Photos not going to photo stream IOS 15.4

Just wanted to chime in and say I'm having this problem also. I noticed when trying to save some pictures from some text messages that friends sent me - they were going to the "Recents" album on my iPhone, but not the Photo Stream album. Same for pictures taken directly from my iPhone camera. Like some others have noted, I did notice pictures saved from a website, or screen shots, were actually making it to the Photo Stream.

Did the usual process of getting Photo Stream going again: Switched off My Photo Stream on my iMac and iPhone, signed out of iCloud on both, rebooted both, signed back in, switched everything back on - and same issue. Oh boy...

Very annoying. As others have mentioned, My Photo Stream has been getting worse and worse over the last couple/few years. I'm with those that believe they are letting it die a painful death to push us all to iCloud Photos and the associated extra storage costs.

I'm not against using iCloud Photos in theory, but I don't like being forced from something that worked great for me to something I don't really need - and being made to pay for it to boot.

I realize I could change the format in my camera options (and maybe have that fix it for who knows how long), but I'm tempted to just switch off Photo Stream altogether and use Air Drop or even the flippin' lightning cable to manually sync my photos every so often.

Yes, of,course. I was working with a senior advisor, and we were both very thorough.

For anyone who doesn’t know, photo stream doesn’t work during an active call (according to the advisor), so two or three times he called me back so I could test new photos after changing settings.

I’m not sure about the others in this thread, but for myself and MANY other people, Photo Stream has been flaky for a couple of YEARS before this particular issue even popped up. Even when it was “working” it was only half working. It had to constantly be switched off and back on on both the iDevice and the Mac it was uploading to and sometimes even a sign out and back in of the AppleID.

I just used this latest issue as the final reason to just connect my iPhone to my Mac once in a while and import ALL my pictures AND VIDEOS all at once, all in their native format and high resolution. Faster, easier, and more reliable and complete.

I know my way won’t be better for everyone - when Photo Stream works it can be a really sweet transfer/sync method - but Apple is basically letting it deteriorate, and I personally am tired of dealing with it.

Robert Karty wrote:

It seems to be on its way out, but until Apple formally discontinues it, it should work. Wasted a lot of time on the phone with Apple about this before 15.5, only to have the Senior Advisor say it was a known issue.

In past years, toggling PhotoStream off and back on again on the devices running the desktop OS was sometimes enough to resolve the issue - but not always.

Completely agree with everything you said there, but especially the first sentence. Should have included that in my previous post.

If they aren't going to officially axe it, it absolutely should work as intended. I too have wasted a lot of time on the phone with Apple, and here in the forums, trying to troubleshoot it.

It is just sad that we have to change the settings, preventing us from using 4K videos at 60fps or other features, just because we need to stick to 'Most Compatible'. I like the fact that Photo Stream allows us to see our photos everywhere on another device but this doesn't make sense from Apple. Thank you, guys. I guess (sadly enough) that we will have to move to the cloud sooner than we thought.

I have the same problem with my IPhone SE 2020. The problem started after the upgrade. Photo stream photos are received from iPad and iMac and iPhone 15.3, but photos are not being sent from iPhone 15.4. No issues with IPadIOS 15.4.

I am having exactly the same results. Also spent a lot of time on the phone yesterday and today. It worked this morning when I switched both my cameras’ format setting from High Efficiency to Most Compatible but now it’s broken again. If Mac has airdrop, you can move the files that way. Works for my phone and iPad.. Hopefully they’re working on fix. Good luck.

At least your senior advisor knew what was happening with iOS15. I spent hours on the phone with Apple Support and the last advice was to return the phone to factory settings and start again. Nope. Folks at the Genius Bar didn't know about it either, and the conclusion drawn was that Apple has eliminated Photo Stream, which I could definitely see happening, but isn't the case at the moment. Long story short - I bought a new iPhone because I thought my 8 was dying. Turns out the only thing wrong with it was iOS15, as I have all the same problems on the brand new SE 3rd gen.

ValleyForge2 wrote:

...

I've got too many photos in Photos on my Mac to want the whole lot sync'd with iCloud as I will have to buy more storage. I use Photo Stream to get the pictures onto my Mac which is the full photo library for my systems. This works for me. Apple trying to get people to move to iCloud seems like a money making opportunity for them and is not benefitting me. ...

You can circumvent the problem by using more than one Photos Library. Only your system Photos Library can sync with iCloud, the photos and videos in all other Photos Libraries will stay local.

I am using a small library for syncing with iCloud and getting my photos off the iPhone and iPad, and only my favourite photos and videos in iCloud. my main Photos Libraries with the archive of all photos are local on external volumes.

Had the exact same issue and only today realised it was post 15.4. I could take pics from my Mac via Photo Booth and would always transfer to my 13 pro but never the other way around.

tried the usual , photo stream and and off , icon sign out Bla Bla Bla. nothing.

Found this thread , changed the setting in camera format , cheeky reboot and boom.

Photostream on phone updating as it should and also sending to my mbp.

Bit miffed I lost photostream pics on phone but least my phone and Mac library were up to date courtesy of airdrop so in the big scheme of things its all safe.

Could have saved myself a 45 min mess about though

This happened to me too.

I stupidly Googled for "normal fixes" for Photo Stream problems so didn't see this thread before taking more severe options.

I did the usual "turn off and turn on Photo Stream", and "turn on and off iCloud" (goodbye huge existing Photo Stream) - and lots more.

Fortunately I have my photos synced to my Mac - because that's the only way I know to sync smart folders (which I use a lot with keywords - even though I know that seems to be a dead end in the Apple world) - so I haven't lost all my photos.

Because the next option I tried was the traditional (and fortunately not something I've had to do for years) reset phone.

I restored from a backup (note to self - don't rely on the "Back up your most important data..." option - go back to "all") and then, when my Photo Stream still didn't work, I set up my iPhone from new (admittedly - there's still all the iCloud stuff that downloads with most of my "life" in).

This STILL didn't work - so don't bother with that.

THEN I found this thread - darn it all.

Valuable tip if you've been using your phone "just the way you want it" for a long time (and always upgrade phones based on backups) - make a Note in Notes with the layout of your phone in. I have one in text form (row by row, contents of folders, etc) but if your layout isn't complex, screenshots would work too. This means if you ever have to rebuild your phone, your muscle memory still works - you can put everything back where it's supposed to go.

Ironically, there also seems to be a bug in iOS that saves screenshots to your Photo Stream when you don't save (you take a screenshot, copy it to paste somewhere, then click delete) - the screenshot doesn't go to your Recent Photos but it does go to your Photo Stream - and THAT still happens - so the only part of my photos that goes to my Photo Stream is the bug 🤦🏻‍♂️

I have tried the change format - but that didn't work - so hopefully this bug gets fixed soon.

Good luck everyone!

Please let us know, what Apple Support tells you.

I get solution in this article. May be you can follow this step

https://portallaptop.com/blog/2831/2022/05/02/macbook-error-2003f/

Same to me after update to 15.4 my photo stream not working anymore. No photo moving there. Try to sign out from apple account, reboot phone did everything but NO LUCK. Does anybody frim Apple lusten to us????? I wonder