iPad 3rd gen photos won't sync

Strange indeed. When I posted yesterday I had just begun my journey. I was able to sync many albums successfully after doing the 20 steps (not sure if any of them did anything). The only way I got it to work was to do only one to four albums at a time (depending on size). At this point I have been able to get 10k of my 15k photos on my iPad3. For what ever reason, I have a few albums that just do not work. For instance, I had one album with 102 photos I was trying to add. First strange thing was when the sync process got to where the photos were being loaded, it said x of 124 copying. First time I tried to sync, 15 photos. I then synced without that folder (basically to erase it). Then tried again. This time 24 photos. Tried same thing again ( I am stubborn). This time 42. Gave up and moved on without that album. Then I had albums that worked with no problem. Then I would hit another that did the same thing and would only add a few photos. The one thing in common was that when sync got to the point of copying photos the message copying x of xx, the xx was always a number slightly higher than the number of photos in the folder. Bizarre. I also had two cases out of 60 to 70 albums where the name was changed to what appears to be a tag (used by adobe photoshop). Again bizarre.

So, no. This update did not resolve the syncing photo issue.

I can not sync phots with new ipad 3.

Originally just copied 15 of 8600 in wrong files but now just says '..... sync failed to finish' and NO photos at all.

This was after a complete reset etc as per technical helpline.

Wasted a day with all sorts of fixes.

Believe this product has a serious flaw and I am now returning for refund.

Suggest others do the same.

Launched too early?

Very poor product from Apple.

I will give you my bizarre update, then I am done with this until they fix it. I did the 20 steps and was able to sync one folder successfully. Then I started to add just one or two folders at a time. I started to log the number of photos on my iPad and the number in the folder. I have 120 folders ranging from very small to a couple of thousand. When a folder would only sync a few, I would uncheck it (basically erase it) and continue with the next folder. Out of the 120, almost 100 did perfectly. Same number on iPad and original folder. The rest is a mystery. 17 folders synced "most of the way" but not completely. 11of those only left out one photo (not the first one and not the last one?? Just one from the middle). The other 6 just left out anywhere from 2 to 9. No pattern with size. I had 2,000 photo folders work perfectly and 40 photo folders only transfer 39. Then there were the remaining few folders that just didn't work. They would transfer random amounts each time I would attempt to sync. I tried one three times. It had 102 photos. First time 15. Second time 20 something. Third time 40 something. Anyway, I need a drink. Good luck. For what it is worth, the pictures look great on the screen and if you have not taken a picture with the iPad, they even look better.

This is a copy/paste from my original reply in another post of the same problem, hope this helps you guys.

Hi All,

This is somewhat of a (re)introduction as well as its been a LONG time since i have been here, nice to meet you all again 🙂

Today I bought the new iPad after owning the original iPad for 2 years, and this is after some serious deliberation whether to or not. I am a mutual Android and Apple fan, both has their strengths and problems, but after much deliberations I decided to take the plunge again with Apple for my tablet choice. I already have the Samsung Galaxy Note so I thought Apple iPad would continue to compliment my 'tech needs'.

After unboxing my new iPad i proceeded to re-sync it to the back up that i had made from the previous iPad, and to much despair I too hit this sync problem for photos. The best attempt got me 12 photos out of 860, the worst being 3 and the whole experience was beginning to irk me to say the least.

I tried a combination of deleting the iPod Cache Folder, resetting sync history, resetting iPad to factory again and started from scratch but all to no avail and I was beginning to give up.

I gave it one final shot and the below are exactly what I did with this final attempt:

1. Deleted .iTunes Preferences.plist file in the itune folder
2. Turned off Wifi on my iPad
3. Created a brand new folder to house my photo library that i intended on syncing with the iPad
4. Moved all of the photos into the folder created in step 3 and deleted the old folder
5. Reset sync history via edit - preference - device
6. Reselected the folder that i want to sync from within iTunes (at which point it poped up a message to say that all photos will be replaced with photos in this location) or to that effect.
7. It synched all 860 photos that i wanted to sync first time.

