Level 1

104 points

The ipad cannot be synced. An internal device error occurred.

Yesterday I updated my iPad Pro 9,7" to iOS 11. All went well. But when I thought I was entering my Apple ID for iTunes, I was tricked into iCloud. I never use iCloud. Not on my iMac and not on my iPad. I just don't want to use it.

When I opened my unwanted iCloud account every button was set to ON. It took me a lot of time to set every button to OFF. In the meantime a lot of my documents (photos) were copied to iCloud. I had to delete them from my iCloud Drive. After I logged out of iCloud I discovered that all my photos were deleted from my iPad.

Of course I had a backup on my iMac. I always sync my photos (and books and music) with iTunes on my iMac. I have updated iTunes to the latest version.

Never before I have had problems with this procedure. But this time all went wrong. It said there was no iBooks App and no Music App on my iPad and after that I discovered that all my books and music was deleted on my iPad.

Several times I got the message "The ipad cannot be synced. An internal device error occurred."

I tried all the usual things - restarted the iMac and the iPad / changed the cable (all Apple cables) / changed the USB port. I succeeded in restoring my books and my music but not my photos (more than 3000). It stops halfway with the above message and than only a few hundred photos are copied.

Before iOS 11 syncing with iTunes always worked great. Now I don't know what to do to solve this problem.

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Sep 22, 2017 2:53 AM

Top-ranking reply

beasterjr

Level 1

9 points

Posted on Oct 2, 2017 1:14 PM

I’ve spent several days dealing with this. The best solution was to erase all contents and data from my iPad and start over. I started by syncing just the photos, nothing else. I got the internal iPad error once. But all 103 photo albums had synced to placeholder icons along with about 400 photos which were synced to the correct albums. I hard rebooted the iPad and synced again and again and again over several hours. Hard rebooted every time. Eventually all photos 21,000+ synced to the iPad and into the appropriate albums. Only after that did I sync everything else which worked just fine. Good luck!

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449 replies

Dec 8, 2017 7:24 PM in response to AhPek

I have been using Apple since the mid-late eighties, if they drop the iPhoto syncing option (sans folders) l will gladly take my business elsewhere. It will take a little adjusting but l will not use iCloud for photo storage in it’s current state. It’s just not worth the headaches.

Paardeslager Author

Level 1

104 points

Dec 9, 2017 3:28 AM in response to Sunshine4a

Sunshine4a,

OK. Thanks for the info. Indeed a little glimmer of hope. I agree with what msresinhead is saying. But I am also afraid that AhPek could be right, and that Apple is trying to force everyone into iCloud. I will never - as others - use iCloud. No way!

I have tagged all my photos with lots of keywords and have used them to organize my photos into albums. I need that way of organization. Until iOS 11 albums were also copied to Photos on my iPad. If that isn't possible anymore I need a photo-app on my iPad that could copy that kind of organization or could use my keywords. iMazing - as I understand it - could copy my photos but not my albums, and has no way to organize my photos with the help of keywords.

The "events/memories" that Photos create are completely useless for me. I always throw them away the moment they are created. Also the search feature is most of the time useless. On Photos on the iMac you can search for keywords and use smart albums. That's what I need.

Is there anything like that for the iPad? Suggestions, please.

Dec 9, 2017 7:23 AM in response to Paardeslager

Paardeslager,

Same with me. I need to keep my organization of my photos with my folders. Memories is useless to me too. I haven’t looked into iMazing, but if it doesn’t copy folders, it’s not what I need. I’m just hoping Apple gets this resolved.

Dec 10, 2017 5:15 PM in response to Paardeslager

this is a copy of part of an email i sent to Apple today. This issue is taking to long to resolve.

Hello

The issue of problems surrounding the syncing of large numbers of phots to iPads from an iMac is taking too long to resolve. I and many other Apple users deserve the courtesy of an update and information as to when this issue will be resolved. In my case this has been an open unresolved case since the beginning of October.

