can not sync photos with ios 11.3 and itunes 12.7.4

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.

Same here after upgrading to 12.7.4.! Going back to 12.7.3. and replacing the 12.7.4 version library with the one that (thankfully) got backed up before upgrading to 12.7.4. (as described by philipp273 at page 01 of this thread, big time thanks Philipp) did the trick.

12.7.3 downgrade worked for me. If we have isolated the issue directly to the iTunes 12.7.4 version why is Apple still prompting for users to upgrade? I would think they would at least halt release so that more users would not run into this bug and mess up their syncing. I can see holding off if they got a release out quickly but we are going on two weeks here!

To add to this..

I just had to do the ifunbox thing again..

I closed itunes, I closed the photos app ( I'm Windows by the way )

I went into the filesystem, the phonedata folder.. ( don't delete anything in Photodata/DCIM, that's your camera roll )

I deleted everything with sqlite in the filename.

I deleted everything in the sync folder aside from one file that stood out as a system file, I can't see it now sync I'm currently syncing all of my photos back.

I deleted all of the ithmb files from the thumbnails folders ( including v2 ) except anything that looked like system files, I deleted the album metadata files, the faces metadata files..

I then deleted the iphone photo cache on my computer, chose the option to sync my photos, chose my photos folder.. and viola! .. the process is working now..

It's a pain to have to repeat this process, this is the third time I've done it, there's not an exact step by step guide on how to do it, I'd like to be more exact in the process now but I'm a unix guy and I just kind of did it by instinct.. there's some even more vague guides on the net that pointed me to the right direction at least.

Oh, and if you want to save yourself some time as a windows user.. ( there's another command for mac users )

Opening up a command prompt and executing this ( path is different for 32 bit users )

"C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt DeviceBackupsDisabled 1

This will disable the backup before sync thing.. it disables backups permanently until you change it back .. to change it back you simply change the 1 to a 0, make sure itunes is closed each time.. I personally made two batch files, enable backups, disable backups..

"C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt DeviceBackupsDisabled 0

Hopefully this helps.. ifunbox is free, the method I use is no fun, but I've done it three times and I've gotten down to where I can clear out my photos quick and easy in 3-4 minutes and have it ready for sync. This wipes out ONLY your photos to stock..

Ps. If you have anything in your camera roll, don't sweat it.. it's still there even if it looks like it's gone.. all you need to do is take one picture with your camera app AFTER you're done syncing. It may crash the photos app, or you might have to reboot.. but it's still there, as long as you didn't delete contents from Photodata/DCIM

My iPad typically takes 10-15 minutes to sync around 1,000 photos for the first time (including conversion). Subsequent syncs from cached images are faster but it still takes over an hour to restore all of my images after a factory reset.

Of course those times were using fully functional versions of iTunes and iOS. For over a year now iTunes has been plagued by a sync problem so would run the normal sync process but only around 300 photos at a time are actually transferred so for large numbers of photos, it takes forever. So while downgrading from 12.7.4 to 12.7.3 allows it to sync, the process is still painfully slow with the constant restart required due to this longstanding issue...

See the thread:

The ipad cannot be synced. An internal device error occurred.

Search in this thread for posts from ASC User turingtest2. He provides details on how to revert back to iTunes 12.7.3. I'm just waiting for an update to iTunes to fix the issue, since I don't sync photos real often. I can always hope for the change.

I think it goes beyond that or clearing the photo cache itself might be enough. For me, when it starts doing this I can leave the photo cache alone and manually use something like iFunbox to delete the albums from the filesystem, the thumbs, the sqlite databases and then it will sync fine..

I agree it's iTunes but it seems to be doing something to also mess up the iPhone itself, that or it's more than just the photo cache issue.. when you clear the photos from your phone with the latest itunes / ios it doesn't even remove them physically from the device and I think that causes even more problems because it's trying to compare your photos on the pc with photos it can see are physically on the device, even though YOU can't see them in the photos app..

Either way, they screwed the pooch big time on this one.. either with itunes, ios or both.

