Photos in iMessages/SMS are missing

Seems like iOS 8.3 didnt fix it

***? Yeah I was hoping this latest iOS upgrade and the Photo change would have done it but alas another rotten apple. I sure do hate being a lab-rat...

It is May 2015.

My iPhone 5S 32 GB started having this problem since January 2015.

5 months later, i still see "?" marks for all photos received and sent before January 2015.

Why hasn't Apple found a solution yet?

I'm running on iOS 8.3 and none of the updates since January have done anything to fix it.

My biggest worry is that all the photos received and sent after January will suddenly disappear just like the ones before January....

Yes it does seem ridiculously slow. I guess so few people have the problem it's not considered urgent.

Out of interest did anyone else change SIM (specifically to a foreign SIM) around the time of the problem. I've no idea if this was the reason but its the only thing I can think of.

I have an Iphone 5c and this happened to me May 12 2015. Called Apple and they wanted to charge me 29.99 to try to look into it. My husband and i have had nothing but bad luck with our phones since we bought them. Dont know if i will buy another one ever! Very disappointed with thisand the service we received from Apple. Lost many photos. My text message display has a grey screen with the image of a square that resembles a picture. When you click on that it says IMg 0623 JPG and under neigh that it says JPEG image and no picture. Wont do anything when you tap on it. Iphone message photos that were sent or received before May 12th are all missing!! All photos that ive taken since 5/12/15 are still there. This is really disappointing!!! Doesnt sound like its an important issue with Apple after reading all the issues people are having since Sep/Oct of last year.

Changed my iPhone 4 to a 5 and restored my backup. all appeared to work OK but now when I receive a text message with a photo I get the message but just and ouline of the picture and a question mark. I looked thru all the replies and cannot see a solution. Is Apple still looking as to the course and a fix?

Since my previous post i have fixed my issue with pictures missing from e-mails and text messages showing as a blue outline square with a ? in the centre.

This is what i found:-

In Settings> Messages> Send & Receive I found my e-mail address & phone number were in there twice, I deleted the duplicate entry and after rebooting phone just in case I now receive e-mails and message with pictures as per normal.

I hope this helps other with the same problem.

The exact same thing as everyone else has described has happened on my iphone 4s. I thought maybe it was only happening to the pics sent from Android users, but I noticed it is text messages sent from both iphone and android.

I have lost most all my pictures that were in my text message history, which were a lot. There are only a couple that are still there for whatever reason.

I have reset, I have checked the icloud, and no such luck, and I am afraid to update my IOS, but from the sounds of everyone else's experience on this forum, there has been no solution yet.

I've become very disappointed in my iphone, not the first time that I have lost contacts, pictures, text messages etc., due to the icloud...I think. I have also since turned off iCloud, and iMessage. I am so upset that I lost all those pictures of family and friends, especially because I thought Apple products don't get "bugs", virus', etc. Was really looking forward to finally upgrading to the 6, but not sure how much longer I can stay with the iphone especially since it is so unreliable, and one never knows when important stuff will just disappear. Good luck with yours, and Thanks for letting me vent!!!

Same thing is happening to me. It looks like iOS 8.4 didn't fix the problem either.

Got a new iphone 6 yesterday and this link solved my problem- i had only a question mark where an imcoming message pic should be.

i had to log off my old iphone and my ipad - turning find my phone OFF,

https://malacube.wordpress.com/tag/iphone-6-imessage-pictures/

Got a new iphone 6 yesterday and this link solved my problem- i had only a question mark where an imcoming message pic should be.

i had to log off my old iphone and my ipad - turning find my phone OFF,

https://malacube.wordpress.com/tag/iphone-6-imessage-pictures/

definitely this is an answer I'm LOOKING FOR! thanks so much. its work now... turn off FIND MY PHONE then sign out all accounts on old after back up the data... then restore the back up on new iphone...

actually was transfer all data to my new ITOUCH (iPod) from my old itouch...

follow vway message and the link... hope this help you...

So Happy this worked for you, this link was the only fix!! Hope others see this answer buried in this discussion so they can get there messaging and pics working again!! Cheers!!

vwayJul 25, 2015 8:21 AM Re: Photos in iMessages/SMS are missing
Re: Photos in iMessages/SMS are missingin response to vway

Got a new iphone 6 yesterday and this link solved my problem- i had only a question mark where an imcoming message pic should be.

i had to log off my old iphone and my ipad - turning find my phone OFF,

https://malacube.wordpress.com/tag/iphone-6-imessage-pictures/

vway seems to be describing a different issue -- his was with new incoming pics -- most of us are describing an issue with older pics.

I am experiencing this issue with a 4S (message attachments prior to mid May 2015 just show up as icons). I tried both Wondershare's Dr. Fone and fonepaw's iPhone Data Recovery to look at both iCloud backup and directly at my iPhone but unfortunately the only attachments it showed were the ones from recently. On a possibly related note, when attaching my phone to either a PC or Mac and opening iTunes (something I had previously never done since I do not have any music on my phone), I got this error "iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPhone "Mrw13's iPhone". Go to the Summary tab in iPhone preferences and click Restore to restore this iPhone to factory settings."

I did call Apple Support but all they suggest was doing a restore from my iCloud backup but I have a feeling that doing so would wipe out even the tiny chance of recovering the missing attachments since its very unlikely that they are in the iCloud backup.