Please could we have an update on when we may expect a resolution to this issue. The most current updates to Mac OS, iTunes or IOS have done nothing to resolve this outstanding issue.

If a resolution is not in the works for the next few months then could you please allow us to revert our IOS back to 10.3.3 as the syncing process works fine with this version of IOS. (as you are aware it is now not possible to revert back to this version of IOS as Apple is no longer signing this version.)

I know I am not alone with this issue. If you review the many Apple Community forums you will see this problem is widespread amongst the photography community who for many years have faithfully used Apple products and software to be able to display photos on iPads.

If this issue is a conscious decision by Apple to not allow this option of syncing photographs in the future then please articulate the options available to us, we deserve this as a minimum.

I would appreciate an update, the courtesy of a call. I and many others have spent countless hours trying to resolve this with no success. The issue is going on too long."

I have a current library on my iMac of over 60,000 photos. In the past I have been able to sync over 20 to 30 k of photos in albums, but like all on this forum this is now not possible. we deserve a response and some resolution.

MichelPM

Level 10

81,535 points

Dec 10, 2017 5:36 PM in response to robinfromprince george

Thanks for doing this.

The email looks great!

I hope you receive some sort of REAL response/reply.

YES, I agree.

Two months is too long for Apple to have NOT resolved this issue.

Like I stated in one of my previous postings, I had to move on to other avenues and procedures to deal with my images on my Mac and iDevices running iOS 11.

So, I can get my images into the Photos and iPhoto apps on my Mac using other methods, now, but Apple NEEDS to fix and solve this iTunes and Photos syncing issue!

ASAP is NOT soon enough, any longer!

Dec 14, 2017 12:43 AM in response to Sunshine4a

I to am having the same problem since my return from holidays to the UK in September. I have 25,000 plus photos on my iMac and can’t sync them to either my iPad Air or my iPhone 7 plus. I am one of those people who updates their software as soon as updates are released so am running the latest versions of the iOS and the Mac OS. I have tried syncing my Photos from iPhoto, Photos and Aperture libraries and none of them will sync.

I have had an open ticket with Apple support since September and I think they have basically given up. They call me every few days to see if I have had success but other than that they can’t offer any solutions.

I’ve been a Mac user since the days of the old LCII which was my first Mac and am totally disheartened with Apple’s response to this problem.

Not to sure what to do from here

Gary

Melbourne

Australia

Dec 14, 2017 1:06 AM in response to Sunshine4a

Today for the very first time l was looking at someone on the train while riding home using their Samsung device and wondering if l could make the switch. I was disgusted at the thought, I’m truly at the end of my tolerance with not being able to sync my photos. There has to be a solution and Cloud isn’t the solution l’m even considering with over 60 thousand photos on my Mac.

MichelPM

Level 10

81,535 points

Dec 14, 2017 1:26 AM in response to msresinhead

See my reply above.

There ARE lots of workable alternatives.

Until this gets resolved, everyone in this post needs to embrace alternative methods to get photos/images back and forth from your computer to your iDevices.

I am having no issues being able to do this.

Once I get my images to my Mac, I can easily add these to my Photos/iPhotos app.

Paardeslager Author

Level 1

104 points

Dec 14, 2017 2:35 AM in response to MichelPM

MichelPM

A few days ago I made the following remarks:

"I have tagged all my photos with lots of keywords and have used them to organize my photos into albums. I need that way of organization. Until iOS 11 albums were also copied to Photos on my iPad. If that isn't possible anymore I need a photo-app on my iPad that could copy that kind of organization or could use my keywords. iMazing - as I understand it - could copy my photos but not my albums, and has no way to organize my photos with the help of keywords.

Is there anything like that for the iPad? Suggestions, please."

It's not only a question of syncing photos, but also of syncing albums - and that means a way of organising your photos. Therefore you need a way to use the keywords that you have given to your photos and/or a way to search for metadata. Do you know of any apps for the iPad that can do this. Photos can't do this.

