Photos app on iPhone not syncing in iOS 11

I do not know it if was itunes, but the 11.2.2 release fixed it for me. See my other post.

Still no solution to the sync with iTunes. Having waited for 4 months for a fix, I have with my consultant used a workaround to get all my photos synced on all my devices.

I bit the bullet and now have all my photo library on iCloud...and they sync seamlessly over iPhone and iPad...changes immediate.

this was not the solution I want but for the time being, it will suffice until such time as a fix is released...

Angie

As I posted originally, my iPhone 7 and my iPad Pro still synch fine with my iMac.

Wiping and setting-up as-new my wife's iPhone 7 and iPad Mini does not solve the problem with her devices on her iMac. I have wiped her iPad Mini several times, suspecting corrupted memory, but it makes no difference. In neither case are we using iCloud for photo storage as we synch photos to the devices from folders and not from Photos. This has worked faultlessly until the recent updates.

I am in contact with Apple via the Developer forums and have received a request for logs to be sent which I will do shortly. In the meantime:

PLEASE KEEP REPORTING THESE PROBLEMS TO APPLE on both the Photos and iTunes feedback pages

It will help to raise Apple's awareness of the extent of this problem and how strongly people feel about it if everyone will spend a few minutes to report the problem on the feed back pages for both applications. The more this is done, the sooner the problems may get fixed.

Photos for iOS - Feedback - Apple

and

Feedback - iTunes - Apple

Guys,

I have been following this thread for a while now, since I have the same exact problem.

Even though it might not be the best solution, I might have found something that works. I would like you to test it next time you wanna try to sync your photos. Have you tried closing the app on the iPhone (flick it while on multitasking) before hitting the sync button on iTunes?

I've had two opportunities so far to test this and it seems to work. It does not make much sense... but may be there is something locking the Photos app library on the iPhone while the app is open, even if its on background. It could be just a coincidence... maybe it isn't. Let me know if it works for you.

Regards,

Leandro

Yes, with large libraries with tens of thousands of photos it is difficult to know whether all images are successfully synced.

When all this started last autumn after iOS 11 release it took me about two months to realize there were numerous images missing from my iPad. Repeated syncs, recreating albums initially seemed to fix this but the problem persisted.

I tried to troubleshoot. I reset the iPad to factory settings (I didn't even use the backup in case it was corrupted). Spotting missing images is difficult so I made a brand new Photos library on my Mac and imported albums consisting of 100 images and the synced them one after another and checked the image count. ...But after a few such albums, the sync failed again...

So at the moment my 256 GB iPad Pro 9.7" is almost empty. I bought the maximum amount of storage so I could keep my photos there...

This problem has now gone on for far too long without Apple putting their hands up to this publicly.

PLEASE KEEP REPORTING THIS PROBLEM TO APPLE

on both the Photos and iTunes feedback pages

The more times we do this, the more it will help to raise Apple's awareness of how strongly people feel about it. Please spend a few minutes to report the problem on the feedback pages for both applications:

Photos for iOS - Feedback - Apple

and

Feedback - iTunes - Apple

44 pages of people with the same issue. I think Apple needs to investigate this and solve it.

I have been fighting this issue since my iPhone 4.

I found that Apple automatically creates albums from your pictures you upload to the iPhone: The automatically created albums include (but this may be an incomplete list): People, Places, Videos, Selfies, Live Photos, Portrait and Panoramas.

Once these albums get created, you can't delete the picture from the album it came from and have it get removed from this automatically created album!.

I've gone so far as delete ALL my pictures (over 50,000) and then see that the automatically generated albums are still there WITH THE PICTURES still in them even though they have been removed from the iPhone! At that point it becomes obvious: You can't add ANY new pictures back onto the iPhone (even the ones you just removed!) and you can't get rid of the automatically generated albums UNLESS YOU RESET YOUR IPHONE!

I kept a backup of my iPhone just to the point before I added ANY pictures and can restore to that point and then add the pictures again.

Apple has 2 methods they describe to add pictures to the Photos app on the iPhone:

1) Use the Photos app on the Mac (assuming you HAVE a Mac, which I do) OR

2) Have a folder on your Mac (in my case called Pictures) and when running iTunes point to that folder and EITHER:

2a) Select All Folders

or

2B) Select the folders you want to add individually from the list of folders that shows up and is created by iTunes and maintained in the iPod Photo Cache inside your folder (mine is, again, Pictures)

If you use the Photos app, you must create the albums you want to be on the iPhone one at a time. this takes multiple steps for each album. Once done, though, it seems to upload to the iPhone with little issue.

