Photos app on iPhone not syncing in iOS 11

I updated to iTunes 12.7.5, and updated to iOS 11.4. After the updates, I synced my iPad. The majority, but not all, of my photos were copied. Later, I initiated a second sync. It appears that all 30,000 of my photos synced correctly after the second sync. I did not empty any cache or reset my iPad. I have not tried to sync my iPhone 8 yet. Hopefully this nightmare is over.

Ok, so for what it's worth.....This is the sequence that I used to get things seemingly working.

On my phone I quit Photos (as in double clicked the home button and swiped up on the Photo app to quit it).

On my iMac I quit iTunes (no glow under the desktop app)

On my iMac I opened Photos

On my iMac I opened iTunes (allowing iTunes to read the Photos Library?)

On my iMac I plugged in my iPhone which did a backup and then a sync.

On the first sync it copied another 65 pictures (weird). I added a photo to a couple of albums and sync'd again....they appeared in the albums. I then removed the photos from the albums and did another sync and they were gone. I did this while the sync cable was still attached and the Photo app was open as was iTunes app. I did it numerous times and I could add and remove. One thing that happened 3 times was iTunes just up and quit on me @#$%. So tonight it appears to be working but tomorrow is yet another day!

Well it appears now that after almost a year to the day they may have finally fixed the problem.....well done Apple. I just earlier today updated my iPhone to ios 12 and then started to do a sync with iTunes. It told me iTunes needed to be updated prior so I did. It did a backup and a sync, while it was still attached I did another sync where it added 4k plus of photos, then again while still attached I did another sync and it added another 3k plus photos. I did a few more without anymore pics being added and then looked at my iPhone and by dam they were all there (pictures and albums). I'm not going to hold my breath until I have disconnected and added another album or two to see what happens. I just wanted to share this with you to say it looks promising at this point anyway.

That's exactly what I did. Pain in the bud to do it this way.... it works when there are not a lot of folders and photos to sync. Let's hope they fix this fast.

My iPhone SE is now synching Photos with last night's 11.1 release!

One thing that helped me with this is make sure your phone or iPad is not in low power mode. It won't sync if that is the case

IOS 11 photo sync bug fixed by IOS 11.0.3.

Earlier reported problem (in posts dd. 1 Oct and 5 Oct) where IOS 11 would not cable synchronise pictures between Photos on an iMac (running MacOS 10.12.6) and IOS devices running IOS 11 has been solved for me by IOS 11.0.3. Both iPhone 6S and iPad Air2 now in sync.

However, there is still some patience needed. I had to restart iTunes and reboot the IOS devices to get the photo sync to work; first attempt after installation didn’t work, but a reboot seems to have bump started the sync process. The iPad needed to sync four times to import all the photos; the iPhone worked fine first time after the reboot.

It’s a shame that Apple seems to have adopted the Microsoft model of rushing out software and relying on its customers to find the problems. A more robust QA process would be appreciated, even if this delayed deployment of the latest software toys. Thanks anyway for listening and for fixing it (for me at least). I hope IOS 11.1 solves this for all the other users affected.

I just purchased a new 9.7” iPad and I finally finished a synch. To me it seems that the synch stops when the Screen goes dark / when the iPad “Auto-locks”. Maybe try turning off the Auto-Lock feature while synching?

What I did today is first make backups (incl. whatsapp and Healtcare-apps etc.) than perform a factory reset incl. the latest ios. A factory restore erases the information and settings on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod and installs the latest version of iOS or iPod software.

And, at least, when everything is done restore your last backup to your ipad/iphone and after that sync your photos from itunes!

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings - Apple Support.

SPOKE TOO SOON

Update 2 Today: 3 December 2017 (56,970) photos in iTunes sync window. iOS 11.2

Re-Synced iPhone 6 via usb - Added another user Photo Album.

Now have all the ‘empty' user Photo Albums back on my iPhone!

Each empty album states 'Album Title' (0 from My Mac) as before since iOS 11.

iTunes lower sync window’s coloured data graph states 56.18 GB free on my iPhone. (Obviously totally wrong)

Syncing stage : Got stuck on Syncing step 5 of 6 Reading Photos Library (had to cancel sync)

Started re-sync : step 6 of 7 Reading Photos Library

Attempting to copy failed error code 54

So after over 2 months the iOS 11 PHOTOS Sync BUG remains and Apple has yet to acknowledge it even exists !!!