MichelPM

Level 10

81,535 points

Dec 14, 2017 2:54 AM in response to Paardeslager

Also, look at the new and improved Filterstorm Neue/Pro to see if this app maybe another contender, or not.

Filterstorm Neue & Pro by Tai Shimizu

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app-bundle/filterstorm-neue-pro/id1077066973?mt=8

Paardeslager Author

Level 1

104 points

Dec 14, 2017 3:07 AM in response to MichelPM

MichelPM

Thanks for both suggestions - I will have a look at them. Photo Manager looks promising and it is cheap enough to try it out. I'm not sure if the search features are enough for me - there is no mention of keywords and metadata in the description. Something similar to the smart albums in Photos on the Mac would be great. I don't need any filters or editing - I do the editing on my iMac.

MichelPM

Level 10

81,535 points

Dec 14, 2017 4:27 AM in response to Paardeslager

Filterstorm is no longer simply a lens filter simulator app, any longer.

The developer/s of Filterstorm Neue/Pro have made/ redesigned Filterstorm to be a full fledge image editor, now!

It's nearest similar image editor is the long non-updated/abandoned Photogene 4.

The new Filterstorm Neue/Pro actually has more image editing features than Photogene 4 and is more on par with the likes of Pixelmator for better than basic image editing features and Filterstorm appears to have some metadata and image tagging abilities, too!

P.S. and FYI,

Don’t get all snobby about image editing on the Mac versus on iPad, any longer!

Pixelmator is practically the same as it is on the Mac and is has been with iPad AND with the Mac for many years, now!

These guys know image editors and image editing!

Pixelmator just introduced a major release, Pixelmator Pro, exclusively for macOS High Sierra!

Originally, Pixelmator was a much cheaper, nearly EXACT duplicate of Adobe Photoshop with identical features and identical workflow for a fraction of what Adobe Photoshop costs!

The other new player in pro image editing software both for Mac OS and iOS is Affinity Photo.

You CAN DO professional level image editing on an iPad, especially true on iPad Pro!

Paardeslager Author

Level 1

104 points

Dec 14, 2017 5:07 AM in response to MichelPM

MichelPM

You seems to confuse folders with albums. I don't organize my photos into folders. I import them into Photos and then use smart albums to sort them into albums. And besides that I use search for keywords. (I use an old version of Adobe Bridge to add keywords and copyright info.) It takes a lot of work to carefully create those albums (a lot of them). I don't want to do all that work all over again on my iPad. That's why syncing of albums is all important to me (and others). With Exif Viewer and similar apps I can see that all metadata and keywords are included when you sync photos. So I guess apps could use that data to organize those photo's. And syncing used to work flawlessly before that regretful iOS 11 update.

Paardeslager Author

Level 1

104 points

Dec 14, 2017 5:16 AM in response to MichelPM

It's not about getting snobby. It's just easier for me to look at a 27" screen and work with a Magic Trackpad, then work with my Apple Pen on an iPad Pro 9.7". And besides that it's easier to create a workflow on a Mac. And what about file management? The Files app on the iPad is useless for me.

Nothing wrong with all the image editors on the iPad - I tried some of them and even liked them. But no reason for me to change my workflow.

Dec 17, 2017 9:58 AM in response to robinfromprince george

It isn't just from Mac to iphone/ipad, it's from PC to iphone/ipad......If this issue isn't fixed soon I will dump both ipads and both iphones this family has and move to something which will work better for syncing photos from my pc to my mobile devices...I've literally spent days at the computer working on restoring photos from the pc to idevices after making edits changes and correction in the photo library on my PC.....previous tried and true but very lengthy processes to restore do NOT work with the latest versions of itunes and ios....NONE of them...I've spent so long researching and trying, not interested in doing it much longer.

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The ipad cannot be synced. An internal device error occurred.