Mac Os Catalina do not sync photos with iOS Devices

I just noticed that there are 2 discussions which deal with the same problem, I have been kinda busy in the other one.

Here is the link: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250716061?page=1

We need to do more than write in this discussion forum.

We need to post problem reports. Here are the links for two Categories which fit our issue:

• macOS (I use Feedback Area which includes Finder): https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html
• Photos: https://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

I am posting a problem report in each category every day

Please use these links to report the issue

I am sure apple will fix this issue soon because:

• Folders are mandatory (using cloud or not) -> Otherwise we would have tons of albums under root or huge albums. Nobody wants that, not even a evil emporor
• Folders and subfolders can be created on the iOS level too
• A Fix regarding folders has already been adressed in last update: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2028
• Last "Update improves the reliability of syncing books and audiobooks to your iPad or iPhone through Finder" -> Seems syncing process is beeing optimized.

I guess we just need to be patient and I really hope the next update is ours!

🧘🏼

PS My current work around looks like this: I sync everything execpet videos ^^ This way folders are beeing transfered as well. Now unwated albums and folders are on my phone too but more important for me are the precious once and not to have additional work within photo library until patch has been released.

Dear Patti and bunns2003,

That’s really a lot of questions :)

First of all, I am NOT suggesting to do it my way. I put a lot of thought, and made a lot of decisions. Including changing my approach to my photos, but I am doing this for years.

In my opinion (reminder, it’s an opinion), a person shouldn’t have hundreds of thousands photos. There is no time in life to look back all of them. So, you should curate and eliminate your photos and videos. This way, you can keep under control your massive amount of data to upload to cloud. First, I did that thinking process before switch to iCloud Photos.

Yes, this is not apocalypse, but forcing people to iCloud is not the best thing either.

It should be OUR decision, not Apple’s.

If you decide to switch to iCloud Photos, you should read the instructions very carefully. A lot of answers to your questions in there. Here is the link: https://support.apple.com/en-qa/HT209453

Quick reminders from me:

1. You can’t choose which photos or albums to upload iCloud Photos. All of them wil be upload.
2. You can choose to keep full res photos and videos to keep in your chosen devices. I am keeping my originals both in my iMac and iPad Pro because I have enough space.
3. Your new photos will auto upload but you can pause that. 
4. Your photo stream will continue to work but you will not need it. You can choose On or Off in preferences. But if you choose to close My Stream, your new photos will keep auto upload to your ‘Recents’, unless you choose to pause it.

I hope this helps

Have a great day

So glad this is posted. I spent the entirety of yesterday trying various folder structures, repairing photos library, deleting the iPod photo cache, etc. Turns out albums must be located in the root and not nested inside a folder. This is really bad.....80,000+ photos all organized over the years in albums grouped under folders. Need a fix real bad. Now my iPhone 11 pro is practically useless as I can’t share and view the photos I wish to be synced to my phone.

Separate but related to a Catalina bug, if you selected to sync film/video playlists to your phone (seems a new feature), these video playlists end up under your iPhone’s music app instead of TV app (where they should logically be). Worst being these playlists are empty under the music app, yet the lists contain cover art using the videos from the playlist.

Come on Apple.....

It is really proven now that there is no real work around for this bug. I also tried many ways. Also syncing pictures from a picture folder (not a Photo app album or Photo app folder - which work at the beginning - is not possible anymore.

And please do not forget: exactly the same problem appears with the Apple TV. No chance to watch or present photos from your MacBook on the TV.

They need to fix the problem, otherwise I will force them to pay back all the money I paid for my devices, which now loose a signicant part of their function.

Just as an update.

I wrote directly to Tim Cook yesterday, explaining the disappointment in the new operating system and the problem of syncing photos with their own devices. Much to my surprise, I received a phone call & email from the Corporate Executive Relations of Apple. Although we played a bit of telephone tag we connected this afternoon. He advised that he is not tech support but he was going to set me up with a senior support representative, at my convenience, which was going to be tomorrow morning. He also said that he listened to my last conversation with Apple Support when I was told the tech rep would call me back and didn't. He advised that never should have happened and is going to look into that further.

