Photos unavailable? Anyone else have this problem?

Question

Level 1

9 points

Photos unavailable? Anyone else have this problem?

All of my photos now show up with an exclamation mark and will not load properly. I’m told this is to save space and that when I connect to wi-if it will be fixed. It isnt. I now can’t play videos that have the mark on it or get my clear pictures back. If this is going to be a permanent thing with apple then I think I’m going to change phones. What’s the point in this? If I go out and want to show my friends pictures I can’t. Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks

Posted on Sep 20, 2017 11:35 PM

Reply

Answer 1

chris_g1

Community Specialist

Sep 21, 2017 5:37 PM in response to Tickle92

Hi Tickle92,

I know how important it is to be able to access your Photos, and I want to work with you to assist with viewing your Photos as expected.

It sounds like you're using the iCloud Photo Library and Optimize Storage options.

The behavior you're describing isn't expected behavior.

First, check to make sure you have plenty of available space on your iPhone's storage.
Go to Settings > General > About. Tell me what you see for Available space.

We want to make sure you have plenty of available space for downloading the images, as well as any updates that might be necessary.
Follow these steps to check for iOS updates:
Update the iOS on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Check out this article for info on learning about Storage on your iPhone:
About storage on your device and in iCloud - Apple Support

After you have plenty of free storage, restart your iPhone and see if we can get those images to download. You can force the full versions to download by choosing Settings > Photos > Download and Keep Originals.

Let us know if that helps.

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

Reply

Answer 2

Tickle92 Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 29, 2017 2:45 PM in response to chris_g1

Hi there! Thankyou so much for taking the time to reply to me. I’m sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you.

According to storage I have only used 8.7 of 16GB. I have had to delete a lot and yet it still doesn’t work. I have no games or anything on my phone and only have necessary apps apart from Facebook etc. My phone tells me I only have 490 photos.

I tried changing it to download originals and restarting it but still nothing. When I’m on a photo the exclamation mark doesn’t even try to load like it used to. It’s frustrating, I can’t play any of my videos and my photos remained blurred. I don’t really want to delete anything else, I already have so little. I used to have much more than this on my phone and it worked fine, then all of a sudden it won’t load anything?

I want more storage but am not due an upgrade for at least another 6 months.

Any other ideas?

Much appreciated x

Reply