I did downgrade my iTunes, but I still have sync issues, I think it times out with large libraries.. if I try to sync 5-6 times it will eventually go through.

I won't be upgrading personally until I see someone on here say they have and had success lol .. I don't have time to mess with being the tester, I already spent far too many hours wrestling with it.

just delete ipod cache on windows (version 10 latest update) pictures where all my albums and videos are stored,deleted photos on iphone x through iTunes sync and re-synced (using itunes 11.3.1. on I.O.S.12.7.4). and it worked,all 18k photos and videos loaded.

So for me it was iPod cache but also concur that there is still something very wrong,we never had these issues before these updates.

Went to upload new pics from PC and same nonsense again "reading pictures...... "and hanging,so have all my old pics and will just have to wait like all other frustrated users 🙂

It's crazy to me.. I don't see such extreme sync times, I know others have reported that too so I believe it, but for me it's not so bad .. I have 86 folders with 35k photos.. almost 10gb .. my initial sync was an hour or so, and subsequent syncing takes a 15-20 minutes or so...

WHEN IT WORKS 🙂

But after I did what I mentioned in other posts.. downgrade itunes and use ifunbox to delete some stuff off of the iphone manually, I've not had issues..

I'm not upgrading at all until I know the issue is fixed.

So yes, iTunes 12.7.5 for Windows can sync to the iPhone without hanging on the "Reading Photos" and will complete the sync.

• The synced Photo Folders on my PC do not show up in the Albums on my iPhone X as they previously did before this mess started two months ago.
• The Albums on my iPhone with the same names as the Folders on my PC do show up on my phone with zero pictures in the albums.
• The photos from the synced folders on my PC do show up on my phone under Photos (tap lower left of photo app) chronologically.

Has anyone figured out how to get the photos back into the corresponding Albums on the iPhone?

I have had the same problem since I switched to iPhone X. I went to Apple store several times. Everytime it works just once and then the second time it stops at "waiting for changes to be applied"....and then it won't finish.

I think I finally figured out the answer! Restore your phone and delete all photos. Sync for the first time and the photos should transfer ok. Thereafter, when you want to update new photos to an album, you must first delete the album by unclicking it at sync, add the photos to the album on your computer, select the album and sync again.

I have tried so many different methods and this seems to be working ok.

Dear all,

it seems that I have found a workaround how to fix photo sync in windows.

Currently I have iOS 11.4.1 | Windows 10 1803 x64 | iTunes 12.8.0.150 x64 and since months photo sync has not worked. I got the synced folders on my phone but those were empty.

I have changed / adjusted following on windows and now all my photos were synced completely!!

Editing Thumbnail View in Windows Explorer

In Windows Explorer Options remove the checkbox "Always show icons, never thumbnails"

Source: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/thumbnail-previews-not-showing-windows

2.) Using NOT the default new "Photo-App" in Windows 10. Instead use the "old" one Windows Photo Viewer.

Here is the link how to: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-get-windows-photo-viewer-back-in-windows-10/

Also I have assigned this to my default viewer for jpg, png and other graphic files.

3.) Change visual effects / thumbnails on windows

Control Panel --> System --> Advanced --> Visual Effects --> ACTIVATE "Show Thumbnails instead of icons"

Source: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/thumbnail-previews-not-showing-windows

4.) Open every photos folder --> View large Icons

I opened every folder with photos inside (those which were expexted to sync) and changed the view to large icons. With this every photo thumbnail has been created.

5.) After the above steps I started a sync in iTunes again and finally all photos were synced completely!!

So it seems that itunes needs windows thumbnails for syncing all photos!

Finally, after moths!!, I got photos on my iPhone again. Hope this helps someone else!

Regards

Wilhelm

I think I have just found a solution to the problem. You need to delete the iPod photo cache album from your PC, then sync your device. Hopefully it will then work.

i did.. and sync normally after hard reboot... but must be patient cause the time is quite long

Itunes 12.7.4.80 is just as broken as the slightly older Itunes 12.7.4.76

Only downgrade to Itunes 12.7.3.xx is the only reliable workaround