iMessage "Tap to Download" Issue

Assuming it isn't a storage capacity issue, I believe you may have already downloaded the pictures once and deleted them but if they are still in your deleted pictures folder still you can't download the same picture unless you delete the picture for the deleted pictures folder, of course you could just restore it at that point. It would be nice if apple at least provided a message indicting it didn't download instead of nothing.

This didn't used to be an issue and only seems to have come up in one of the most recent updates.

Still can’t seem to resolve this issue. I paid for an iPhone with 256gb, have my settings to save messages forever and pay apple for extra storage. Then we can’t access pictures any more ? Just tap to download with no actual download ? Apple please fix this issue.

I’ve spent hours with 3 different support team members. Reset my phone to factory settings twice, signed out of iCloud, signed out of network, stood on my head and every option shown on this thread - some things multiple times. I do not believe this is something that the user can fix, there’s something that Apple needs to find and fix and the fact it’s been going on this long really irritates me. The support people are wonderful but I don’t want to spend any more of my time resetting things and trying to troubleshoot, it is a known issue. The root cause needs to be identified by Apple!!!

I have been dealing with this issue for the last 2 iPhones. I have spent no less than 250 hours on trying to find a solution. I am now, again, working with a Sr Advisor and we have engineering working on this problem. It has since been sent up the engineering chain, which means that I will never get a solution. Every time I do a hard reset my photos disappear then after scrolling, closing the app reopening it, etc some begin to repopulate. I have now done 12 over-the-air restores, 3 itune/finder restores with a fresh os, and a peer-to-peer using my 13 pro max, which actually worked until I had another issue a few days later after I sent the phone back. I have signed into the cloud, signed out, reset network settings, turned on and off messages in iCloud and in messages, signed in and out of messages, and turned off messages in Siri/Search and Facetime. The last suggestion redownloads/uploads but after it's all done it goes back to a sporadic showing of the photos in a thread. there is zero stability. Another issue that drives me crazy is I can't scroll to the oldest message thread unless I search by name for an old conversation then the scroll allows me to see older conversations/threads. I can safely say I have tried every single possible solution except restoring to new which I refuse to do. I am happy to collaborate with anyone as I think I am unfortunately in the top .0001% of the most knowledgeable on this subject, but still without a solution. This sucks!

Guys make sure there’s enough space on your phone after resetting messages in iCloud settings. Lack of space will result in incomplete uploads (to iCloud) and incomplete downloads to the device. All media files are now viewable after doubling my capacity from my older phone.

Just read a suggestion from gganne that worked for me. Go into your ICloud and toggle messages off. A pop up will appear which tells you all of your messages have not been downloaded. Select disable and download. Then toggle messages on. Go to your messages app and at the bottom you should see “downloading messages from iCloud”. I suggest being on Wifi while doing so. It took about 10 minutes for my messages to download. I was able to retrieve my picture messages again. Hope it helps you also

PacoHunter10,

Thanks for keeping us updated.

Based on the information you've provided, and the steps you've already gone through we would recommend reaching out to Apple Support directly from this link here: Get Support - Apple

From that link choose iPhone > Apps & Features > SMS, MMS or Messages not working as expected. From there you should see a few options to reach out, depending on your location.

Take care!

Doing what gganne said worked. Be patient though. It takes a while for them to reappear. Mine took 30+ minutes. Obviously issue with Apple…I just wish they would post a solid answer and resolve the issue in an upgrade. Seems like it’s been happening for sometime.

midwestsky,

I have been trying to download pictures from a while back that were in old messages, when I turned off my icloud messages and told them to dowload it let me click the dowload but popped up another image that has a wuestion mark like the ones in your screenshots. are these the photos that you could recover, or were they just taking a while to come in? We’re you able to go back and check to see if they had came in, I was wondering so i would know if it was worth checking throughout the upcoming days to see if it has come back yet or if that’s not possible.

Thanks, brarcar!

unfortunately I was not able to recover all the past photos however the majority did re-download…several individuals suggested that I may have deleted photos from past text threads, that was not the case…fact is that, not everything form my past threads were able to be restored…consequences we may have to deal with…it’s no wonder why continuous updates are being shoved into the ios, a system that requires constant updates is fragile, AAPL seems to be conditioning our minds and behavior to think this is okay, we should accept and live with it…however, I’m from a time before cellular and have readjusted to catching up to the world infrequently…amazing how peaceful it is in between…with this said, ggane’s discovered process will be your best recovery method, follow the yellow brick road.. carpe diem

Heya! Sorry for replying to your message I just didn’t know how to post a message without doing a reply. But I’m still having the same issue, especially with older pictures I just can’t seem to get them back. I’ve tried everything on this thread, does anybody have any other ideas on what to do? No matter how many times I click to download it’ll pretend to download for like a second and just go back. Super duper upset about this as I didn’t save those old pictures and would love to get them back. Thanks

Same issue here with my iPad Pro… My 2015 iMac and brand new iPhone 13 Pro Max are working just fine. However, my iPad attachments and photos in the text breads are not downloading at all. I tried a few of the trouble shooting tips, but nothing works. I did notice that my iCloud storage is almost full at 50GB, but wouldn’t that effect my iMessages on the iPhone and iMac as well, since it’s all linked…??

Lucky you! When I finally got to doing that it told me that my Apple ID and password don’t match those on iMessages. So I logged in and out of everything:Apple ID and iMessages then logged in again, exactly as instructed by Apple help and still the issue isn’t resolved. 😡

Hello,

Hopefully this is helpful to anyone who is having this problem or still having this issue. What you want to do is go to your settings and go to iCloud, in which your next steps would be going to messages and turning it off and it might say something along the lines of there are still messages that need to be downloaded. What you want to do is still allow it to be disabled and the messages to still be downloading. Next you are going to want to do a restart of your device. Once you phone turns back on go back to settings and turn it back on for messages, your photos should now be downloaded back without any issue.

This still doesn't work :( devastated because my girlfriend sent me engagement ring ideas a few months ago and I don't want to tip her off that I am shopping for them but I will have to ask for them again. Anyone else find any solutions?