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.

I got my pictures back! I had to restore my software, it was a pain but I’m happy my pictures are finally indexing. The solution is to back phone to iTunes, restore you software and you phone will restart then restore from iTunes to get all the data

as I mentioned I had to do a full restore too.

over the air update did not yield results.

I was successful using my iCloud back up.

just wondering ?

does your iPhone storage for messages match your iCloud storage? In GB?

I really hope this works. I’m just not sure. My other iPhone 7 Plus didn’t have this issue and it was iOS 13. It only happened when I set up a new phone. The new phone had to install iOS 13.2 and everything. I logged into iCloud and then noticed many days later the issue.

I have read on here that one person even purchased a new iPhone and it didn’t work even when they did that. It also appears my phone isn’t downloading all photos/videos from the cloud. When I try to transfer to a USB flash drive device that connects to the phone it says it has to download many things from the cloud - and then says “error” because it’s not working. When I connect my phone to my laptop it shows there is 4,000 items - which means my phone didn’t download all of the photos and videos. Hopefully my iCloud renewal (renews tomorrow) doesn’t screw up somehow with a card decline because then I’ll lose almost everything.

Maybe I’m just screwed.

Thanks Apple.

Complete run around with the Senior Apple Support person. Stated my issue was sent to an Engineer. She called back today, going through the SAME steps we took three days ago with troubleshooting. Low and behold I noticed an update was available as of today. She said “oh yeah, try that and I’ll call you back tomorrow”. I just updated to 13.2.2 and my iMessages photos are back, all 5 GB of them.

I added another credit card just in case. When our one (default) credit card declines my family uses the MasterCard as a second option. Hopefully if the default declines it automatically does the other. Not sure how that works though.

My iPhone Messages storage shows 3.5GB but iCloud storage shows 13GB.

when I turn off iCloud messages I’m told they have not fully downloaded yet?

I do see the photos now though?

when I look at the conversation sizes in the iPhone storage they are weird, one shows -1 byte?

My storage does the same thing. My phone isn’t fully downloading photos and videos either even though it shows that I have the correct number. When I hook it up to the computer it shows it only has a fraction on it.

It looks like even with the restore you’re still having some similar issues. I updated to 13.2.2 and it’s still not fixed the issues. iMessage still says it hasn’t fully downloaded messages. Do you plan on keeping in contact with Apple? Because they aren’t fixing this issue and there was no interest shown to me. I was simply told the engineers say to just “wait.” Right...

And it’s crazy you’re having that issue when you have way less GB than me. But the number shouldn’t matter. iCloud always worked for me before, settings accurately showed storage, things downloaded smoothly within a day. Now, no progress even after weeks. You can say what you want in favor of Apple but I am very disappointed and almost shocked by the lack of solution/discussion I got on my end. I will call back again in a week. But if another month goes by without any help, or promise of a solution, I am completely done with Apple. This is simply unacceptable.

Why aren’t you on iOS 13? iOS 13 is where I have the issue. They’ve now got it up to 13.2.2. And yes, I’ve got the same issue with nonsensical displaying of storage usage. It makes no sense. My phone storage goes from 26GB to 180. I only have 166 in the iCloud. It is just bonkers. I wish they would fix this.

I am not sure how many people are calling in. However, I do know engineering is aware of the issue and is doing nothing (at least from how I was talked to).

My phone won’t fully download messages or videos/photos from the cloud. Won’t index. Shows crazy storage measurements. Not minor issues.

My issues are extensive and I’m starting to think this goes beyond just an issue with iOS13. It is my belief that it is also a problem with iCloud.

Like everyone, my message data count is off from the iPhone storage amount (40gb VS 21gb... and for my second phone 40gb VS 180mb [yet, there are clearly more than 180mb worth of data on the device]). I also have this problem with my photos backup in iCloud with my iPhone storage amount actually exceeding the iCloud amount (123.76gb on one phone & 107.8gb in iCloud).

I have come to realize that it may have actually been the iCloud backup after the iOS13 update (also did the 13.2.2 update with no fix occurring) that corrupted my iMessage & Photos data. This is when 2018 messages became dated for 2017, messages on one device got completely wiped out then replaced by messages of another device, messages from two different phone #s (yes I have two phones) got combined into one single chat, photos did not properly index, specific text messages from certain chats disappeared, whole chats disappeared from the phone that seemed to be the “primary” (the one that replaced the messages from other phone - which are completely gone & unrecoverable from what I can tell), & more.

Also decided to look at old photos in my device to see if something happened there. It did. I’m missing random photos from my Photos app also. My favorite part (sarcasm) is when I was looking at photos I take for renter’s insurance and two hours later that photo had disappeared from my Photo library on my phone.

