Photostream is not syncing on my Windows 7 PC

To answer your question, AppData is hidden unless you turned on "show all folders, including hidden and system folders", but that is un-necessary, you just have to go to the folder above it and type it in at the end, then it will take you there and you can continue clicking on things like normal.

What I found today was that when I sign out of the Apple iCloud Control Panel, the mediastream folder gets deleted anyways. I suspect that those processes that DAC84 was killing turn off when you sign out and that when they terminate normally, they remove the mediastream folder.

I thought I had to move my iCloud folder(s) completely out of the way to another part of the file system, I even renamed them and then logged in to Apple iCloud Control Panel and it created the folders and downloaded my photos. This may not have been necessary, see below.

I *also* noted that what my phone thinks it sees in "My Photo Stream" is *not* what my computer sees, it sees the same number of pictures as what my phone has in "Camera Roll". The phone has duplicates showing in "My Photo Stream", so it too has an issue with this entire sync thing and that is why it's count is much higher. So I may have already had all the photos downloaded after I did the logout / login process.

Obviously every system is different, so YMMV and you may have to try various different things. I find it astounding that after 3 years of this system being out and postings saying it has never worked well that there are still such fundamental issues with this.

I finally got this solved, but...

I was still having problems with this up until Apple released iOS7. At this point I had already upgraded to Windows 8. Enter Control Panel for the PC v3.0. Installed that, and initially, it too had the same problem. Which was basically that everything worked except the main Photo stream. The shared streams worked right. Upload worked right, calendar & contacts worked right, but download of the main photo stream did NOT. That annoyed me, as it's the one thing I wanted to work more than antyhing else.

Tried an old trick, which was to log out of the Windows control panel, then totally reboot my computer. Did that, and then logged in and everything worked - and still works to this day. I kept hoping that some new version of the control panel would fix this for me.

v3.0 did this for me, but only after logging out, rebooting, and logging back in.

I've since updated to Windows 8.1, and it is all still working, which is a surprise. 🙂

Message was edited by: Joe Siegler - sloppy grammar initially. :)

uninstalling and then reinstalling worked for me !

Like others, mine also stopped after installing the new update.

I tried logging out of iCloud and logging back in, and some streams started working, but not all.

Then, I unchecked Photostream in the iCloud panel, and hit "Apply," and then re-checked Photostream and hit "Apply", followed by a reboot. All streams seem to be working now, both shared and MyPhotostream.

Hope this helps someone else.

I combined two solutions and it finally worked. I did everything below in the same order.

DAC84

1. Open Task Manager (ctrl, alt and delete) and end ApplePhotoStream.exe and AppltPhotoStreamDownloader.exe if they're running.
2. Go to your Users folder and navigate to the following path: C:\Users\Dean\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MediaStream\ - Obviously my user folder is Dean but yours will be the user that you're logged into Windows as.
3. Delete everything in that folder.

BradleyF81

"Got mine to work by unchecking Photos in the iCloud control panel, clicking Apply, then signing out of iCloud. Then I signed back in and let it set itself back up. It created a new folder called iCloud photos and started loading in the photos right away."

__________________________________________________________

P.S. DAC84's solution alone didn't work, I had to do BradleyF81's steps before it worked. (and yes I previously tried (and failed) BradleyF81's steps alone before on multiple Windows PC's)

The Combination of the two seemed to be what I needed! I was about to give up and Goto Dropbox but I'd rather have PhotoStream working since you don't have to remember to load the Dropbox app etc. (and I'm running out of Dropbox space)

Isn´t it strange that icloud control panel 3.0 runs perfectly with outlook 2013. Never ever had a problem. No business man would invest hours to solve a problem. But the minor 'private' problem of simply sync some fotos isn´t solved by anyone. And between all the threads I couldn´t read any suggestion of an Apple advisor!! In my personal opinion it might be part of the game to show you what is possible.So buy a MacBook or forget it.

I downgraded from 3.0 to iCloud Control Panel version 2.1.1.3 in Windows 7 and now my photo syncing problems are SOLVED.

