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Level 1

8 points

Photos in iMessages/SMS are missing

Hi, Everyone!

I've noticed that since updating to iOS 8.0.2 but before updating to 8.1.0, photos are missing in text & iMessage threads.

Here's how I noticed it:

On Friday of last week, I was looking at old pictures dating back to October 2013 in the detail view on a text message thread on my iPhone 5S, running iOS 8.0.2. Everything was there -- no problems.

Fast forward to Sunday evening: I decided to forward a photo I had stumbled upon Friday night, but this time in detail view every few pictures in the same thread were replaced with two overlapping blue rectangles in a white box. When you click them you just see a grey background with the file name and file type in blue. When you look at the picture in the conversation, it appears as a white box with a blue question mark. (see attached screenshot of all three instances).

This is happening in iMessage conversation as well as strictly Text Messages, and files are missing from both sides of the conversations. There are even some photos that are missing in the conversation but are still sitting safe and sound in my camera roll!

No settings were changed between Friday to Sunday evening-no automatic updates, battery didn't die, didn't reset my phone or drop it, etc.

Messages have been set to save forever. I have iCloud turned on for Photos.

Any ideas on why this is happening?

I have since upgraded (last night 10/20/14) to iOS 8.1 AND have reset all settings to see if it would solve the problem. Space isn't an issue--I have 3 GB of free space currently. No such luck! 😢

iPhone 5s, iOS 8.1

Posted on Oct 21, 2014 3:15 PM

144 replies

vway

Level 1

0 points

Sep 2, 2015 8:40 PM in response to mrw13

my old and new photos just disappeared one day from all messages. the link i provided to the online solution cleared up the issue for me.

Nov 26, 2015 11:12 PM in response to vway

This started to happen to me back in 2011 and those pic's are still not back.

iMessage was not the case back then, so the pictures i trying to get back dates back to 2010 and are sent via regular SMS.

Don't have any backups left on iTunes since i bought a new computer and didn't think to move my iTunes backups..

Anyone found a fix for this yet? There's thread on MacRumors from 2011 that also addresses this issue.

pcaso

Level 1

8 points

Dec 6, 2015 2:37 PM in response to Jonatan.Berndtsson

I, too, am having the same issue. I've been going through and deleting sms messages to make room on my phone and as the photos would appear after they were pulled down from iCloud, I was able to save the photos. When I got to messages around 2011, all the photos have a ?. I do have old iTunes backup and the same thing is happening. I've read several forums on this and it appears there is no fix and I have to accept all the photos are gone. Huge disappointment Apple.

MStanic

Level 1

0 points

Dec 9, 2015 8:23 AM in response to whitogreen

Hey,

i have the same issue!

had to change my iPhone 6s and did the backup + restore from my iCloud.

after the iPhone was restored i figured out that all media (pictures / videos / voice msg) are missing at the chats on whatsapp (history) but my iCloud storage tells me that whatsapp is 1.2gb big. All the files are showing a question mark, only the new ones i can see.

THEN i checked iMessage and on my iPhone all the pictures are missing there too (only the new ones can i see)

i called apple care and they are checking the issue and told me calling me back.

i hope i can fix it because there are many pictures on whatsapp and i message that i haven't saved on my photo album!

anyone got a solution from apple yet?!

Feb 10, 2016 9:30 PM in response to whitogreen

It's so sad that all this history is gone 😟

Jul 1, 2016 11:36 AM in response to whitogreen

Why haven't I seen any support from Apple on any of these forums? I have the same issue.

Jul 6, 2016 7:16 PM in response to joewrites2007

This just happened to my wife's iphone5 today.

I turned off imessages for at least 5 seconds, turned them back on, then shut down (slide to power off), then re-booted. Her photos are now back. 🙂 Thanks very much to an earlier poster for the tip.

Aug 18, 2016 6:13 PM in response to JohnnyPizzut

Thank you so much for sharing this! It did the trick for me 🙂 To think I've been putting up with this problem for ages too!

Nov 2, 2016 7:18 AM in response to JohnnyPizzut

Problem is that iMessage was not around when the pictures i'm missing where sent 😟

It was green bubble MMS back then (2009)...

Did your wife loose older pre-iMessage images that she later got back ?

Photos in iMessages/SMS are missing