If you select the All Folders or individual Folders, it DOES get done BUT here is where the Software does not work anymore. It won't let you update any of the pictures in any of the folders (inside Pictures) or even add a new folder (in Pictures). Weirdly, any new folder DOES show up as a new Album, but no Pictures that are in the Folder get put onto the iPhone in that new Album.

I determine from this scenario, having written lots of software in the past, the software that creates those automatic generated folders DOES NOT CHECK them to see if the pictures are on the iPhone at each sync. That is what it SHOULD DO.

If I delete all the "Live" photos from my folders in Pictures on my Mac, for example, then iTunes should be removing them from the "Live" folder it creates and if they have all been removed from my folder (Pictures) on my Mac, the automatically created folder should disappear.

APPLE - fix the software.

I updated both my iPad mini 4 and iPhone 7 to 11.4 beta. (also running High Sierra 10.13.3)

I tried the iPad 1st. Once updated to IOS 11.4, tried a regular sync. Worked flawlessly, albeit slowly. 20K photos all right were they should be.

I then went to the iPhone 7. That was slightly more challenging. 1st try was a regular sync that just didn't work. No error messages, just a sync that quit. I then turned iCloud photo library On and then Off. 2nd try at the sync is still going and random checks show that the photos are loading into the correct albums!

Thank you Apple for fixing this. It should have never taken since Oct/Nov though.

At 11.4 beta 3 for a few days now, the new “normal”, while not being perfect or ideal by any means, is to toggle ON/OFF the iCloud Photo Library sync to zap all the albums to zero, delete the PC's iPod photo cache folder, and start a brand new sync which transfers all the folders selected. I can live with this while Apple figures out how to do a perfect sync without my having any of these workaround steps.

Not doing any of those 2 steps will not allow me to do a sync, doing just one wouldn't work!

and there's one more thing... the ordering of the photos in the album do seem to be a bit random, and weren’t the same order as before I zapped them and did the new sync. I don't think they are chronological... can't determine what ordering scheme is being used now. Seems random.

Hi WMalden, last night after posting and upgrading to 11.41 I removed (again) all my pictures from my iPhone, deleted the iPod Photo Cache from the Photos Library then restarted both the iMac and iPhone then proceeded with a sync. I added only the Photo Albums I wanted on my iPhone (29k plus). It took hours so I just left it running all night and it was complete this morning. All the photos appeared to be there, although how many it says does not always mean there are that many pictures loaded in the phone. I just added one picture this morning and it said it was loading x many of 9500. So I guess it needed an additional sync to finish. Odd because it said it was doing 29k last night? Anyway, I will see if it added that single one and try another again and get back to you. Maybe, just maybe they adjusted something in 11.41 because it was still broken for me with 11.4. Fingers crossed.

I also removed all my pictures as WMalden mentioned above.

1-On the iOS device, turn iCloud photo sync ON.

2-Say “okay” to erasing all photos on iOS device.

3-Turn iCloud photo sync OFF.

4-Give iOS device a few hours to erase all photos.

5-Sync with iTunes and be sure “photos” sync is on and select all or selected albums.

I will mess around more as I get time (and post my results) but this has been the best so far since Sept of last year.

Same problem for me until today. The version that corrects the bug is 11.2.5 beta 5, released yesterday, only available for developers. With 11.2.2 I still have the problem in my iPhone.

I haven't tried it myself but I've seen at least two other users from other posts on this forum that are reporting the same positive results with iOS 11.4 beta 2. This is great news!

I have two open cases. On one case the senior advisor said they have all they need and that a fix was forthcoming And to watch out for the fix in upcoming updates and the second case, the engineer said they needed more logging. The issues and symptoms are identical. Not real encouraged so far since we are at 11.2.5 beta 2.

Same issue here as everyone else! iPad Pro won’t sync but iPhone 8 syncs fine. Has been going on since iOS 11 install. iPhone 8 is running same iOS and doesn’t have an issue. I have about 14k photos. Tried just about everything everyone else has tried. Senior Apple tech says she thinks it’s hardware related, for some reason it’s not writing correctly and drops the sync. Sometimes an error, most of the time iTunes just “cancels sync” with no error. Idk, but she’s sending out a new iPad, so we’ll see....