iPhone photo backup to PC

After 3 years, trying multiple things I have solved an issue with backing up photos via USB to my desktop. I needed to share this incase other people have had a similar issue and gone through the steps Apple support or even googling it yourself and still couldn't get it fixed.

Short explanation of my issue over this time. I have 50gbs of icloud storage and once I get the alert that it's full I backup my photo library to my pc. Never had a problem until a few years ago. I would plug my phone in via the cable that came with the device and would attempt to back up the files. Here is where the issue came in, the phone would cause and error to the effect of "The device has stopped responding or disconnected." The only way to reconnect my device was to hard reset the phone and restart the PC.

I called apple support many times and followed every suggestion they had. Fresh install itunes, fresh install drivers, change cable, change usb port, buy more itunes storage and downgrade once I backed everything up. Set the phone to never sleep, set itunes to not auto connect with phone, set phone to airplane mode. And many many more. I searched high and low and just got to the point where I was just gonna have to deal with the error. I moved thousands of photos and videos one by one so when the error occurred I could write down what file name and folder I made it to. Reset everything and start again.

But tonight after failing to get iTunes to load on Windows 10 I uninstalled and reinstalled to get it to start up. I reuploaded my music library and changed my music on my phone. Figured its the end of the year why not backup my photos since I'm close to full icloud storage. Well after dealing with the same connectivity problems I just uninstalled everything again. After deleting iTunes I tried connecting my phone to the pc again via USB. Don't you know it worked and has had no issues.

SOLUTION SECTION

If you are having issues with your iPhones staying connected to your PC and getting the "The device has either stopped responding or has been disconnected" error. Uninstall iTunes. I know it sounds crazy because Apple developed the software to add and sync their devices to your pc. But for some reason, at least in my case it prevents and locks up the device causing the error.

Now this solution isn't perfect, it has a few issues.

1. If you wanna add any music or sync your phone to iTunes via your PC well you'll need to reinstall and go through the whole setup with iTunes again. Including readding any music to the itunes library.
2. I have found that you will need to go subfolder by subfolder, moving the photo files from the device to your harddrive one subfolder at a time. I have found that trying to do it all at once jams it up. Possibly a temp file issue, like the device or the PC creates a temp file and it just locks it up. Doesn't disconnect but really drags the transfer speed between devices.

I will update this is I discover more issues but as of right now this has been working like a dream. After 3 years, its been the easiest process in that time.