I found the older installer sitting in this directory:

C:\Users\All Users\Apple\Installer Cache\iCloud Control Panel 2.1.1.3

I uninstalled 3.0 and then ran 'iCloud64.msi' from the directory above. Photo syncing very nice now.

This method may work for you, hopefully if your computer has retained the installer like mine did..

I'm extremely disappointed with Apple. I cannot keep uninstalling and reinstalling iCloud just so that Photo Stream will work. I simply just don't have the time for this nonsense. This has been going on for so long and Apple can't fix it??? Bad business. Apple needs to listen to people better and support their products better.

By the way, I have Win 8.1 and it's not syncing. It syncs after you uninstall and reinstall. The next time you restart your machine it will not sync anymore. iTunes isn't syncing voice memos or photos either. Very disappointed with the iphone and apple products.

Same here.. photostream not syncing. I am just discouraged to waste time every month or so searching the web, re-installing, rebooting (which takes forever), registry changes, patches etc. This cloud business is just not working, not only apple, but flickr, skype... contacts not syncing, missing pictures, locked accounts etc.

Everything is just botched it seems.

This thread has 315700 Views you would think Apple would take notice to this. Complete and utter frustration with iCloud photostream on Windows 7. I think I'm done with Apple and iOS.

None of the solutions here worked for me.

I am a computer programmer, I deal with software defects all day. This is one of the most frustrating defects I have had to deal with.

Signing out of iCloud Control Panel, restarting my Laptop and signing back into iCloud Control Panel worked for me, all my pictures have updated to my laptop...finally!

Thanks for the tip my directory actua;ly has 8 total versions in it

DAC84 wrote:

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if it's already been mentioned, but I tried all the suggested fixes, which didn't work for me. BUT I did manage to get it syncing again! Here's how:

1. Open Task Manager (ctrl, alt and delete) and end ApplePhotoStream.exe and AppltPhotoStreamDownloader.exe if they're running.
2. Go to your Users folder and navigate to the following path: C:\Users\Dean\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MediaStream\ - Obviously my user folder is Dean but yours will be the user that you're logged into Windows as.
3. Delete everything in that folder.

I believe these files are a local cache of what has already been synced but it appears to get stuck so deleting these files forces it to resync again from scratch.

That worked for me but as always, backup your files first before trying it on your PC.

THIS is what finally worked for me, 6 weeks after installing iCloud Control Panel 3.0 on my Win7-64, which is when all of a sudden the cloud stopped working with my Photostream.

I had another issue though and DAC84's suggestion didn't help until I fixed that first. My various photo streams (iphone, PC) kept having the same old photos populating them over and over, like it was stuck in a loop. So I made sure all the Photostreams were on and then starting deleting anything that popped into them (all photos I had backed up to my computer first).

One hour and hundreds of redundant images later, I had a clean and empty Photostream on both my phone and my PC. Then I applied DAC84's solution to wipe it really clean, turned the Photostream on and off and VOILA - the next new photo I took was pushed from my phone to the cloud and back down to my PC properly.

I originally found this suggestion on this blog here: http://kalpeshpadia.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/windows-7-photo-stream-not-syncing- after-icloud-3-0-solved/ but had trouble with things like finding the AppData folder (I am still baffled by Win7) so I came here to find all the answers.

Thanks, Apple Community!!

Emily

I just realized that the service Applephotostreamdownloader.exe wasn't running.

So I went to Program files (x86), Common Files, Apple, InternetServices. You'll find the .exe that I just mentioned there. Double click it, and it'll start running. I headed for the photo stream folder and now pics are downloading!

But I'm sure it'll stop working next time I reboot the PC, so while I was in that folder, I right clicked the .exe and created a shortcut. Then I went to the Startup folder (Press the button on the bottom left of your screen, then choose all programs, you should see it there.). I pasted the shortcut there.

No idea if it'll work, but in theory the process should now work every time my machine turns on. Hopefully this issue is solved at last.

Worked for me too; just sign out and sign back in to iCloud control panel and photostreams is repopulating with all my recent photos. Not sure why this is a problem on Windows7 but thankful that it is an easy fix for me.