Very slow first iPhone and iPad photo sync over usb-a with Catalina

Sorry, when I went to this link, I only saw the introductory post. I also have no interest in using the Photos app because you have to do folders within it, you can't import folders. I have my folders and organization that I want and don't want to start from scratch just to do it the way Apple wants me to. Steve

Okay, I ran a first sync after installing Catalina. It wrote the Photo Database in the iPod Photo Cache 5 hours and 10 minutes after I started the sync. All my photos were already on the iPhone XS, but Catalina might have wanted to do something new. I'll try another sync tonight to confirm that it is still broken (or if it works). Only time I can do without the phone for 5 hours is at night, and there is no time I can do without the iPad for 5 hours. Dealing with the photos is bad enough, but the only way to add an audiobook is with a sync. Spending 5 hours to add a new audiobook when you are done with one is a bummer.

same issue here. I use the Photo Library as my default. I select a number of albums to be synced. The process starts (circle turning next ti iPad in Finder).

Then after a while it stops, the selected Albums are de-selected and there are no pictures on my iPad.

I tried the same thing by selecting to sync from folders. That worked .

My preference settings are the same as from LightYear12 except that I do not Copy Items to the Photo Library

That's great news! I've now tested the statement that albums directly under "My Albums" are remembered by the Finder and do sync and this works for me! So I'm moving the albums I want to sync to that location. That'll do until Apple fix the bug. :)

Well, just discovered that "upgrading" to Catalina deauthorized my computer for audible books. The consequence of this is that the 5+ hours of syncing done last night took all my audible.com books off my iPhone. Since that is actually the main use of the iPhone, I am not happy. I have supposedly reauthorized the computer, and, with luck, when I sync tonight, the books will come back on. Probably won't remember where I was in them though.

Okay. I did a sync last night after having done the initial one the night before. This time it only took 4.5 hours even though it didn't have anything to do. I guess I'll spend my morning on the phone with apple if I can get through. It also didn't put my audible.com books on my iPhoneXS. I just spent an hour on chat with audible.com and I think they fixed the problem, I just don't have 4.5 hours to check it now. I'll sync again tonight to see if the books go on.

I used to think I had a job and/or a life, but really it is all about fixing bugs on computers. So, first, the simple one. Spent an hour or so with audible.com and they managed to authorize my computer so it would put audible books on my phone. Then I did a reboot and it wiped out the authorization. Had to do it all again, but at least now I know.

The rest of my day was spent with an apple senior support person. Rather than use my 22,000+ photos and take 4.5 hours for a sync, I set up a test folder with about 5,000 photos in it. synced that a couple of times. Last one was 13 minutes. Then we ran diagnostics on both the iPhone and the iMac when I was doing a sync. The senior support guy has all the logs now and will give them to engineering. He agrees with me that it should not take hours. I did have to fess up that this problem has been going on with me for 6 months pre-Catalina. Anyway, we'll see what happens.

I see that I am lucky in the sense that both my iMac and my iPhone XS are still under AppleCare so I get to talk endlessly for hours to senior support staff, but I also get to give them real diagnostics as opposed to just complaints. However, the more complaints the better. My guy said he hadn't seen complaints about slow sync. Show him! Steve

Just to keep everyone up to date on what is happening with me/apple, I discovered something new today. It happened several times but I didn't understand what was happening. Now I think I do.

I used a small, 5K, set of photos to work with apple to figure out what was going on. Tonight when I wanted to put my 22K+ back on, I plugged the phone in, clicked on it in Finder, went to photos, and choose the folder with my photos in it.

What happened next is the surprise. Finder's CPU usage shot up to 100% and Finder froze for all other uses. It was still functioning, but it was clearly just too busy checking out my photos to bother with anything else. (For what it is worth, I had just rebooted.) Since I wanted my photos on and I am going to bed, I went ahead and synced (it wasn't so frozen it wouldn't let me do that). I know this will take 5 hours or so. I also see that Finder is still frozen and is running at 100% CPU. I hadn't noticed this the last two nights when I synced because I just synced and went to bed.

One more, but related, bad thing, to work with them on.

Steve

Scream! The continuing saga. 6 hours to put the photos back on over night, but what I feared happened. The reboot last night de-authorized my computer for using audible.com books, so the 6 hour sync took all my books off. Since the main use of my iPhoneXS is to listen to audible.com books, I had to get them back on. I managed to re-authorize my computer, but couldn't take 4 or 5 hours to sync to get the back on. So, I had to delete all 22K+ photos so I could do a quick sync to get them on. Okay, did that. Have my books back but no photos.

I should point out that Finder was still frozen this morning after the sync, but I didn't have to reboot, it was enough to force quit Finder. It comes back up functional. By the way, it doesn't say it isn't responding in the activity monitor, it just isn't responding.

One more issue. When the reboot de-authorizes the computer, I can't tell it. I can still play a book on the computer. They just won't sync. In principle, you can't play the book on the computer unless it is authorized. Since it wouldn't sync, the "solution" is to de-authorize it on my own and then try to play a book. Then the option of authorizing it comes up. Then I can sync. All a bloody nuisance.