Photos in iMessage disappeared after ios13 update

I restored my phone when upgrading from 12 to 13. Which was like a new phone.

you’re getting compensated nothing.

do what I told you.

it hopefully will resolve if there are corrupt system files from the OTA upgrades you have been doing.

that’s all.

Like others I have followed th1ef's instructions to the letter and still no joy - in fact it's worse as I now don't even have any of the photos that were there since my initial install of ios13. Oh and I lost all of my Safari history too. I think this is more to do with an iCloud glitch rather than a bad install of ios13 on the phone itself.

i've been told by an apply person this morning, as i was having this issue. apparently in iOS13 hitting the 'i' button then scrolling through photos isnt a feature anymore. it will only show the recent. not sure if you fixed the issue or not by now. but if you have fixed it how ?

This is false.

to fix this issue, back up your phone and use a computer to restore the operating system to13.2.3 then out your backup back on.

it will take 24 hours to fully index all your photos.

I believe this was the resolution as this thread has become pretty quiet.

Fantastic that Apple doesn't even reply and acknowledge the problem and say they are working on it.

I have gotten the photos back by downloading in Info/download at the bottom, but still I can only see them in the message thread, and not under "Info" where they normally are, and where you quickly want to find a photo, instead of scrolling one year back which takes ages and you have no clue when it was sent.

I know it’s frustrating. It has something to do with when you’ve updated the iOS. When I swapped my hardware recently hoping it would rectify the issue (XS Max), it seemed to reset what pics I could see in the info tab - making the restore date my new day 1, and I couldn’t see anything prior in that.

Im hoping iOS 14 fixes it as I said, or failing that a new generation phone one day ... but I’m not going to bother troubleshooting any longer. I’ve wasted enough time and believe it requires a software fix on apples side. Poor service for sure for such a premium phone in combo with paying for storage (I have over 30GB in pics in the cloud that I can’t see - but I keep paying for the storage hoping that one day it will be accessible again).

hi all

just a recap, when you updated all imessage media/photo disappered

1. do you have a backup on itunes for the phone?

try to restore the phone from itunes backup, hope this helps

frankly never happened to me this issue, was using iphone 8 plus updated to ios 13 & now iphone 11

just got off the phone w/ my SA. he said iOS 14 officially will release tomorrow. depending on how the batches are pushed, you may see the new iOS 14 available tomorrow or later this week. i'm going to wait a day or two to see if anyone complains about new bugs before installing it onto my device.

i agree - apple does a crap job responding to our issues. why are we paying a premium for nice phones and extra cloud space if they don't work!! if the new iOS doesn't fix my problems (6 separate issues w/ imessage/photos), then i'm not going to buy the new iphone that gets released in october (iphone 12?).

appreciate the info you provided

i do have an itunes backup, but not sure when the problem occurred so dunno which backup to restore from. i don't want to lose my current messages if i restore from an older backup.

after turning off imessage backup to icloud (setting) and doing the DFU update, a handful of photos i sent after the DFU show up in "details." however, it only shows 7 photos in details (i've sent >7 photos since the DFU) and they aren't all the most recent photos (1 photo is from 1yr ago, mb further back). but i'm not convinced this "fixed" my issues since a few photos are from before i tried these troubleshooting steps.

i also noticed a NEW issue today. when i go to a convo and try to send a photo or take a pic, the entire screen goes blank. no "back" button or "cancel" button. i confirmed my camera works. i even restarted my phone. same issue. then i forced the message app closed. i even tried on a group text and with other convos. the issue isnt isolated to one person or group vs individual messages. the feature just isnt available.

after another lengthy convo w/ my SA, he told me iOS 14 is being released tomorrow 9/16. engineering's response re my issue is to install iOS 14 and it *may* fix my issue. however, i read the iOS 14 release notes and there's no mention of it fixing imessage bugs so it likely won't work. fingers crossed though!

SA had also suggested i use a new ipad, erase it completely, then restore my old ipad backup onto it. he said it should merge any missing info. then i could restore my ipad backup onto my iphone. however, he also sent me https://support.apple.com/kb/HT204136 which says that restoring from backup is device-specific and won't solve our issue since imessages/photos doesn't transfer from diff devices when you restore from backup.

summary of my issues:

-"details" doesn't show message photo thumbnails

-if i try to "see all links"/download from icloud, it pretends to download the files, then the entire section ("attachments" disappears!