After checking the whole environment, I can see that iTunes recreated a new plist file from step 1, also all iPod Cache folders contained 'ithmb' files that has a positive file size (whereas before they were all 0bytes).

I couldn't believe it and I am now a very happy owner of the new iPad.

I cannot guarantee that all 7 steps are necessary in fixing this, but I am fixed of the problem as described in this post. I did not have to resize photos or put things in folder with smaller number of files. Just what i did in those 7 steps.

I wish you all good luck and if you have any questions, then please feel free to ask me. 😉

Thanks for replies.

I am running windows XP Pro and sucessfully sync 2 x 64gb Touch (4th) and 1 x iPhone 4s No problems at all.

The photos are all large mostly taken on a EOS camera there are over 7000.

I have tried all your suggestions across the previous 2 days to limited success.

To be frank the iPad is very limited in what it can do and it all needs to go through iTunes.

It can surf, show pics / video and e-mail.

But this model cannot sync pics / video completely or easily.

On that basis I will replace it will a laptop that can do all this and much more.

Had enough of Apple right now.

My view is this product is NOT CONSUMER ready - its frankly flawed.

Regards

It was a iPad 3 64GB 4G - bought largely for the screen resolution displayng pictures and video

Most of the people in this thread have repeatedly tried many 'solutions' to sync photos via iTunes. The flaw is needing iTunes. Remove this limitation and the problem is solved. Let us upload our files, photos, music and videos directly from our computers. We shouldn't have to go through any ordeal to get our iPads to do what we paid to have them do.

This is the right time for Samsung to release their new Tablet. There's so many unhappy people.

Hello,

Like everyone else, I've had a really difficult time syncing my photo albums with the iPad 3 64GB 4G, running Win 7 x64. However, I did come across a solution that allowed me to sync all 3,500+ images to the iPad.

First of all, the problem I was experiencing was that only a few photos were being synced before the process would prematurely end. Out of 60+ albums I would only get maybe 10 that had photos, which were themselves incomplete. When attempting to upload one album at a time I was only getting 2/3 of the album uploaded before it would get cut off.

At first I tried to delete the "iPod Photo Cache", but that did not resolve the issue. Therefore, did the following and it worked:

1. Unplugged the iPad and turned it off.

2. Renamed the folder that contains all my albums.

3. Once again deleted the "iPod Photo Cache" folder.

4. Went into: Control Panel > Uninstall a program; then I right clicked on iTunes and clicked on repair.

5. Once iTunes was done repairing I turned on the iPad and synced it with the photos

To my delight the iPad synced with all 3,500+ photos without prematurely stopping. However, after it was done I went into the Photo app and there were still some albums that were not completely updated. At the bottom of the Photo app it stated "syncing 3,000 of 3,500+" (or something to that effect). Therefore, I just left it alone until the iPad was done with this process and the photos eventually appeared.

My take on this problem is that my iTunes was faulty, which is odd because I just recently updated it. Throughout the day I had performed steps 1-3 multiple times, with no result. However, when I included step 4 and repaired iTunes the photos finally synced. Hopefully this has resolved the problem for good. I have not tried to add any more photos after the initial sync, but at least they are on there for now. Good luck to everyone that's having problems and thanks to this forum for providing the info that helped me overcome this issue.

I tried Nebucosm's remedy, and it didn't work for me. I got basically the same results as before. I'm giving up on these work arounds. The only real solution is for Apple to fix the &^$&^#$&#& iTunes software, and they'd better get it done soon or I'm returning my iPad 3 and chalking it up as a major LOSER. There are now 6 pages in this forum on this problem, but as far as I can tell, Apple won't even acknowledge its existence. UNFORGIVEABLE!!

