iCloud Photo Library stopped syncing

@ pierrefrommontréal:

Just to be sure: Do you mean Camera+ (by taptaptap) or Camera Plus (by Global Delight)?

Anyway, up to now we have collected these photo extensions:

• Camera+ (with several reports that this was the last edit before upload stuck)
• Camera Plus (?)
• Pixelmator

I have the exact same problem here. Thanks for the tips about the third party extension, I go to my iPhone photo library and find the picture that I modified with third party extension and deleted it(also delete it from "Recently Deleted" album) solved the problem. After the "problematic" photo is deleted, iCloud Photo Library starts syncing again.

Same for me

I have IPhone 6, iOS 8.3 and every time I'm connected in wifi mode the sync process begin but the progress bar stops at about half time. I've enough Gb on iCloud to do the sync

Tried to do net restart and icloud logout/login process but nothing change.

Anyone that resolved the problem?

thx

Jacopo

I'm also having this problem. It looks like it started happening on May 14 or 15...the last pictures I took that synced to iCloud and my Mac were from 5/14. Anyone figure out why this is happening or a solution?

Me too. It's happened a number of times, each time the only solution I've found (frustratingly) has been to turn off iCloud completely, import any remaining photos to the mac, delete the camera roll on the phone, and turn on again. I don't know what is causing the problem, but it seems to happen to me when I edit photos with ios8 (non Apple) photo extensions. Whatever the reason it's hugely irritating.

Interesting. I checked what the last photo that synced was, and the one after that was a pic that I had edited using an extension in the photos app. I tried to revert that pic to original in hopes that it would then start syncing again, but no such luck...

Thanks Sean. I'm increasingly convinced that the use of iOS Photos' Extensions is at the heart of the problem. All seems to work fine for me until I use them. It does seem crazy though. I can just about accept, at this early stage in its development, that Photos might ignore the extra extensions metadata on sync but it does seem ridiculous that, rather than disregarding this, it grinds the whole system to a standstill... With an 80,000+ image library deleting and reinstalling each time is madness.

Yesterday I reluctantly tried the steps JFM67 suggested (I say reluctant because I have over 30,000 photos in my library so it is no small task) and it worked. I did have to follow all steps, including deleting pics off my iPhone using Image Capture, before it worked. Thanks for sharing that info...

At this point, all seems to be working ok. I am going to avoid editing any pictures in the Photos app with third-party extensions for a while though, since I think that may have been a trigger in my case. Maybe I'll give it another try after the next iOS update comes out...

Sean

I'm having the exact same issue for the third time now. Apple support is involved (and even exchanged the iPhone 6 to exclude a possible wifi-issue) and investigation, but without any success to date. However, one guess was that it might be an editing issue. So I'm glad that I stumbled over this thread today, as it seems to confirm what we've been suspecting: Editing might cause iCloud Photo Library to quit its sync process. As it seems unlikely that Apples own editing tools will cause such an issue, maybe a third party extension would?

I am a frequent user of Camera+. And I wonder if you are using the same third party app? Or maybe a different one?

If we could gather our third party apps in question here, I would forward the list to Apple support, so it might help them to identify the one thats's causing the issue.

My photos have stopped syncing many weeks ago on all my devices. I too am a frequent user of Camera Plus, via the extension tool. I also use the Pixelmator editing tool to sharpen some pictures, but less frequently than Camera Plus.

Maybe something to investigate by the Apple people.

Thanks iCoco for setting up a list of potentially offending photo editing apps.

Adding to the anecdotal "evidence"....

I have had the upload/syncing of photos from my iphone 6 to my MBP stop several times now. i also have an ipad mini that i do not use for photos or editing. the ipad mini and the MBP are always perfectly synced.

the only way i have found is to fix the "stuck" upload from the phone is to turn off iCloud Photo Library in the iphone Settings/iCloud/Photos, wait for all photos to "disappear" and then turn it back on later and wait for all the photos (18000+) to re-sync. I haven't lost any photos from the iDevices or my MBP, but it is a bit of a white knuckle ride.

For a few weeks things will go just fine. Then the same problem will reappear...iphone has more photos than the ipad and MBP....repeat the above process.

currently the ipad mini and the photos on the MBP are matched as always. they both show the last photo uploaded was from my iphone, a photo that i edited via the Camera+ app.

current number of photos waiting to be uploaded as shown at the bottom of the iphone page is only 10, b/c the last fail was only a few days ago. I have tried deleting some of the "stuck 10" off the phone but it doesn't help. it doesn't even change the number of photos waiting to upload. I see the line quickly blink to "uploading" and then back to "10 Items to Upload"

good news!

was reading some info on a similar iphone / iCloud sync problem and temporarily "cured" my stuck photo issue.

since I had a pretty good idea which photo was the problem photo, i moved it from my photos app on my MBP to my desktop so i can keep a copy. Then I deleted the problem photo from the MPB photos app. I also deleted it from my iphone photos app. I restarted both devices and held my breath, but no changes. the iphone still had several photos more than the MBP.

a few days and several photos taken on my iphone, the problem remained. iCloud sync stuck, showing now 20 or so photos waiting to upload.

another thread discussing similar stuck uploads mentioned delving deeper into the photos app on the iPhone, into the "albums" into the "recently deleted" folder. Sure enough, my problem photo was still hanging out on the iPhone after all. So i selected it for deletion and "really" deleted it again.

i rolled back over to the photos folder of the photos app on the iphone just in time to see it report that it was uploading the rest of the stuck queue. I just confirmed the arrival of the queue of previously stuck photos on my MBP. both devices are in sync.

so if you know the problem photo it seems you can clear the problem and get syncing going again. but what is causing the jam in the first place?

I am getting the impression that editing photos with a third party extension using the integrated extensions sheet is causing this stuck upload issue. As it seems there is not only one, but several apps/extensions involved. I will report this finding to Apple Support and hope the smart guys in Cupertino will be able to track it down and fix this annoying issue asap. 🙂

Hey @pache59, thanks for your contribution. Thats good to know - even if its hard to believe that Apples own editing tools might cause such trouble.

As far as I know, Apple is saving and uploading only original photographs and all modifications are stored in a separate database. Obviously, this database must be synchronized over devices as well. So this might be the place where Apple folks should look at, anyway.

About a week ago, all my photos miraculously started syncing on my three devices (MacBook Air, iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2).

The only explanation I can come up with in my case is that I was trying to upload a sizable quantity (in the hundreds) of pictures on a slow Internet connection. The Photos app took more than a month to do the job. I am not at home so I cannot contact my current ISP but I know their services are quite inconsistent, the download rate reaching peaks of 15 Mbps and troughs of less than 1 Mbps, with upload speeds sometimes too low to be registered. My theory is that for a few days they delivered sufficient bandwith to allow the chunk of pictures to be transferred. Now that Photos only has to sync two, three photos every other day it seems up for the job.