-if i try to "download all links"/"see all links," it pretends to download the files, then the entire section ("links") disappears!

-imessages only goes back until june 2018 even though my settings are to keep messages forever/delete never. when i check my ipad, it shows messages from 2012!

-scrolling through my message, i can "tap to download" an image. it shows it's downloading, but the generic icon appears. last week, after "tapping to dl," i could tap on the generic icon and my image would expand/open. now, it pretends to dl and the icon becomes unclickable

-indicator at the bottom of the messages app isn't present

-NEW: can't take photos/upload a photo from iphoto in imessages. the entire screen goes blank. i have to go to the camera and take photo or go to iphoto library, find the photo and then i can send via messages.

hopefully the ios 14 update (release 9/16) will fix my issues...but im not confident it will. the ios 14 release notes don't say anything about it fixing this problem

i updated to iOS 14 and *STILL* cant load all photos.

in the "details" section:

-photos missing

-links missing

in the actual message itself (scrolling up):

-photos can no longer be downloaded. generic, unclickable jpg/jpeg/png icon

-imessage history doesnt go back far enough. only goes back to may 2018 even though my imessage setting has been NEVER EXPIRE/keep messages FOREVER. imessages go back to 2012 on my ipad (same apple ID)

my senior advisor closed my case even though i continue to experience issues. he hasn't replied back to me for a week now, even with multiple inquiries.

very disappointed in apple's customer service and lack of a solution.

I don’t get the download option and if I scroll back through the message chain the picture is there for me to download but nothing happens. I’ve tried on wifi and mobile data!!

Currently on iOS 14.0.1

I have an interesting update... I have an old Mac that has a similar problem within the Messages application. When I click on "details" in a message thread on my Mac, the photos say downloading, but it's super glitchy. They never fully download and it's just very, very glitchy. I just updated to Catalina, and when I opened the Messages application, I was able to download every old photo in the "details" section. I was hopeful that maybe this might be a first step in fixing my problem... maybe there was an issue in my old iTunes or something? But I've toggled the iMessages on/off under iCloud in my phone to "disable and download messages" and it's been about 3 hours and it says it's downloading messages from iCloud but I don't see anything new yet. I'll update if anything changes. Ah, those few moments of hope were pretty good though...

No, however I did fix the problem. I am fortunate to still have my old phone that I have not erased. I was encountering a huge issue originally while setting up my iPhone with the wireless or wired transfer feature. My phone kept giving me “transfer not complete” error not enough storage.

I used my MacBook iTunes to backup my old phone, once that was done I restored my iPHone 12 to factory and restored from the backup I initiated from my old phone.

It is now back to normal. I feel the issue is with ICloud backup and the iOS 14 issue, until the patch is not fixedC, everyone is going to experience this problem.

PS: I spoke with 5+ reps regarding this issue.

Best of luck!

Great news all! After multiple calls, I was able to get my message photos & links back! I had to reset my phone to factory settings. When resetting the phone, use the new phone option. Then login to appleID. Then leave plugged in and on WiFi for awhile. (Obviously this only works if you have messages going to the iCloud). The only drawback is that the rest of your non-Apple apps & settings don’t port over, so you have to re-add them. Will definitely take awhile to get everything back to how I like it. But at least I have all of message photos and links :) hope this helps other folks.

Same problem. Accidentally found a fix:

i was heartbroken, crying, because one text chain in particular I keep all the pictures right there. It’s like a time capsule of the relationship

All photos and videos GONE when I woke in the morning after the update. No photos, no See All.

THE FIX : all I did was send a single new photo to my friend and that single new photo appeared in the ‘info’ with the option to ‘See All’, which had disappeared too). I tapped ‘see all’ and all the photos and videos were back.

that was my accidental discovery

so try sending a photo and see if that gives you back a ‘see all’ option. Fingers crossed it works for you. I was seriously going to give up on Apple a few hours ago. Who wants a company that loses your precious memories for you??

Btw, still can’t get back screenshots that were part of conversations, due to the previous unhelpful update :(

get it together Apple!!