not enough room or anything.

Bit odd, but glad I know what needs to be done.

Jan 31, 2010 4:55 PM in response to GDMACK

UPDATE!

I just figured out what was causing this problem for me. I use a application called "CleanMyMac" and one of privileged options is to clean your iPod Photo Cache. I never had this problem until I started using this Application. Be warned if you are using this as well and make sure you uncheck that option.

Once again thank you for the help, I hope I've helped as well.

Can't Sync Photos on iPhone

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