I have complained to Apple earlier this week, acquired a case #, spoken to a customer relations officer, & setup an appointment to talk with a team of “senior technical advisors”. The original Apple representative that connected me to the customer relations officer mentioned that she had received several of these calls this week. Hoping to have them provide some type of solution, but I won’t be doing any phone restore. I tried that on an older phone that I kept (iPhone 6+) only to end up losing all photos & messages from 4thQ 2016 - completely gone. Also had the email app make several emails disappear from both that app and the actual email database that I utilize (gmail & yahoo). Basically just having this iPhone update (virus) erase critical & sentimental data across the board.

I don’t have much more to add other than that I have lost significant amounts of data. My problem seems to be the iCloud/iOS13 link, but my sibling is also having trouble with the photo indexing and she does not use iCloud, use multiple devices simultaneously, nor anything I have been thinking is causing this issue. She uses an iPhone 7+. I use two iPhone 11 Pro Max devices (as well as older devices). My only device that seems to have been spared this iOS13 issue is my previous iPhone 7+, but I do not know why that device is fine while my 6+ got data wiped, my 8+ can’t load a single photo from an iMessage chat, etc. Fortunately, my iPhone 4 & iPhone 5 didn’t update past a previous iOS when I updated for the “GPS update” - those are the only devices with several message chains from before 2017 despite diligent backups and booting all new devices from current backups on my iMac.

I do not believe that I will be provided with any solutions during my follow-up call with Apple tomorrow. I have explained that I do not want to be a guinea pig attempting data restoration & that I can’t/won’t lose anymore data by intentionally wiping my device. I’ve also explained that my latest computer backups for all devices occurred AFTER this update. I still need to let them know about several of the issues I’ve noticed (6+ losing its own photos & messages while gaining all messages/photos currently on the primary 11 pro max, for example) since setting this appointment.

I apologize for my response being all over the place with subject changes making it harder to follow, but I’ve had several work tasks to accomplish this evening while still trying to provide my thoughts to this thread. Long story short, my issues and data loss/corruption due to the iOS13/iCloud VIRUS are extensive. I only wish I actually knew how much data I’ve truly lost. It’s hard to know exactly which photo & messages are missing when you’re dealing with 150gb of data spread over photos & messages (tens of thousands of photos & millions of text messages). I don’t have a photographic memory.... that’s why I pay for data backups.

ive always loved Apple for its interconnectivity & more. I have a huge movie collection on Apple. I have apple everything - TV, computer, iPhones, Apple Watch, etc. This entire experience of data loss has been an emotional upheaval, to say the least. I would be putting it mildly by saying that it’s made me seriously lose faith in this corporation. I’ve found myself auditing my movie counts, emails, photo counts, & messages. I shouldn’t have to do that. I don’t have time for that either - Nobody does. I do not want to transition from Apple, but if I’m just going to keep losing my data, and I’m paying a ridiculous amount of money to this company for that to not happen, why should I stick with them? Again, I’ll give them a chance to figure out what is going on.... but the responses others have received in this thread is disheartening & gives me little faith in their software engineers. I just don’t understand why they made these changes. The apps worked fine before.... why fix something that isn’t broken?

I am sorry to hear of all of this. You’re definitely not alone (not like that makes it any better) but it is frustrating. I have 87GB of messages in iCloud but 36 GB on my phone’s iMessages. After 20+ hours of WiFi + charger connection it has not changed one bit. It won’t go past what it’s staying at. It’s also not completely storing photos and videos on my phone even though it shows the right amount. Not indexing either. I was given a pretty useless response but will call back again in a week. I really hope you can get something done about this along with others that call in. I am dealing with some health issues and have been upset enough about this. I am trying to stay calm but all of this is unacceptable really. Their products are NOT cheap and we pay for iCloud. For whatever reason it is not syncing correctly. Let us know what you find out next time they get to talk to you.

I backed up my phone to my phone to my computer, reset my phone, then tried restoring from an iCloud backup, which only made messages worse. I actually got an iMessage error and no messages displayed.

I did a hard reset again, then restored from the backup on my computer. It took ages to restore (I rarely delete messages) and then took longer once the computer restore was done to finish downloading everything from the cloud, but eventually everything (all pictures and attachments) reappeared.

I can’t use computer backup because mine doesn’t have enough storage. That’s why I had the cloud for all of my GB. My computer doesn’t even hold half of it.

Glad your issue was resolved though.

Apple needs to fix this issue for the rest of us before I completely switch to other products. I am not happy with the lack of answers/solutions I’ve gotten from Support. This wasn’t an issue until the newer updates. I really wish I could go back to an older iOS. I do think though, something is going on with iCloud itself too, maybe not just the software.