Level 1

91 points

Photos app on iPhone not syncing in iOS 11

I upgraded my iPhone7, iPad AIr and iPad Pro to iOS 11.

The iPad Air had stopped syncing Photos properly, reboots did not correct it, turning off ICloud Photo Library and Upload to My PhotoStream, rebooting and then turning them back on did not work. I finally logged out of my iCloud account and back in, and it seems to be resolved on that device a few days back.

But now the iPhone 7 is doing the same thing. I repeated these steps of turning off ICloud Photo Library and Upload to My PhotoStream, rebooting and then turning them back on, and I did get the Photo to sync partially, but it stopped at 38,880 (photos and videos), whereas the Mac on Sierra, and the two iPads all show 57.755 (photos and videos).

I've made sure that I'm on wifi (I did have it set to allow cellular too).

With the Photos app open and the phone on the charger, I can see periodically that something is working briefly (the swirl next to the wifi signal) but the photos count is stagnant at 38,880.

I've also tried resetting the Network Settings.

I guess my next step is to log out of my iCloud account on the iPhone entirely, reboot and log in again.

Anyone else with this issue find another less painful fix?

iPhone 7, iOS 11, null

Posted on Sep 22, 2017 5:47 PM

Top-ranking reply

cpj357

Level 2

156 points

Posted on Nov 1, 2017 11:51 AM

I see that this thread has been going on for some time and I am reticent to offer such a simple solution, but it worked for me.

You mentioned turning off both “iCloud Photo Library” and “Upload to my Photo Stream”. I assume that means that you previously had both settings on. So did I. When I switched off “Upload to my Photo Stream” on all my devices, this problem was resolved within a day (it takes time for all of the missing photos to upload or download, so the problem is not fixed immediately).

It appears, from my research, that there is no need to have both settings on. If you have iCloud Photo Library, you don‘t need “upload to my Photostream”. The iCloud Photo Library, if activated on all devices logged into the same iCloud account, already uploads all. The photostream is a short term syncing solution for those who do not want to pay for the storage for iCloud Photo Library.

So, once I turned Photo Stream off, and iCloud Photo Library on, on all my devices. It fixed the problem for me.

I said I was reticent to post, because I am not sure this will work for all, and because it seems silly that, if that is the problem, Apple would not warn people or, even better, make it impossible not to select both options at the same time.

So, for what it is worth, here are my current iPad Pro settings for Photos:

View in context

774 replies

iphi

Level 1

13 points

Sep 28, 2017 12:57 AM in response to dagaus190

Same problem. Tried everything. Apple please fix this.

Oct 24, 2017 9:27 PM in response to dagaus190

Has this issue been fixed in iOS 11.0.3

Dec 1, 2017 12:46 PM in response to 2wonders2

I just synced using beta 6 with my iPad. It actually worked without issue. Going to try one of my other problematic devices as well.

Dec 1, 2017 1:53 PM in response to Andreahackney

yup, its ios 11.2 beta 6. its beta.apple.com to sign up.

Dec 3, 2017 8:33 AM in response to 2wonders2

Last sentence in article below also applies to iOS 11 re: photo sync bug.

www.redmondpie.com/macos-10.13.1-update-requires-reinstallation-of-root-access-p atch/

Jan 3, 2018 6:19 PM in response to JLPritchard

Has anybody tried iOS 11.2.5 beta 3 just released today?

Jan 4, 2018 2:51 PM in response to audiomixer

The bug still remains in 11.2.5 beta 3. In my case, I cannot sync more than 250 photos every time, so for my 15000 photos library I would need about 60 syncs and restarts. I'm totally desperate.

Jan 17, 2018 10:08 PM in response to Sunshine4a

I have had success syncing from a freshly reset point with iPhone 6+, 6s+, 7+, and 8+.

trietsch

Level 1

22 points

Jan 19, 2018 4:29 AM in response to Andreahackney

It’s on your iPhone (account) not in iTunes.

Feb 1, 2018 9:45 AM in response to JJGraphics

Excellent idea!

I had reported the problem before, but now did it again. It's best to do this after every update, until Apple brings out an update that resolves the bug.

May 4, 2018 1:43 AM in response to dagaus190

8 months later, I had my first successful sync on my iPad Air (16k photos and about 200 albums) with iOS 11.4 beta 3. Maybe the bug is finally solved.

May 4, 2018 10:33 AM in response to ___JOHN___

John... what OS are you using and have you upgraded to IOS 11.4 beta? It does work if you're on OSX High Sierra.

iphi

Level 1

13 points

Sep 28, 2017 1:43 PM in response to dagaus190

Ironically it’s opposite for me. I did a restore to factory and restored from an iCloud backup (for reasons not related the the photos app problem) and now the Photos App won’t draw down the pics and videos in the App. It just shows the preview pic. So everytime I want to see a pic or vid I have to wait for it to DL. I have it set to down load full version of pics/vids. Not optimise.

Oct 1, 2017 8:22 AM in response to dagaus190

When I tried to sync my pics last night, I saw iTunes copy the correct number of pics. However, this morning I found NO synced albums on the phone. When I used the "Photos" view rather than the album view, the photos were there. When I searched for the album by name, it found it. It appears that the sync was successful, the pictures are there, you just can't see the Albums?

Oct 1, 2017 7:04 PM in response to rj warren

For the IOS 11 devices - "Albums" I have album names, but each album is empty, switching to "Photos" view I have pictures up the date of the IOS 11 install and nothing after that date. For the IOS 10.3.3 device - all albums and photos are in sync.

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Photos app on iPhone not syncing in iOS 11