Photos being synced in a random order (iTunes 10.6.3)

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Level 1

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Photos being synced in a random order (iTunes 10.6.3)

Hi everyone,

After I upgraded to iTunes 10.6.3 on my Windows Vista PC, I tried syncing some new photos to my iPad 2, but whilst it was syncing them, all of my other albums on the device now display themselves in a random order. I specifically renamed certain photos in my albums on my PC so that they're the thumbnail image for each album in the "Albums" tab for Photos on iPad. What's going on?

Apparently, iTunes 10.6.3 was supposed to fix this bug which was in its update description, but I never noticed this bug when I was using iTunes 10.6.2. So rather than fix this problem, it has actually caused it! This isn't happening to all of my albums, but it is affecting around 70% of them.

I've restored my iPad 2, reinstalled iTunes to the latest version, renamed some of the photos and still the issue persists.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

Regards,

Martin.

(My iPad 2 is running iOS 5.1.1 if anyone would like to know).

iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iOS 5.1.1

Posted on Jun 16, 2012 9:55 AM

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Answer 1

wiclee

Level 5

6,992 points

Jun 16, 2012 10:23 AM in response to Martin95

From my experience, the photos were never sorted in Alphabatical order since IOS4.

Refer here from article iOS: Understanding photo sorting http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4221

If using iOS 4

iOS 4 sorts photos by the Date Taken tag of the photos. Specifically, your device uses the pictures' EXIF tags to determine the Date Taken information. Your device will look for the following EXIF tags within your pictures:

Capture Date
Date Time Digitized
Date Time Original
Last Modified

To change the sort order, you must change the Date Taken of photos on your computer. Third-party photo-management software may be able to do this. Refer to the documentation of your photo-management software for more information. In some cases, photos may not have a date in any of the above four EXIF tags, or photos may not support EXIF data (such as JPEG 2000, TIFF, PNG or GIF files). In this case, your device sorts these photos by the date the files themselves were created (as listed in the Date Created field in OS X Finder or Windows Explorer).

If using iOS 3.1.3 or earlier, photos are sorted on the device alphanumerically by the photos' file names.

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Answer 2

Martin95 Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 16, 2012 10:52 AM in response to wiclee

Wiclee,

I checked around 15 folders on my PC and all the photos are both organised in alphabetical order and date taken, with the latest at the top of the list.

I don't know if it is a bug in iTunes, but some of these photos haven't been touched for almost 1 year now, and they synced perfectly fine on my iPhone and iPad in alphabetical order (such as IMG_0001 was displayed before IMG_0045) but now, it no longer syncs it in order, and is just displayed randomly on my iPad after updating iTunes.

I might possibly downgrade to iTunes 10.5 as I had no problems at all with syncing photos to my iPad. Is there a way to do this?

Regards,

Martin.

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Answer 3

Jun 16, 2012 12:02 PM in response to Martin95

I might do the same. wiclee is wrong. The bug was renewed in iOS 5 initially and photos would sort incorrectly by filename. I renamed all 10,000 + of my photos by filename reading from the EXIF data to be listed as 00-12-16 for example (meaning the photo was taken on December 16th of 2000) and so on up...and they all synced "magically." Now, they appear to be sorting in a random order again, most likely by a "date created" order for which there are very few workarounds other than manual renaming. Bulk renaming would not be good here. This is ridiculous of Apple to assert that their new release "fixes" a bug when in all reality, it unfixed a previous one by creating a new one.

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Answer 4

Jun 30, 2012 12:11 PM in response to Martin95

I just started experiencing this issue most recently as well. Any follow up on whether they plan to fix this? Did anyone have a chance to try the workaround or downgrade? Results?Any feedback would be greatly appreciated for this is driving me crazy!

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Answer 5

Leil_K

Level 1

0 points

Jul 3, 2012 1:49 PM in response to Martin95

Unacceptable that Apple recreated a problem it had already solved in a past update! Itunes 10.6.3 again revisits the resorted every photo in every album on iphone...... rendering all but useless. A re-fix would be appreciated.

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Answer 6

LV_Bill

Level 1

75 points

Jul 9, 2012 3:53 PM in response to Leil_K

Agree that this is unacceptable -- and totally unprofessional from a photographer's standpoint. Another software blunder from the greatest hardware designers in the world.

There is some hope, however. Reverting to iTunes 10.6.1 will instantly restore your photo sort order to its correct sequence by file name sequence. I'm still baffled as to how iTunes caused the problem, this time. Searching for a permanent circumvention that doesn't require stuffing phony dates in all my images. More later.

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