Photos app on iPhone not syncing in iOS 11

I’m probably going to try this today.

That is exactly how my phone was acting in iOS 11. I hope you get that fixed. Mine is working great now but I know that this can go south at anytime.

i will give that a try. Considuring that it appears that I am the only one with this problem, it probably is something wrong with my backups. Thank you so much for your help.

I have now updated my MacBook Pro to OS X 10.14.1 (Mojave) and still my iPhone 6 with iOS 12 is not syncing new photos, contacts and updated contact information.

Folks. I've posted here before about this issue. I'm now testing via ios 11.1 and iTunes 12.7.1, on a Windows 10 Fall Creators Update PC. Short summary: Better, but still kinda not quite there.

After I updated to ios 11.1, and iTunes to 12.7.1, I rebooted both devices. I have about 30 photos to add to my ipad Air 2, and a couple of songs.

First sync: iTunes reported 716 photos to be synced (remember folks I only have about 30 at most). I went through the whole sync including backup to local PC (not iCloud). At the end, iTunes reported sync has stopped. I launched the photos app, at the bottom it says "syncing". A few photo folders were reporting a lower photo count than I think it should.

I rebooted the PC and the ipad, and tried a second time....

Second sync: iTuned reported 370 photos to be synced. Again, it went through the whole process, this time iTunes completed the sync without saying it was ended (prematurely). Launching the photos app, I saw no "syncing" status at the bottom. A few photo folders were still reporting a low photo count, but *here's the interesting part*, digging into these folders... I found all the photos that need to be there. So the actual counts are correct (I checked many folders), but the number of photos reported with the thumb nails on the opening page of Photo is inaccurate. Did I mention the Photo app did crash a couple of times -- I suspect this is due to the "data base" of photos are being updated while I was tapping with my fingers.

So, in summary, better. It took only a couple of reboots and syncs, but still some work to be done, Apple.

Try turning off ‘Background App Refresh’ in iOS settings then reboot the device and turn Background App Refresh back on then reboot one last time. Even though the Photos app is not specifically in the list of apps to tweak it has work for a few people I know.

Finally I managed to synch all fotos (approx 9000) to my IPad. I do not use the cloud and always connect the IPad with a USB cable to my macbook. However it cost me several hours until the whole process was finished. I had to restart my IPad and start the synch process many times as only a handful of fotos were synched at the same time accompanied by the odd warning "internal failure of IPad" or something like that. I had the impression that ITunes or the Pad itself (after the 11.0.3 update) only accepts a certain amount of datas to be synched during one attempt. Interestingly all other data heavy files like videos worked perfectly.

I still wait for a call of apple support. For the time being I will not even think of connecting my IPad to the macbook again....

My Iphone 6 still runs with 10.3.3 and no problems at all when synchronising.

Well, my issue has finally been resolved! Had to call Apple Support.

What we did: connect the iPad with iTunes on my mac. Hold down on/off button and homebutton, and hold it until the iTunes logo appears on iPad (first the Apple logo appears, but keep holding until iTunes logo appears.

Then, do a complete wipe of iPad. When reinstalling, I tried using one of the back ups so all my apps are immediately back in place, but that didn't resolve my issue: still problems with photo sync. So did the entire process again, and nót using a previous back up, so pretending it is a brand new iPad. When configuring iPad, it ask to hold an iPhone near, so it can copy your wifi, password, and stuff... Don't. I did it, and again issues with syncing. So, did the process a third time, pretending it is a brand-new iPad, and setting everything manually.

And now it works!

A bit of working of installing all my apps again, but hey, finally my photos sync as it should be.

Thanks for the heads up Chris.

I followed your instructions fully and did a test run with about 1000 photos from my mac. I was able to sync them without any problems.

Tired syncing some more and it started messing up. I started having the same problems as Nolten. Not all the photos were syncing.

