iPadOS 14 Photos app crash

Question

Level 1

22 points

iPadOS 14 Photos app crash

After updating my iPad Pro 9.7" to iPadOS 14 I am getting a consistent crash in the new Photos app. I tapped to see all my albums. They don't show; only Recents showed but none of my existing Albums that had been synced from my Mac. Tapped the < Photos link to go back -- crash. Then Photos would always open in Albums display and consistently crash when I tapped < Photos to go back. No way to view my existing photos on the iPad, which showed on first launch.

I restarted the iPad. No change; app still crashed when tapping Photos from the (mostly empty) Albums display.

I have one photo in the Recents album. I can display that. When I displayed that photo I saw a message at the bottom of the screen that said "Syncing..." (There are about 700 photos that were SYNCed from Photos on my Mac.) When I tapped < Albums I got back to the Albums display (still missing my Albums). I tapped < Photos at the upper left of the screen and the app crashed immediately.

Opened the Camera app on the iPad. When I tapped on the Preview icon I could see the photo in the Recents album. When I then tap on All Photos at the upper right I see ALL my photos on the iPad, confirming that they are really there. But when I tap on < Photos at the upper left on the All Photos screen, the app crashed.

Now when I open Photos on the iPad it shows all the photos, which was a view I couldn't get to before in the Photos app as it was stuck on the Albums view (missing all my Albums). But when I tap < Photos at the upper left, the Photos app still crashes. And now I can't get to the screen in Photos that shows Syncing...

I tried resetting the Memories but app still crashes. Device storage is not an issue as there is still about 60 GB free of 128 GB.

Note: iCloud syncing is OFF, has always been OFF, and will always stay OFF.

Suggestions? I'm holding off updating my iPhone 11 Pro Max which has the same photos and albums synced from my Mac.

iPad Pro, iPadOS 14

Posted on Sep 17, 2020 3:36 PM

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Answer 1

Beganw2e

Level 1

4 points

Sep 17, 2020 6:46 PM in response to Mike Weasner

After further examination, discovered the prior labels "People" & "Events" imported from the mac was causing iPad Photos to hang. So cleaned up Mac Photos app, eliminating the listed people and events categories, and after several attempts and restarting both the iPad and Mac at each level as the process progressed, was finally able to get the new iPad Photos app to function properly. Took about 90 minutes. I believe there is an issue with the compatibility of the prior versions of Photos across the various Apple devices.

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Answer 2

JasonKVD

Level 1

9 points

Jan 31, 2021 7:25 PM in response to Ralf_F

Ralf - Thanks for this suggestion. I have been having this issue with my 1st generation iPad Pro 12.9” since iPadOS 14.0.1, anytime I would try to open the Sidebar. The only way I could get Photos to relaunch and stay open would be to rotate to portrait mode, but even then clicking on < Photos would crash the app.

I just followed your instructions (wiped the photos from the iPad) and was able to launch Photos and the Sidebar. I’m currently half-way through re-syncing my 5,200 photos and so far the Sidebar is remaining on display.

Thanks again!

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Answer 3

Mike Weasner Author

Level 1

22 points

Sep 17, 2020 4:38 PM in response to Beganw2e

Good suggestion. I started using iMazing to backup my iPad and iPhone when Apple made the terrible decision to stop backing up apps in iTunes. In Catalina I use the iPad Finder window to sync photos, so will have to give that a try. I'll report back.

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Answer 4

Mike Weasner Author

Level 1

22 points

Sep 18, 2020 8:09 AM in response to skalramd

Apple does seem to have forgotten to pay more attention to releasing quality software. Instead it releases more Emojis, unwanted/unneeded features, unnecessary UI changes, and bug-infested software. I do applaud Apple for all the good stuff it has given us, but as was the case back in the 1990s, quality control seems to have lost its way at Apple.

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Answer 5

Ralf_F

Level 1

21 points

Sep 28, 2020 4:14 AM in response to BennyChang

Dear Benny Chang

I also run IOS 14.01 on a new iPad Pro. I had the same issue. Here is my solution, at least it works for me.

I had to connect the iPad to the Mac and turned off the synchronization of photos. (tick mark off)

Then answered the question if I want to keep my photos on the iPad negatively. Then I synched and consequently deleted all formerly synched photos from the iPad.

After that I ejected the iPad from the Finder, I reconnected it and set the tick mark for sync photos (On). After that I synched again. Now all (=+17.000, 200+ albums) photos were reloaded as intended and selected. Finally the photo app worked and clicking the slideshow menu didn't crash the app anymore. I hope that solution will sustain further Updates etc.

I suppose incompatability of old thumbnail, photo formats, etc. as a reason but did not do extended debugging anymore ;-)

best regards and good luck

Ralf

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Answer 6

shuai288

Level 1

4 points

Oct 14, 2020 2:29 PM in response to Mike Weasner

Same problem, I have 40 GB photo on iPad Pro 2018. Now the photos always crush. My iPad is 1 t, I think the apple test engineer forget test new photos app by large data. It’s so sad, I wish this bug could be fix as soon as possible.

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Answer 7

Oct 18, 2020 8:32 AM in response to shuai288

I have had the same problem after updating. On both the iPhone and iPad, Photos crashes when attempting to open it from either the app icon or the desktop. Have ~35K photos synced on the Mac and not on iCloud.

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Answer 8

Ralf_F

Level 1

21 points

Oct 18, 2020 9:05 AM in response to Paul Kleeberg

Same Problem I had. I did not sync via icloud either. Please try the solution that worked for me, as stated Sept. 28. before. Good luck and best regards.

Ralf

p.s. : anyway a bug that should be solved by Apple.

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Answer 9

Dec 18, 2020 6:20 AM in response to Mike Weasner

Had a similar problem, I synced the photos to iCloud, but suddenly after updating to 14.3 the Photos app opens blank, and then it closes immediately.

Every time I open the Apple Support app it also crashes too, now I'm trying to backup my 230 something GB to icloud which might take ages and a couple retries before trying to restore my iPad to factory settings and then restore the iCloud backup again.

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Answer 10

davidhut

Level 1

8 points

Feb 7, 2021 4:57 AM in response to Mike Weasner

I’ve had this intermittently for a while, I had hoped 14.4 would finally resolve, alas bug is still there. I guess Apple doesn’t extend Quality Control testing over large photo libraries with complex amounts of meta data.

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