UGH !!!

trietsch,

Thanks for posting your approach, it is an effective work around until Apple provides a real fix. Your method allowed me to resume iPhone - iTunes- Windows10 synchronization functionality with 30K photos on PC, and 6,381 copied to iPhone via iTunes. Here is what I did:

1. On iPhone (6 plus) Settings > (My id is at the top) as "KL" > iCloud > Photos to "On"

2. Nuisance message that all stored photos will be removed from iPhone. A bogus message as they are not there.

3. On iPhone (6 plus) Settings > (My id is at the top) as "KL" > iCloud > Photos to "Off"

4. On iPhone (6 plus) Settings > (My id is at the top) as "KL" > iCloud > Photos to "On"

5. If no more nuisance messages then iPhone thinks it deleted all phantom photos.

6. On iPhone (6 plus) Settings > (My id is at the top) as "KL" > iCloud > Photos to "Off"

7. Launch iTunes, plug in phone and synchronize.

Using iCloud photos not compatible with legacy photo synchronization in iOS 11 apparently.

Yesterday I sent a rather heated email to the Apple advisor that I have been working on with regards to the problem with the syncing of photos through iTunes and he rang me today to say that he had been off sick for a couple of days and he just wanted to ring to bring me up to date the situation as it stands at the moment.

I did say to him that I knew it’s wasn't his fault but as he was the only point of contact I had with Apple so he had to cop it…..

I pointed out that my 55,000+ music library syncs without a problem. I can sync my music in any number and configuration and it just works.

My advisor told me that Apple have asked all advisors to stop sending in logs and info regarding the problem of syncing photos as the have enough information. He said Apple are aware of the problem and even though it started at the time of the release of iOS 11 it is an iTunes related problem.

The problem is with the way iTunes is reading the information and accessing data from the photo libraries. Apple are definitely working on an update to iTunes to fix this problem together with a few other issues that have popped along the way.

My advisor has asked me to be patient as an update to iTunes will be released sooner rather than later, (he hopes) although Apple haven’t put a time frame on it. I was going to subscribe to iCloud for the syncing of my photos but I don’t fancy uploading 1.83GB of photos to the cloud. I guess I’ll wait a bit longer to see what happens….

I live in hope Gary Lowen

Hello all,

i had the same issue for several days, tried everything, nothing worked. But today I did the following with success - all photos and videos have been synchronized finally by folders albums.

step1 - in setting on device enable iCloud photo - this will erase all photos from your devise. Immediately disable iCloud photo and reboot device.

step 2 - open the latest version of iTunes. Check box for photo synchronizatio.

I had 12000 photo including 600 video. All are now in the devise in correct albums.

i don’t dare to do it again, will be waiting for global iOS and iTunes update.

This was my original post. It has worked for some and not worked for others, particularly those with iPads.

I've had this problem on my iPhone X and an iPhone 7 both running the latest iOS 11 and iTunes 12.7.

However, here's what I discovered to fix the problem today. I even did the same steps on my wife's iPhone7 and fixed it as well. The problem was that when I tried to sync just a couple of folders of pictures, the folders themselves would get set up on the iPhone, but no pictures would be in them.

At one point, I had synced my complete photo library which was about 29GB. After stopping the sync of photos, I started seeing clues that the sync never removed those files as it said it did. When I plugged my phone into the computer and opened iTunes, the space indicator still showed 29GB of photos at the bottom of iTunes, but on the phone in Photos/Albums, they were all gone. I had wondered how to delete all of the pictures in the special folders People & Places and couldn't find a way. When I would go into General/iPhone Storage, it showed 29GB of Photos. I don't routinely use iCloud, but went to Settings/Apple ID/iCloud and turned on Photos. the Phone then gave me a message that it would delete all of the local photos (29GB, 28,000 pictures) before starting iCloud backup. Well, that was the answer. I did have to turn it on and off a couple of times for it to delete all of the pictures. Going back to Photo Albums proved that all of those pictures were indeed gone. Last step, I synced two picture folders AND, they now have all of the photos in those two folders on the iPhone as they should be.

Hi All, Well even after today’s update 11.2.6 - ziltch!

My Apple Advisor trying very much to do the right thing sent me this email today which I have acted on with some ‘zip’ problems. We shall see.