Tried a third time syncing more photos and started getting popup messages saying “…. iPad cannot be synced. An internal device error occurred.”

Tried syncing again with all photos and thats when the same original problems arose, ie empty albums, and duplicate albums in my “people from my Mac” folder and some of those albums appearing on the main albums folder.

Another issue I noticed was that even though I am backing up onto my Mac rather than iCloud, on the summary page in iTunes, it keeps on trying to backup on iCloud, even after I repeatedly click “This computer”. It keeps on changing to “iCloud”.

Congratulations !. You did it. I am sure you are very happy now.

Well, for those like me that do not use Mac but a Windows pc do not have any feasible solution. Very sad. I am afraid to re-install iTunes in my Windows pc because I might loose My Photo collections by date and by year. I already lost all my albums trying several ways to solve the problem. I wonder if re-install iTunes, will loose these collections. Then, I won't have any pictures in my IPhone. Very sad.

Is this a trick to force us to buy an 8x or 10 ? Very sad.

Yeah, finally everything syncs, in every way: from Mac to iPad, to iPhone, and vice versa.

I have to say, the guy I called with from Apple Support was very helpful.

He also advised me, in future, it is always safer to upgrade using iTunes instead of using iCloud.

I'm having this issue with iOS11.1, however I don't sync photos to iCloud. I connect my iPhone to the USB port on my MacBook Pro running MacOS Sierra v10.12.6, then open the mac Photos app, import photos and distribute selected photos to my Albums. Then I sync my Photos library (using iTunes v 12.7.1.14) back to my iPhone.

Photos newly added to my Albums are not appearing in my albums, any longer, on my iPhone Photos app after syncing the usual way. I can add a new Album on the Mac Photos app, put some photos in the new Album, check the box to sync the album in Mac iTunes, do the sync back to my iPhone, and the new Album does appear in my iPhone Photos app—however, the album is empty.

I did another sync test last night, and here's a report of this "synching extravaganza", which wasn't as "smooth" as the last one, but at least it was somewhat predictable and followed a pattern of some kind.....

iPad Air 2, iOS 11.1, iTunes 12.7.1, windows 10 Fall Creators Update, and USB connection (not iCloud)

There are 5809 photos in my various folders to be synced, but in reality, only about 7-8 photos are new and not on the ipad (I just need to get these over, trying to be as simple as possible in these "trying" times). I will resume the heavy duty synching, with a lot more photos, if and when this bug is fixed.

-After booting up the ipad and PC from scratch, first sync: says 2031 photos to be synched, stopped after about 7-8 minutes. Not all of them made it. The Photo app says "syncing" even after the progress display up top on iTunes says all activities has stopped.

-After a couple of minutes, rebooted ipad and PC, second sync, says 1652 photos need to be synched, again stopped after about 7 minutes including a backup to local PC. App says "synching" even after the displays says activities have stopped.

- Rebooted ipad, third sync, says 1287 need to go over.... same kind of process as the first couple of syncs, it stopped after about 5 minutes.

-Rebooted ipad, fourth sync, says 817 to be synched...... same kind of process as the first couple of syncs, the app says there are 5383 photos on it, about 60 seconds later it was adjusted to 5402, and that's where it says

-The next time I didn't reboot anything, I just waited for about 3-4 minutes. Hit sync again. This time its says 468 photos need to be synched. After the sync, the apps says there are 5712 photos on the ipad (so about 97 more to go)

-No reboot, just hit sync again, this time says 158 photos to be synched, and all photos are there after this sync!!

SO it took 6 syncs (and about an hour) to transfer over about 7-8 pics. Apple, this is embarrassing!!

I believe this problem is affecting both USB and iCloud updaters. Its a serious Apple bug but I don't think they're trying to herd us. Those with many photos, like myself, tend to use our computers as main storage rather than pay for iCloud and therefore use the USB sync procedure. Displaying photos is a primary job for my iPad - this bug is serious for us and we're more vocal about it.