can not sync photos with ios 11.3 and itunes 12.7.4

The iTunes update seems to have removed the folder structure that put the albums section in place - I've just scrolled through the iTunes for Mac section and no mention of this being a problem for them so it seems to be just for Windows users.

I manually manage everything to my devices - although the albums are not showing in the photos app, the photos you have been synching to your devices are there. If I wanted to remove an album when my device is connected to my computer I would just untick that album from my folders list as I have it set to only synch specific folders. In the test I just did with an old iPhone touch with a previous OS I used that method to synch specific albums and then to remove them. Might be worth switching to manually manage temporarily and use that method to remove the photos (I was removing complete albums of course which I have set up in my pictures folder in Windows 10 so if you only want to remove one or two photos you would first have to remove them from that folder in Windows File Manager so they did not re-synch to your device).

This is the situation I am in right now. I downgraded to last version of iTunes, and I thought everything was working, but right now, I am mostly getting empty folders showing up, with an occasional full folder showing up. However, at the bottom of the photos app, and in the folders, it will say "syncing", like it is still trying to finish the job. I ended up taking all my photos off and going back to the newest version. Hopefully, they will update iTunes soon with a fix, so I can get my pictures back on.

With the newest version of iTunes, it doesn't seem to be dealing with the iPod Photo Cache folder very well. I deleted it, and it won't recreate anything more than one file inside it. I was able to recreate it with the older iTunes version, but the photos didn't sync.

Same problem. I have decided to use Dropbox instead of Itunes syncing to transfer my pictures to my iphone. Much more flexible and open. 2 out of the last 3 itunes updates were bugged for Windows 10 users....

Yes, there are several threads started back in the fall addressing the issue that photos won’t copy since iOS 11. I spent numerous hours on the phone with a Senior Apple advisor. Apple engineers are working on it.

I've already gone that route .. my itunes media library is actually on it's own SSD drive and the ONLY thing I sync is my photo library, there's no other iphone photo cache folders :/

In my case I have to delete that and delete files on my phone with ifunbox that do not get deleted by itunes when I uncheck "sync photos" .. only when I do both does it work.

It might work for others though.. hopefully

It looks like Apple finally fixed this; I had to turn off syncing photos because I didn't want to upgrade. iOS 11.3.1 seems to address the photos sync; the first sync took a few minutes but smooth sailing after that once I re-enabled photos sync. Still takes a bit but seems to be working for me on Windows 10 iTunes 12.7.4.

UPDATE: It worked one time; which I believe based upon some new music failing to sync was a false positive, and while it now longer gets stuck just times out with an"unable to sync error" after about 10-15 minutes.

Here is my detailed update that I have been sending to my apple technical assistant who is working with me. I am using Windows 10, iPhone 8 plus with ios 11.3.1, and iTunes 12.7.4.80.

Here is my report for the May 1, 2018 addition of 205 photos in three subdirectories. IT WAS SUCCESSFUL BUT VERY LONG!!! Total time for the sync was 3.90 hours!

2:37 PM backup. Add photos: Ed Retire (25), Retire (45, stanwed (135).

2:43 PM backup finished. Reading photos from Photos (step 5 of 6)

3:19 PM Reading photos from Photos (step 5 of 6)

4:13 PM Reading photos from Photos (step 5 of 6)

4:38 PM Reading photos from Photos (step 5 of 6)

4:58 PM Reading photos from Photos (step 5 of 6)

5:46 PM Reading photos from Photos (step 5 of 6)

6:02 PM Reading photos from Photos (step 5 of 6)

6:28 PM copying X of 1007

6:28 PM waiting for items to be copies

6:30 PM Finished. All on phone.

iTunes bar now reports 8240 photos now on phone. I am assuming this includes camera roll.

Like everyone else I am waiting for apple to figure this out and get a fix. My experience with the problem before I upgraded to the iTunes 80 build was even if I add no photos, the sync times are unacceptably long. I have noted that all folders in the iTunes photocache are re-dated. The thumbnails appear to have the correct dates.

I have ard. 40.000 photos+videos in my library, with ard. 50folders. And I have sync 30K with 20-30folders. I did sync 5-6times, add 4-5k each sync. Slowly but sure. Exactly the same when I upgrade my iph7 to new iphX. No problem at all.

I think this problem happened ( only ) to all of us with current IOS+ apps. I never heard the same problem to the "new iphone".

Update/ add new photos to library? Yes, but not much ( less than 100 ) since I knew there is a problem with it. Now I am still overseas, will try this friday to add new photos as suggested.

