Failure to import photos from iphone :jpegvideocomplement not found

Try, to set the iPhone to use a most compatible format when importing:

Go to Settings > Photos. In the "Transfer to Mac or PC" section, tap "Most compatible", not "Keep Originals".

The video components may be a video format, that cannot be processed by your Mac, even with High Sierra. Only Mac Models from late 2015 or newer are fully compatible with the new video formats used by newer iPhones.

Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices - Apple Support

I think this one hits the nail on the head. There's something . . . janky . . . with live photo imports, and it seems to be related to disk formatting, though I'm not sure how. Here's my test setup:

• MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-Inch, Late 2015)
  • Import of live photo, using Photos, to internal hard drive, APFS (Encrypted) format - success.
  • Import of live photo, using Photos, to external hard drive, Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) format - fail.
• iMac (27-inch, late 2012)
  • Import of live photo, using Photos, to external hard drive (same one as above) - fail.
  • Import of live photo, using Photos, to internal hard drive, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format - success.
  • Import of live photo, using Image Capture, directly to Photos library, to external hard drive (same as above) - success (and yes, it still appears as a live photo in the Photos library, nothing appears to have been lost in translation).

I'm stumped, but at least I have a workaround of sorts: import to your drive via Image Capture if you're getting these sorts of failures.

Best guess? Case-sensitive is causing the issue.

btw, I think a XEON (albeit a bit aged) with 128 Gb of ram should be able to run any decoding task, even if the codec is implemented on the hardware, right?

But that is unfortunately not, how Apple implemented the decoding of the video codecs. Even my MacBook Pro retina (mid 2015) is too old for some of the new video formats, and High Sierra on my MacBook Pro cannot play 4k video encoded in the new HEVC format. Sierra does not support this on Macs older than mid 2015.

I think too, that the video component of your Live Photos is the culprit. An the HEIC/HEIF support document does unfortunately not mention the encoding of the Live Photos.

If you enabled iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone, the video component may simply missing. High Sierra will automatically enable Optimize Storage and that will remove the video component from the device and keep it only in iCloud, if storage needs to be freed. When you then import the Live Photos using a USB connection instead of iCloud Photo Library, only a part of the Live Photo can be transferred.

I have the same issue. I’m using a macbook Pro with touch bar and an iPhone 7 Plus. I am able to see the photos on the phone and I’m not using iCloud. I store my photos library in an external hard drive. When I try to import photos, it copies everything except the live ones. I’m getting the same error for every Live Photo.

I tried to use Image Capture app and it successfully imported my photos. I also tried to create a new library and store it in the SSD and it also worked. So I’m guessing my hard drive has the issue. I wasn’t experiencing issues when I was using the previous iOS and MacOS versions. Could this be because my external hard drive is not formatted with APFS? I tried to convert it but there was an error as well.

Any thoughts? I’m stuck and I can’t edit my photos 😞

Could this be because my external hard drive is not formatted with APFS? I tried to convert it but there was an error as well.

Did you restore the library on the external drive from a Time Machine backup? High Sierra cannot restore libraries correctly from Time Machine, if the library is on an external drive?

I have exactly the same problem. MacBook Pro with latest High Sierra 10.13.1, iPhone SE with latest iOS 11.1.2. Previously it worked fine with the external HD (Mac OS Extended journaled).

Stopped since last update.....

I have exactly the same problem. MacBook Pro with latest High Sierra 10.13.1, iPhone SE with latest iOS 11.1.2. Previously it worked fine with the external HD (Mac OS Extended journaled).

Is Mac OS Extended (journaled) the full format name? Photos seems no longer be able to access video components, if the external drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (journaled,case-sensitive).

I am also having the same problem. Using an AFP share on a 27" iMac 3.4Ghz i7 with 32GB RAM. High Sierra 10.13.1 iOS 11.11.1. Has been happening since I updated my devices a couple weeks ago. Was working perfectly well importing before this as I did it every few days.

Hi all.

Same problem here.

I am using an iPhone X and MacBook Air 2013. both devices are running with latest OS.

However, I can not say if it worked before any update since it is my first iPhone with Live Photo.

I am using automatic photos transfer settings in iPhone settings to try to import photos to my photos library on an SD Card. My the SD Card causing the issues.

Thank you.

Check if the file system of your SD card is formatted case sensitive.

Some users reported, that the "video complement not found" error happens, if the Live photos are transferred to a case-sensitive file system.

This is right - also in my case. I've also tried to reformat the external HD with a non case-sensitive file system. Copying the photos library back to that volumes says (after copying most of the content) that the transfer could not finish because "there is a another object on the hard drive with the same name while the file system is not case sensitiv" (?). Absolutely strange.

Only solution: Keep videos stored on the iPhone and wait till this is fixed by Apple?

I'm having this issue with my iPhone. It's about as Apple a workflow as you can get. There's no external drive or SD card involved, so... *shrug* I'm just glad that I have lots of space on the phone, and a (painful) workaround.

Hello again,

you were right, my SD Card was formatted case sensitive. However, also my system drive is formatted case sensitive.

Nevertheless I formatted my SD Card case insensitive now. Currently I am re-syncing all my data from my private cloud.

I will give feedback later wether the Live Photos import works now or not.

Greets