can not sync photos with ios 11.3 and itunes 12.7.4

Today I updated iTunes to 12.7.4 and now it won't sync photos to my iPhone 7+

It's on version 11.2.6 and was working fine before the update. Got a new mini iPad last week and contacted Apple support because of issues trying to sync photos. Returned the iPad and got a new one. Managed to sync some photos to it on Saturday, but that was before I updated iTunes. Hope Apple does a fix soon. I'll send a message to the senior Apple adviser who was helping me.

Clearly this is a big bug. Been to two apple techs and several hours over last two days. I told latest tech, Justin, of this post. He did some online stuff including getting diagnostics from my computer and my iphone 8 plus. He was unable to correct and sent all this to Engineering. I discussed reverting back to an earlier version of iTunes but we did not do that. Tech is supposed to get back with me on Wednesday late afternoon. Sure hope a relatively simple fix comes out for this. I have warned several folks I know about this bug. Wish they would do a better job of beta testing. I did break my own rule however which is to wait a full 7-14 days before I install any upgrade.

Yeah, downgrading iTunes should only be a workaround. I hope Apple can fix all this.

In general, syncing photos from PC has been a mess for months. A lot of people can't sync photos to any iPad (even the 2017 ones) since iOS 11.3.

Same issue here. New iTunes 12.7.4 won’t put any photos back onto my phone after call to AppleCare and HOURS of trying to resolve. Called them due to syncing issue over trying to sync 130 photos from my camera roll to phone wasn’t working properly, senior advisor had me wipe my phone back to factory settings and do restore from previous backup....long story short, it totally wiped all 42,600 photos off of my phone and I can’t get them back on it from my computer (I don’t use the cloud for music or photos). To say this has been upsetting and frustrating doesn’t do the experience justice.

Yes, and it hasn‘t been the first time that photo sync is broken. I did wipe all photos off my iPad a couple of times already to get sync working again. Luckily this time Phillips work around (downgrade to previous iTunes version) did do the trick without wiping all images off (and putting them on again, which takes quite a while).

It‘s all very well with the rights management, but I cannot avoid the feeling that the ones creating their content themselves are punished because of the ones that try stealing content.

Did you do this part?

"and then go to the "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder and take the presumably latest autosaved itl-file and move it one folder up and rename it to "iTunes Library.itl"."

If you did this, you presumably don't have a backup copy of your iTunes library.

On Friday I was trying to sync a new mini iPad to the older version of iTunes. Photos weren’t syncing and I spent half the day working with Apple support. Decided it must be the iPad so returned it to the store and got a new one. Managed to put some photos on the new iPad. Made the mistake of updating iTunes before my iPhone synced and now the photo sync doesn’t work on any device I have. I don’t want to revert to the older version of iTunes as I will loose all the playlists I have created for my music. Also read of others who reverted back and it didn’t fix the issue.

Surely Apple will have a fix soon!

Tech support just called me back. Say Engineering needs more time to evaluate all my logs and data. We set a call back for another week. At this point, I am left with a sense that apple does not really have a handle on this. My tech and I suggested that this problem could go two possible ways. (1) Apple finds a/the problem and issues a fix or (2) they may need to come back and do further online work with me to help identify/isolate problem.

On the disquieting side, I am getting a sense that this may take some time. I am OK for a while but sure hope this does not go on longer than another week. I also am a bit concerned that apple does not seem to be monitoring the community page for issues. I hope I am wrong.

I'm concerned that Apple in general is not really interested anymore in maintaining iTunes' USB syncing option. Removing the Apps section from iTunes might have only been the first step. Maybe they will altogether remove other USB syncing options as well and push people to iCloud.

I've just moved my ipod photo cache to a different folder and re-synched my phone. The photos are on the phone but only viewable via 'collections' and they are catalogued under the date they were taken which is not very useful for some of the things I had stored in albums as I do not know what dates they were taken on.

Definitely iTunes as I synched the iPod Touch this morning (all photo albums in place) and have only updated iTunes this evening so it has only affected my phone.

I’m experiencing the same. My photos aren’t in their folders anymore, they are all grouped together in “places”. This only seems to be the case with my iPhone and not my iPad. Apple have clearly changed something. It’s frustrating that their tech guys don’t seem to know anything about it.

Still having this issue... seems Apple aren't bothered to fix it. Have been in contact with their support & directed them to the multiple forums here to show that the issue is affecting a number of users & the likely cause is the latest version of iTunes. They refused to accept that it is the fault of iTunes & suggested I re-install iTunes (it didn't work). Doubt it will be fixed any time soon.

Well, that is sad but not surprising. Sloppy programming (I can only assume that this is the root cause of our problems here) can happen, it should be discovered in beta testing latest. However, bugs do pass sometimes, users got used to that. Customer service going into complete denial of this possibility is just dismal. Not a moment they consider that this really could be a fault on their part. I guess that's why people are not only talking of Apple fanboys (and gals) but rather of Apple disciples.

Of course it is the iTunes update that creates the fault. I didn't encounter it before, I encountered it for the first time with two devices right after updating iTunes. I updated both devices to the new iOS (thinking that may cure the problem) and still encountered the problem. I reverted to the previous version of iTunes and the problem was solved. Reverting to the old iTunes version did solve the problem for several other users as well.

While it is not impossible that something else is to blame I think there is pretty strong evidence suggesting that it is the update of iTunes that is to blame.

On answering this post I encountered two more examples:

When writing this answer I logged in (as you have to) and the site said that if I would trust this computer then I wouldn't have to verify with two-factor authentication again (I got the code on this same machine, so if anything it was a 1.1-factor authentication). When answering yesterday, I did say that I trusted this computer. It didn't help, I had to do this "safety" log-in thing again.

Second example: When the editor box appeared the site told me that there was an earlier version of this answer from 10 something p.m. yesterday. Well, your post, HaRooNeY, was certainly created much later than that. So, no, there wasn't any previous attempt to answer this post.

I have just synched my iPod Pro (9.7" version from the original release) and the albums are still there, so for me it is just the iPhone 7plus that has the problem.

If needed my info is: PC is Windows 10 fully updated, iPhone 7plus fully updated and as for others this has only happened since I updated iTunes last night.

philipp273 wrote:

So until Apple fixes this, here is a workaround: Downgrade to iTunes 12.7.3! It definitely is an iTunes 12.7.4-issue. After downgrading to 12.7.3, everything is working again.

Thank you so much! Works like a charm!
Still hoping Apple fixes this soon.