The iPad mini 4 finally finished syncing photos after about 5 or 6 attempts. This seems to be a separate bug from the iTunes "reading photos" issue.

Microsoft Sysinternals Process Monitor shows iTunes scanning every photo in my collection during the "reading photos" phase. In fact, I see it scanning the same photos multiple times! That seems to be why it takes so long to start syncing to the device.

Note: my PC's hard drive is a SSD so it's not a drive speed issue.

Hello all.

i just spoke to a supervisor at Apple technical support, just to add my voice to this issue. While there is nothing new to report (no surprise there), he suggested that as many people as possible should call Apple to report the issue and using his words, “add logs to the fire” with their engineering people.

So, I agree. Call them and let them know. If you’ve already called, call them again. If you haven’t called, do so. I know everyone is busy and we’re all frustrated beyond measure, but if you can, please add your voice. Apple should hear from us directly. This has gone on for far too long.

I was happy to see the new updates and immediately tried it out. First run through went as everyone else has posted, no problems. I decided to try adding in the remainder of the photos I wanted on my phone (3500 more)...BIG problems after that. (specifics...I replaced my iPhone 6 last week as I thought it may have been the problem; so I am working on a 'days old' iPhone X with a clean start install on it.). The new photos "appeared" to have come over, iTunes even created my albums Photos (others have reported it was not doing so for them with this update). After iTunes finished "copying items", I checked to verify all was good and saw only EMPTY new folder names...no photos. Successive attempts have all failed but have revealed a HUGE issue everyone should be aware of in case it happens to them. While my photos did NOT show up on my phone, they are there somewhere. It has eaten up ALL of my storage on the phone, even though iTunes reports I still have 28+ GB free!! I first noticed the problem when I checked the iPhone folder in Explorer...it showed I had less than 2 GB free. It is a brand new phone, so this shocked me. I looked at iTunes again, and it still showed 28 GB free. I checked Settings on the phone in Storage, sure enough, LESS THAN 2 GB free!

1) So iTunes cannot see the correct storage now.

2) Photos HAVE come over to my phone but are not accessible anywhere (time to dish out MORE $$ for a rd party app to see whats going on).

3) Album names were created by iTunes using my naming in Explorer, but did NOT sync those pictures.

4) Multiple tries failed. Renamed some folders to see if that helped, nothing...new folder names did NOT show up in albums even though I was able to select them in iTunes.

It is a BIG mess! I am going to try deleting iPod cache and see what happens. Failing that, I will have to do a complete reset (on a NEW phone!). Wow, how does Apple manage to mess up something that worked for years? I hope they have checks and balance in place; someone needs to be accountable. Surely Apple is NOT! I would love to be able to invoice Apple for all my time - especially after shelling out $1300+ for a new iPhone! I feel SO ripped off.

I will report back what I find.

Anyone else have anything similar? Work arounds?

Yes, Update to phone and update to iTunes has fixed the problem. Now syncs 3000 images in less than an hour.

BUT, This goes to prove Apple knew there was a problem but failed to let their support people know or post in on their site as a known problem. I spent hours days trying different methods to get the photos on my Windows 10 PC to sync.

Thanks Apple for wasting a few days of my life.

Whatever is happening is still an issue.. I upgraded thinking Apple might have fixed it.. what happened? the issue I had solved for over a month instantly returned.. Fortunately the ifunbox and risky deleting of .sqlite files and others works every time.. but that's advanced and I don't feel comfortable writing out instructions because I just do it intuitively .. I back things up .. I work in Linux and ios is based on that family of operating system.. I don't think it's an ios issue because it was working fine for me on the same ios version until I upgraded.. once I used my method to truly clear my phone and then downgrade itunes, it worked flawlessly.. then I foolishly updated itunes and the issue immediately returned.

So .. itunes is the most likely culprit..

UPDATE - Sync still working

Since my post on June 3, 2018 (iOS 11.4 and iTunes 12.7.5.9), I have synced both my iPhone X and iPad Air 2 many more times. It has worked every time. The sync has been as fast as it was before the problem started.

It seems music (and I have 20,000+ songs, many of which were downloaded from old CDs) and videos sync fine, it's only photos that don't work. The closest I got was to restore and sync the albums again. When I want to add photos to an album (say 2018), then I would delete the album and then add it again. That worked for about 5 times and then it was

back to "waiting for changes to be applied" for up to an hour and then it stopped. SO FRUSTRATING!! My old iPhone 7S worked ok, it is only iPhone X that I have this problem.