iPhone photos and messages not indexing after iOS 17 Update

The senior advisor recommend me to let the phone fully sync (not paused) in a stable network connection. I left my phone over the weekend and everything seems to get back in place, at least no other problem yet. (2 weeks alr)

YES! I’m so glad I saw your post and knew there was an update. It fixed it for me also. Update to the new 17.1, I wasn’t alerted there was an update from Apple so you may have to go to general and updates and manually check. Hopefully it fixes it for all of us. I was relieved to know there were so many others like me that missed that feature!

Hi, after trying to find a solution, I read that by simply plugging into your WIFI and leaving your phone for a couple of hours (or perhaps even less, as I resisted the urge to check! ), everything went back to normal.

Later I searched for “ Italy “ and 827 photos appeared. So happy. Hope this works for you too….

After weeks of trouble and endless indexing search, I changed my internet from ADSL to optic fibre and within a few hours, everything went back normally. Saved !! Why indexes disappeared one day and not working for weeks, it remains not clear at all, even with iOS updates. Just a very fast WiFi saved it all !

I installed 17.1 and it fixed the photo indexing issue!! 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

Per the Apple help desk this is known issue. Even the person troubleshooting my issue had this exact problem. We just need more people to report it so that they prioritize fixing in their next release. Frustrating that this is happening still after several updates.

I restored my data from an iCloud backup from an iPhone 12 Pro Max to an iPhone 15 Pro Max and none of my messages have indexed. I even wiped the iPhone 15 Pro Max back to factory settings and did a restore directly from my iPhone 12 Pro Max - nothing. I was working with a support technician who eventually handed it over to a Senior tech, who inevitably ended up telling me it is a "known issue" and to "keep my phone updated."

Very disappointed. I use the "one year ago" feature daily, and scroll through shared photos with my contacts quite frequently both for work and personal reasons. Now 10+ years of photos sent through messages cannot be accessed unless I sit there and scroll through the texts for hours.

This makes me want to keep my iPhone 12 Pro Max - at least my messages are all indexed on it. So disappointed.

I still have my old iPhone (13). I have updated to iOS 17 and all the recent patches, but my photos are still a mess. When I search for something specific, I get hundreds of incorrect results. I rely heavily on the photo indexing feature, and I went to a lot of trouble in the past to tag my photos.

Please fix this problem ASAP as it is beyond frustrating to those of us who use the indexing feature every day.

Same issue here, not sure if the phone needs to stay on charge while it indexes everything?

I contacted Apple about it. I think they’ll eventually do an iOS 17 update to repair it.

I wasn’t sure if it was a transfer from old phone to iPhone 15 or an iOS 17 issue. I daily look at “Feature” photos and then my “one year ago” photos. It’s not recognizing any in the one year ago. I can even type the date in and it only gives date found in text of photos, even though I can scroll back to the date in the camera roll and find pictures taken on this date there.

I still have my old phone and it’s working properly but I also haven’t upgraded to iOS 17 on it either, that’s why I wasn’t sure which might be causing the issue: new phone or new iOS? But I want it fixed! Temper tantrum over! 😉

Well I guess I’m glad to know that’s the problem and it wasn’t just my transferring of data that would never get a redo or fix. I use mine just to take a trip down memory lane and if you just put in the month and year it will pull those up. Just not as handy. Maybe that will work for you too though until/if they get a fix.