Photos app on iPhone not syncing in iOS 11

11.2 has not solved this issue. Having exactly same issues as everyone else here. Have given up on Apple support and hoping an update will cure the problem, but just updated my iPad mini 2 to iOS 11.2 and still not able to sync all photos. Have spent the last 3 weeks or so gradually syncing my

library of almost 25000 pics, and have so far got about 14000 copied across after countless syncs where only about 150 at a time copy. Had high hopes for 11.2 as it started off looking good, and stated 2582 had copied before the usual halt, then crash with error message about internal device error. It had actually copied over about 1700 pics, which is an improvement, but still bug not fixed. On a new iPhone 8 Plus, also upgraded to 11.2, over 3200 pics synced faultlessly, so for me, it seems like the issue only afflicts my iPad, if that’s relevant.

While iOS 11 has been in its various stages of beta, I had filed 7 bug reports on this issue and have just yesterday installed a profile on one of my iPads to collect logging as the photo sync crashed. I also have two open cases for two of my iPads just on the photo sync issue alone.

So yes, I as well encourage all to get with AppleCare and document this issue.

I agree, there are some late posters to this thread who seem to have not grasped the central issue being discussed here.

To recap, I have around 25,000 photos on my PC (Windows 7) all taken on what I think of as 'real' cameras, not IOS devices, then all edited on my PC in Photoshop, saved as jpegs, then copied to my various IOS devices via iTunes sync, to enable the IOS devices to function purely as a high quality viewer. Up till IOS 11 this all functioned flawlessly; on the odd occasion when I needed to re-copy the collection, due to a factory reset being needed, or when a new IOS device was purchased, it was simply a case of restoring from a previous backup then syncing the photos in iTunes (and leaving it to it's own devices for several hours, which is what it usually took to copy the whole lot over). Since IOS 11, it has not been possible to re-copy the whole lot over to my iPad mini 2 (after a failed attempt to copy a load of new pics over, after updating to IOS 11, I did a factory reset, as recommended by Apple Support, which just meant I lost all the pics that were on the iPad, and have now spent the two months since trying to slowly copy them all back!) - it copies a few hundred at a time, then iTunes crashes with a variety of error messages. Same results with a second iPad mini 2, and also same results with a different laptop PC (Windows 10). An aged iPad 2, still on IOS 9.3.5 gave no problems when transferring a load of new pics to it, firmly pointing the finger at IOS 11.

HOWEVER ( ! ) my wife has just upgraded to a new iPhone 8 Plus, updated to IOS 11.2, and the whole collection just copied over flawlessly, in a ridiculously short time (by comparison to previous sessions onto the iPad mini 2) - under an hour, total, to copy over almost 25,000 pics. So not sure where that leaves the situation - do we assume Apple have abandoned all older devices, to force an upgrade? Can't say whether the same results would be found with a brand new iPad, and can't imagine Apple will lend me one to find out.....

Mac-PC to iPhone is working for many of us. Mac-PC to newer iPad fails.

Complete discussion of procedure above, but I'm attaching some marked up iPhone settings screenshots. Touch 1, 2, 3 as indicated. You will be asked to confirm deletion of photos from phone. See above discussion.

Apologies if this has been already posted. After noticing that my albums were incomplete in their syncing, I saw that there was a message at the bottom of the album stating "Syncing...". I decided to do subsequent sync's, iTunes with cable, and the albums were completed on my iPad Air 2. Photos are on my Late 2015 5K iMac.

Thanks to all for their work-arounds. I will continue to monitor this thread as I manage all my Photo content using iTunes.

Hi David

I am totally frustrated with Apple and non syncing photos.

Am in the process of changing to Google Photos. Have has Albums there for years and now starting to put all my Albums there.

syncing works and all my devices can access my photos and my uploaded albums....only drawback is photos are only high quality not as taken and are stored online.

Am still using Apple photos but not necessary..have stored my image files on my Mac and access them via Finder.

Ang

I have a similar situation, but with one extra problem (the memory that the supposedly synced photos use)

Syncing photos from computer to phone, does not work. It syncs the folders, you can see them show up in PHOTOS (on the device) but they are all empty.

When I try to unsync, it will erase everything visually, but the memory allocation is still there. As if i have the photos on my device. And when I tried sync/unsync again, it multiplied the memory allocation for my photos, as if now I have double the amount of photos.

I tried using MAC and PC, still the same thing.

