iTunes stuck on "Reading photos from Pictures"

Tubulosity you have hit the nail firmly on the head, perfect summation!!

We are a majority of a minority, youngster like my son never take their iPhones or iPads anywhere near a PC or MAC, all cloud and apps for them. If Apple remain silent on this next week at WMDC then I think we can take it they have no interest in iTunes long-term. Either someone needs to find a suitable app for photos in folders otherwise its bye bye apple and hello Android.

You guys are right! Most people I know do not sync to the phones. Many of us that take a lot of pictures and have pictures they want to add to the phone are a definite minority here. I have had this problem since the beginning of April and have been following these support threads. There have been some really nice people who have contributed ides.

I tried the one about deleting the cache and unchecking the sync. That did allow me to complete a sync but failed the 2nd time. Apple has not helped out here and all the people that have called Apple report the same thing, "they are working on it".

I will be checking out the Samsung S9+ this week. I never really liked iTunes and always felt hostage to the Apple environment in that I could only use iTunes to sync my phone. This is a good excuse to jump to Android for me.

Unfortunately Apple is the only game in town when it comes to music, statistically - random selection without replacement. If anybody ever finds an Android App that even understands what I just said, let me know.

No, the second time sync failed. It gave you a warning “ ... unable to sync. There is an internal error in the device.” It was a letdown. How can we resolve this second issue? Again Apple has to come up with an update quick. Patience is running out.

Sadly, I've updated both phone and iTunes today but the sync keeps 'failing to finish'

At least it doesn't get stuck at the step of reading photos....tried many times but each time it doesn't complete. Photos are still in my phone but are not in their respective folders. Newly added photos also failed to be uploaded.

Same for me.... seems it wants to sync then just gives a error of sync could not complete... I’ve made some music/playlist changes as well, and those can’t even sync because it won’t complete. Now I have only tried my phone... so tonight I’m going to try and sync my iPad and see what the result it is... trying to narrow down is it, iTunes, my comp, my iPhone.... where is the problem....

im fearing I may have to sync my phone as a new phone and have to deal with trying to set it up as it was... probably forgetting/losing some apps... app info stored like my check book register app that does not sync with the cloud. This could be a major pain...

i will try to remove iTunes and re-install... update iPad to 11.4 and try to sync... if it does not work.. I think it’s my comp... if it works, it’s my phone.... it’s so frustrating..... honestly. I want my pics back in folders.. but I now use google drive since this has started and seems to be fine... but prefer them on my phone in folders... but now I can’t even sync music... leaving my phone pretty much usless of all the features I paid big money for.... I don’t know what else to try ..

Didnt work for me...my albums vanished...çame back with zero photos on 2nd attempt. Trying once more to see if the photos will load...

Random and unrelated but my itunes playlists doesn't seem to work as doesn't move to the next song - perpetual repeat on the song I first play... This happened with the 11.3 version update.

I totally agree with this statement. Apple support has been horrible throughout all of this and all it would have taken (for most of us) was a VERY simple post on this forum "we are aware of the problem and are working on it". I know that would have made it easier for me to deal with as I would have waited vs. trying to find and use 20 different workarounds. Any other software company that has a user forum does this - they WILL post answers and updates to specific problems and I mark this as a "big fail" for Apple. It would take one Apple support person less than 5 minutes to post on here; and after paying $1300+ per phone (and more for an iPad), I believe we ALL DESERVE that...at a bare minimum. We know they DO monitor this forum; try posting something that Apple "doesn't like" and watch how quickly it is deleted...so someone is reading these posts. Major FAIL Apple, step up to the plate and at least COMMUNICATE with your customers!!

In the end, it is fixed (at least for me as well); big sigh of relief for most of us now.

After installing ios 11.4 and iTunes 12.7.5.9 was hopeful that photos would sync into folders I had created. Still not happening. Go through the sync process, analyzing photo library, waiting to copy, then sync cancels. Anyone else experience this?

Thanks for the steps, I’ve done just that but the sync always cancels at the last stage. I cannot even remove my photos by unchecking the box.

Now I’m left with all empty folders and an unorganised photo collection sorted by time.

New folders can be added or removed but new photos failed to add.

Am on 12.7.5 and iOS 11.4 btw.

This issue HAS NOT.. been fixed. For most user it hasn’t... for some it has for one time.. then it’s back... I can’t even remove photos on my phone... folders can not be loaded... they are listed but with 0 pics

Did you do a restore? Or sync as a new phone? I’m scared to death to sync as a new phone or even restore... I don’t want to lose everything if the sync fails again ... plus I have so many apps on folders to remember to put back on... and I have a couple checkbook apps that don’t sync to the cloud ... so I would lose all that ... this is such a mess...

Not to mention all the music I risk losing off my phone ...

Well, it didn't work for me. I'm glad it worked for some of you, but I updated both iTunes to 12.7.5.9 and my iPhone to the newest software and I'm right back to where I was but this time it's not getting stuck on "Reading photos from pictures" it's saying "waiting for changes to be applied" and then nothing copies over. It didn't erase the folders there, but it is not adding into the newest album of photos 2018. I tried sycing my iPad and I unchecked an album that I didn't want on the iPad, and low and behold, it erased photos from other albums and I have zero photos in those albums, plus it didn't add photos to the newest album. This is frustrating. I'm going to be looking into Samsung. Samsung also has a better camera than iPhone can ever have. I think I'm done with Apple.

Do you know if iTunes 12.7.5 has resolved this problem? I've been waiting for the update and finally saw it come through hoping it would resolve this problem. Unfortunately when I tried to update iTunes I hit another snag and every time I try to update I get a message "itunes has an invalid signature it will not be installed". I'm hoping once I find a way around that, that at least the photo folder issue will be fixed.