About 30 minutes ago, I received a follow up call from him advising that he did speak to a senior support tech and that she advised that they are very much aware of this problem and are working on correcting it. She looked over what I had written and advised that I am already doing everything that can be done and that the "work around" that she was going to recommend, is exactly what some of us are already doing; moving the albums out of their folders so that the album is sitting directly under My Albums.

Lets hope that the next update includes the correction we are waiting for.

FYI - This is the thread I started earlier in the year about my iTunes woes. Apple never fixed it, but some helpful people here suggested I install an older version of iTunes (I still had the newer version too) and that worked a treat.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250270137

To all participants in this discussion: if you have not done so please raise a problem report at the following 2 pages:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

and

https://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

I believe that is the way to get Apple’s attention.

I will raise 2 reports every day.

Since Apple never fixed the sync in the last version of iTunes even though I and many others reported it -

(see thread here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250270137 )

I don't expect an ETA from them, I'm not hopeful at all. Maybe I'm wrong.

I also called Apple Support. The analyst I got says this problem is NOT with their engineers because they simply do not have enough user communications stating that this is a wide spread problem. I told her to google it and she will get thousands of hits. Her reply was that they do not have access to google from her work computer. OK, I can understand that since Apple considers Google the Evil Empire, but if you don't have a better option... I even told her about various threads of this problem, including this one, on their own Apple Support site. PLEASE everyone, log this onto Apple Support and mention this "bug", so they can recognize this as a problem. That's the first step before they even consider fixing it. BTW, her solution was to reinstall the upgrade. I do not want to spend 2 hours like some of these other postings with them and end with the same result, so I politely declined. https://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

I have the same problem and the issue is that I'm finding that under Catalina and Finder syncing, it would appear that any photos located in albums nested in a folder organisation will not sync.

For example if you have a folder called "2019" and within it you have albums called for example "January", "Holiday in June", "Kids Birthday" and then select one ( or all ) of these albums to sync - they WON'T !

Any albums selected that are not within a folder, however, WILL sync

I am in contact with high level support on the issue ( they weren't aware of any issue and said "just because a few (!) people have an issue doesn't necessarily mean there is a system problem). They have, however, taken screenshots and diagnostic files from me and promised to investigate and come back to me, which as yet they have not.

As another poster has stated, can I encourage you all to report a bug on Catalina AND on Photos with Apple on the following sites

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

and

https://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

In addition, some calls to Apple support on the issue will also raise the profile

Hi all

in this location: /Users/xxxxx/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/iPod Photo Cache/ I found this file: Photo Database

This is its content (replaced my username with xxxx):

The default interactive shell is now zsh.

To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.

For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.

/Users/xxxxx/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary/iPod\ Photo\ Cache/Photo\ Database ; exit;

xxxxs-iMac:~ xxxx$ /Users/xxxx/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary/iPod\ Photo\ Cache/Photo\ Database ; exit;

-bash: /Users/xxxx/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/iPod Photo Cache/Photo Database: cannot execute binary file

logout

Saving session...

...copying shared history...

...saving history...truncating history files...

...completed.

Deleting expired sessions...30 completed.

[Process completed]

Could someone check if you have the same?

Anyone know what it means? The link suggest to change the interactive shell, but I am hesitant to do so.

A very helpful person posted on my thread, similar to this one but I don't use the Photos app:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250716061

that the whole sync process goes a lot faster if you do this:

I turned on iCloud Photo Library on my iPad, waited a few minutes for the photos to delete, made sure they were gone, and turned it off. Deleted the iPodPhotoCache on my iMac, toggled "all photos" on and off a couple of times, and in about 2 hours had my 30k photos all synched back to my iPad.