Everything is up to date, running the latest versions of all software (device, itunes, computer)

I even did a full ERASE THE DEVICE and bring it back from BACKUP. It worked for some number of photos (it copied to the phone) and then it stopped copying the files to the device and thats where the crazy memory allocation came in.

Now, not only I dont have my synced photos, but im almost full with my 256GB memory.

I agree with allot of people here. That you have to call in and complain for apple to take action. It took me 3 full days on the phone and on the online chat support just to get my point through to apple. They were making me go through all these useless steps that I already said i did, just to make sure I wasnt some imbecile using the device, and that it wasnt my fault that this happened after one of their UPDATES. I also had to set up a screenshare with them (twice) so they would 100% be sure that it isnt me who is doing something wrong.

Finally they asked me for my phone's LOG FILE (they tell you how to extract it from the device) I sent it to apple rep. they contacted me back saying they found nothing, and they will need another log file. So i sent it again. I havent heard from them yet. At the mean time they came out with one more update, but nothing has changed.

That was basically my situation that starting to sync to iCloud resolved for me. The beginning of the sync is what cleared up the issue of the iPhone thinking it had photos when it did not. Apple didn’t suggest that, but I just happened onto it. You can see more details from my previous post. I know it didn’t resolve the issue for everyone.

it must be a bug and i don't know why Apple didn't resolve it sooner. The staff at Apple store didn't know how to resolve it neither. They asked me to restore to factory setting for the phone and restore the latest backup from my iTunes. The photo works again but after a few more syncs, the same problem arose again. What a frustration!

There is a solution. I have had this problem over the past several IOS versions, going back to 10.0. I do not use iCloud photo library, but sync my photos from a 'Pictures' folder on my Mac's hard drive. I have my photos all separated in discreet folders for all the separate events in them. I do not use the Photos app.

HERE'S WHAT YOU DO:

After synchronizing your iPhone or iPad, and verifying that the pictures all exist in the 'Photos' view on the bottom left of the iPhone, disconnect and add one folder with a picture in it on your MAC.

Then, plug the iPhone back in, re-sync and voila, you will see all the photos in the proper 'Albums'.

You might have to do this a couple of times, but eventually it will work.

FWIW I have the problem using Aperture on Sierra with sync via iTunes 12.2.7 to iOS 11.2. Found this thread via a Macintouch post from others with problem. So it's common and it's not Photos.app specific.

I wrote up my notes and what I've tried here:

http://tech.kateva.org/2017/12/mac-to-ipad-photo-download-is-broken-now.html

On page 19 of this thread there is a post by trietsch followed by ones from me that outline the work around procedure when using an iPad that does not run iOS 11.x. It has to do with turning off iCloud photos in iPhone settings. Make sure your iPad didn't get sneakily updated to iOS 11.x. If it did not, go to page 19 and 20 and see the work around.

In another forum, I reported the same syncing problem with Windows 10 and iTunes, which previously worked. The iPad Air 2 sync stops approximately half-way through a Photos sync (music is fine), and indicates an "internal device error". I did an iPad backup and system restore, but same problem reoccurred. Interestingly, it works perfectly fine on an iPhone 8 Plus. This is an Apple iOS 11.xx upgrade problem which needs to be acknowledged and fixed.

I’ve previously posted (1, 5, 12 Oct, 6 Dec) about my experience of my IOS devices (iPhone 6s and iPad Air2) not syncing and showing the same faults documented in this chain, and then magically syncing for no obvious reason after the release of iOS 11.0.3. My last post was about the devices syncing correctly with iOS 11.2. Well, the bug is back with 11.2.1. Between IOS versions 11.0.3 and 11.2 both devices were syncing photos and albums without a problem using only a USB connection and with iCloud photo sync disabled. Since (stupidly) moving to IOS 11.2.1 the problem has returned, but only on the iPad. The iPhone still copies photos and albums correctly. The iPad won’t display any copied albums on the iOS Photos summary screen, but search shows they are there, but incompletely copied. I believe about 2/3 of the photos have been copied. This may not be the most serious flaw in iOS 11, but it does affect every user to some degree, and needs to be acknowledged and fixed. Apple pays its top staff huge performance bonuses, while admitting that it has been secretly slowing iOS devices. It looks like the users are now low on the priority list. Google used to have the tagline “don’t be evil”, perhaps Apple should get something similar, how about “rake it in”?

I'm very happy too. I can even keep the iPad Photos app opened while syncing and see how the photos and videos appear in the screen with no lags or app hangs. Only 2 days between beta 4 and 5, and with beta 4 photo syncing didn't work, so probably this new beta has been released specifically to remove this annoying bug.