Photos in iMessage disappeared after ios13 update

I'm not sure if my situation differs. But there's the solution where if you go into the "i" button and scroll all the way down, you should see a pending photos you can download. I don't even have that option. I recently purchased a new iPhone 11 Pro and instead of transferring my profile over, I decided to use the new phone with a clean slate. So no profile transfer but keep using the same iCloud account. In all my previous devices, I have iMessage syncing to iCloud so I expect all my messages on the new phone to be present. This is true! It's all there, but when going into the info section where you can see all the photos, links, and attachments, none of those things show up from before the upgrade.

I initially tried an iOS restore from my Mac and then a backup restore from iCloud. This did not fix the indexing issue for me....but it was prior to 13.2.3 which includes the indexing bug fix. I feel like the main issue was the OTA iOS updates/restore not fixing the underlying issue....where as the local download of iOS on my Mac might have been the trick. Wish I had better answers for you but whatever is in the cloud should not be lost.

My iCloud does not match storage in settings. It also says “messages have not finished downloading to this phone.” Another way to check if your photos and videos have actually downloaded to your phone is to plug it in and see what it says on the photo app on your Mac. The photo app on the computer shows I have way less than what my phone shows me. My flash drive also tells me photos and videos are “in the cloud” rather than on my phone. This is a giant shitstorm.

NOTHING has worked, I have done everything you listed and every advice in this thread!

Its a KNOWN issue in APPLE you will just be told its not and not that many people affected.

IT has to do with indexing and I speak to someone every other week since NOVEMBER. I use this for quick look up for a huge client list to pull a screen shot by text and NOW that is gone! I can't scroll through hundreds of texts to find it either ......MY advice is keep your apple case OPEN and keep calling. THE ONLY WAY apple will do something is if enough people will not stop calling. I am so mad that if i was going to lose all this - I would have just gotten an android in their change over - in my book, apple is LYING. The only way they will ever do anything is to keep their tech support so busy that tech support puts a demand on the engineers : ( sad but true

I have been on and off with Apple support over the last couple weeks....after several phone calls, they indicated that this is a engineering issue and could be quite some time before it is fixed. but "the ticket is in". Not all Iphone users are experiencing. We are just the lucky ones. Will be very upsetting if they don't come back. Not only is the history of pictures gone, the current ones then seem to disappear after a few days.

I have had this issue since updating iOS 13. All message attachments that had been sent or received (photos, files, links,etc) disappeared from the “i” tab of each message thread. It is so inconvenient to not be able to access photos I received from someone within their message thread. The problem recurred when I updated to 13.4.1 and I again lost all the attachments that had accumulated since I updated to 13. I’ve tried every fix in the book. Scoured the internet, no luck.

When I first noticed the problem, I spent hours on the phone with Apple. Escalated to engineers, talked to senior tech on the phone multiple times per week. That ended then they said it has been reported and they were working on it - this was October 2019.

I recently got a new iPhone 11 and set it up as a new phone (not from a backup) hoping to circumvent any software problems on my last phone (iPhone 7+). Unfortunately, once I signed in to iCloud, I have the exact same problem. Photos will not download from iCloud within the message app.

Best I can tell is this is actually an iCloud issue. I think there is a bug in some of our accounts in the connection between the cloud and our phones. This has been infuriating to say the least and I really just want my pictures back on my phone.

thanks for replying @vanhalen26. i've now spent >10hrs with apple support without success. the SAs seem annoyed theyve had to deal with me this long. you're right- the lower level tech support reps (and even 1 senior advisor) were unaware this was even an issue. they kept trying to tell me to go to icloud.com to access photos. i had to try to explain my issue was the imessage photos. 2 other senior advisors were aware of the issue, but havent been able to fix my prob. i'm convinced it's a cloud (or mb iOS) issue.

the only things i havent tried are signing in with my apple ID on a diff, "new"/erased device and see if my imessages and imessage photos load. i also havent tried erasing my phone, setting it up as new, and restoring from icloud. it sounds like you have without success. thanks for sharing. SA also says it might be a wifi/network issue and without me going onto a diff wifi network, they cant really diagnose my prob (which is BS IMHO). sorry but not going to expose myself to COVID to get on a diff wifi network.

my senior advisor seems reluctant to reach out again to engineering. he seems to think it's a content issue (like an app?). i tried explaining it's likely related to software or the icloud. he says not many people are experiencing this prob. i explained that i wasnt even aware it was an issue until last week when i tried retrieving a video i sent my mom.

like you, i can see older imessages and some of those imessage photos on my older gen ipad. unfortunately, it's older and apple doesnt update iOS on older gen. the SA says before iOS 11 imessage was handled differently. technically, those imessages arent backed up to icloud like they are now (handled similarly to iphoto optimization). since it's an older gen ipad, the SA says seeing my imessages/imessage photos on the ipad dont really mean anything. sounds like an excuse to me.

i wonder if other people have this issue and just haven't noticed. i honestly doubt iOS 14 will fix this prob. updating iOS seems to cause issues. im very annoyed and frustrated ive wasted so much time/energy trying to get this fixed. ive lost many memories (messages, photos) of a dear friend who passed a couple years ago. i was looking forward to the new iphone (coming in october?), but what's the point of upgrading and paying for icloud space if i wont be able to use apple's services properly.

unsuccessful solutions ive tried:

-restarting my phone

-DFU to re-install ios 13.7

-signing out of appleID and signing back in

-resetting network settings

-turning off imessage backup to icloud (similar to turning off iphoto optimization and having all imessages stored locally on my phone)

-freeing up >20GB of space on my iphone

i have a follow up call scheduled for sunday. hopefully, the SA will reach out to engineering instead of wasting my time trying solutions others have tried.

More people need to report this. Many of us on this thread have spent hours on the phone with senior tech advisors (who have escalated the issue to engineering) with no results. I spent all of October 2019 on the phone with Apple (scheduled weekly calls, sending all my data over to Apple, letting a senior tech advisor take over my phone to try to figure it out, etc.) and the end result was "this is a known issue, engineers are aware of it, we're working on it".

OK So I have another thread started about this issue too https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251914632

Anyways my latest update is its still broken however if you try sending a photo message or link to a contact you already have a broken info history for the info works for that later image which to me proves that basically the issue is a bug that breaks the historical link between the info area and old imessage media such as pictures/links etc ... its almost like it looses the historical timestamp after the update so you cant see any old info in the info area even though its physically there in the message !

Apple need to pull there heads together and stop fobbing the customers and support staff off

I’ve had the same. When you click on a message followed by the ‘i’ button all messages exchanged are gone. But they if I scroll through the conversation they are all still there as before. Odd

Sorry in messages at the top beneath the persons name there are three drop downs audio, FaceTime and Info

All my photos have been downloaded. It took a few days for them to appear.

All my stuff is in the cloud too. You back up from the cloud and just recover your phone from a computer

Restore your phone to 13.2.2 using itunes That will fix it

But yes, definitely open a ticket with support. Maybe eventually they’ll actually fix the issue, but I’m not holding my breath. This has been going on since September.