I also tried Nebucosm's remedy and just as trickard indicated, it also did not work for me. Still fewer than 50 photos of 2700. I am glad my iPad 2 still works, so I can enjoy my pictures, but, I agree, APPLE really needs to address this issue. I thought it was interesting that CNET covered the release of the new versions of iTunes and finally hinted at the photo problem, but I have yet to see another article indicating that the photo transfers are still an issue on the new iPad. Only reporting on a problem after you think it is fixed is not a very useful policy for CNET to follow. We all must wait.......

Apple FIX THIS!!! This is insane, how can photo sync not work when its one of the major features...

This is simply unacceptable. I have been trying to sync my useless ipad 2 for god only knows how long. Dont these muppets test their software.

Looks like they are now the cowboys on the block without the boss looking over there shoulders.

Billions in the bank and can't fix a coding problem... reeks of "Thanks for buying SUCKER"

Apple are very good at telling everyone how flash is no good but shut up around there own products.

I've been over charged for a &%^#*&^$ TOY and I want my money back.

These muppets need to wake up and smell the ASHES ....he can see your screwing what he strived for... hasn't taken them long has it. Pocket the dough boys cause I won't be buying your *&(@&U&$ anymore

let me say firstly i share everyone's frustration.

A fix is already way way overdue

secondly the fact that Apple never accepts or publicy decloses issues is a bummer because IMO this leaves the customer hanging.

it would be nice to be able to go to an apple website link that lists known issues up front so customers like ourselves stop banging our heads against the wall trying to find a fix.

istead we spend hours trying different methods and some are very hoaky especially when they are coming from customers like you and me instead of an actual Apple Genius employee stating actual facts.

but hey these are public forums for the ppl by the ppl and apple will NOT and never has given their input here.

the best an literally only solution as a customer to submit 'suggestion' report.

This past weekend I went out and took lots of pictures. I come home, edit them and in lightroom 4.0 I export the images as jpegs, reduce their jpeg quality so they smaller but kept the actual original dimensions. So a 16mp file is gonna have a large format size to it yet the file size is under 3mb

sadly when i try to sync, in step 6 of 7 it just hung there sayins copying files yet after 15min nothing happend.

so to get round this I turned off my ipad3, turned it back on. close itunes. reopen it. now it started to sync, saying it completed the task. Note: i manually do a selective pictures folder sync.

i open my photo album in ipad and to my dissapointment it only syned 35 photos when it should have done 800 images.

To me this is epic fail and seriously frustrating.

with my ipad 2 i never had these issues and i use my ipad to showcase the pictures to the client and now I can't do that anymore and its embarassing to have to tell my customer that this is all I can show you because itunes won't sync properly.

when i updated itunes this past week it synced 3 folders perfectly. but today for some odd reason it just failed.

it is indeed frustrating and i hope apple learns from this and int he future takes customer support more seriously by posting KNOWN issues on their site that customers can check on to see if its been fixed or not instead of wasting time again and again.

its problems like this that make it hard for me to say to friends, ya apple is great, i never have issues...

the good news is, apple plans to totally rewrite the code for itunes from ground up for windows and mac and i believe they are finally caving into the fact the itunes has become a bloated pig thats too slow and filled with quirky errors and its seriously high time they code a new version.

one last thing...they should and hope they release a thunderbolt or at the very least a usb3.0 device, takes for ever to sync. all their other devices are thunderbolt ready yet for some odd reason the iphone/ipod and ipad line are resoundly absent of a high speed connection device. a hi-res device can only be taken advantage of when you put Hi-res images on it which are large in size!!!

I have the same problem. Nothing helps; except:

I tried resizing the pictures to 2560 on longest sides, and they sync without a hiccup - I tried with 400 pictures, all synced fast and flawlessly. Same pictures in full resolution, I cant even sync 10.

Apple, could someone please poke Charles down in Development, and have him fix this? It appears that everyone at Apple assumes some other team is going to fix this.

I purchased the new iPad for showing my DSLR pictures off in full resolution - and that's the only thing I cannot do in a structured way.

For now I have to use iCloud Control panel and add pictures in my upload folder, and that works, but that's just sad....