iTunes stuck on "Reading photos from Pictures"

If you need to get your photos back into albums then follow the information in the thread below which seems to be the main thread about the photo synching problem. There are posts detailing how to revert to iTunes 2.7.3

can not sync photos with ios 11.3 and itunes 12.7.4

Sometimes when you want to go back to an older version of iTunes you also need to restore the library that you were using with that version before you updated. See Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash for steps to do that.

tt2

I have just spent over an hour on the phone to apple support. They told me to delete iPhone cache (which I didn’t want to do as I know from doing this by mistake before that it deletes photos from phone) he said it wouldn’t do this so I deleted cache and it’s deketed over 15000 photos from my phone. Unable to sync them back from laptop. No longer stuck in reading photos but it just doesn’t sync them at all.

Rang apple back passed to senior adviser and was told I should never have been told to delete cache completely wrong advice. She apologised told me there’s been this issue was syncing photos since. March and they are still working on it.

I await an update to fix the issue.

Can you report back here just how long the sync operation took for 12,500 photos? If your not sure what time the operation completed, note the time stamp for the Photo Database file in the iPod Photo Cache folder. Writing this huge file seems to be the last operation in the sync process.

I reported earlier in this thread (around April 26, I think) that it took me around 5 hours to sync 5,300 photos. That was from a PC under windows 10 running iTunes 12.7.4 and iOS 11.3.1 on my iPhone.

I suspect that many some problems reported here may be simply confusion between the sync operation being frozen and the sync operation being extremely slow (around 1000 photos per hour).

What is amazing to me (this is my third comment in this thread) is that nobody from Apple is bothering to respond to the growing number of posts on this topic (now running at about 15-20 per day).

Again, thank you to everyone who has provided potential workarounds. But the big picture here is this:

- Six weeks ago (March 29) Apple released a 12.7.4 with a bug that destroyed the most critical part of iTunes functionality, namely, syncing photo albums and personal videos that you have organized on your Windows machine to your one or (more often) several iOS devices

- Various workarounds have been found by users and these are sometimes able to restore this function, but they don't work for everyone and are tedious to put into effect

- Apple has done nothing, and has not even promised to do anything, to restore iTunes to its normal operating state.

I can't believe that a technology issue on this scale hasn't by now attracted media attention. If a bug as bad as this had affected, say, Facebook, we'd be hearing about on the nine o'clock news. Doesn't anyone who is reading this thread know a technology reporter with a major channel/publication who can give this bug more visibility -- so that Apple will be motivated to do something about it?

I have been having the same issue. I have 9K pictures to synch and iTunes is always stuck on reading iPhone pictures. I have tried all the solutions on this thread: deleting the iPod Photo Cache, uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes, but the issue remains. When I uninstalled ITunes and installed in another computer, selecting the pictures directories on a network drive, the first synch manages to copy a few photos, but then it suddenly stops. On the next synch, it stucks again. I am using Windows 10, and it seems the problem lies on the iTunes version 12.7.4.80 I'm using. I just wish Apple was faster on recognizing the problem and issuing a statement and a fix. This is not the old Apple we all knew a few years back, unfortunately.

I feel your pain. I had been having the same problem for a long time with my iPad Air 2 (but not my iPhone) before this other issue affected both devices. I spoke to Apple about it and they gave me their usual nonsense about not knowing anything about it. Now, I can sync to my iPhone after deleting the iPod Photo Cache (it just takes forever), but that doesn’t work for the iPad. It stops after a few hundred photos (I have about 5,500). And now that it has restored the iPod photo cache, it won’t sync anymore pictures to the iPad.

I’m about at the point where I’m giving up on Apple too. They have become arrogant, disruptive and non-responsive. I really feel for you as it affects what you do for a living.

Hello ... I'm really sorry .. I didn't notice my typing error!

The website is "idownloadblog.com"

The full address is http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/09/21/downgrade-itunes-fix-itunes-library-itl -cannot-be-read/

I've just looked at this site and followed the link to a YouTube video and watched it again... ignore the many adverts!

It did work for me .. Please don't give up!

regards, Michael.

Agreed! This issue IS NOT fixed. It sometimes runs, sometimes does not; and it DOES bring over all the pictures but not in the folders. I discovered on subsequent syncs that it just filled up my iPhone, folders were empty, yet iTunes kept showing the WRONG value for storage. It showed I had 25 GB left, when in fact there was less than 2 GB left on my phone. Nothing I did would delete these pics...deleted iPod cache, removed sync pictures in iTunes, confirmed “yes” to remove all pics on phone....nothing! Empty folders remained, drive was full....did not work.

I ended up doinf a complete reset on my phone, deleted iPod cache, did a sync we NO pics, just music and contacts; which worked smoothly. Next sync I did with pics, it ran for 45 mins but IT DID bring over folders, with pictures and was perfect. Today, rebooted everything, tried a small sync....pictures remained but new ones did NOT come and iTunes was stuck on “reading” again...for 4 hours. I gave up!! I think they fixed it by accident; but they STILL have to work on this!!

Holding home and power for 10 seconds to force the device to reboot (as opposed to powering off and then on again).

tt2

I'm having the exact same problem and I have the same specifications as you do. iphone X, IOS 11.3, itunes 12.7.4 on Windows 10. It gets stuck at Reading photos. I left it there for 3 hours and it never finished. I eventually gave up. I have 7000 photos which is less than a lot of people. Anyone find the fix for this?

I've got the same issue as well. But, I've had issues with my iphone x syncing photo albums with itunes (off and on) for a while! It's been a major headache, and Apple Techs do not appear to understand what's causing the problem. Instead, they recommend just to use the cloud, which is not conducive, as I am also a photographer. I wish they finally got it straightened out! And before apple support replies to this...yes, I've uninstalled, reinstalled itunes. Made sure IOS / itunes were up to date...I even restored the **** phone!!

I'm using Windows 10.

Lots of advice in the thread I link below - note to view all answers in this forum you need to expand the view on the page, Apple have the forum set up to show the question and then any helpful answer, but often there are more posts - scroll down to below helpful answers and yo will find a 'read all replies' link. For the post I am linking there are at least 12 pages.

Your photos may actually still be on your phone by the way, the problem that has occurred for lots of people is just that the albums folders are no longer being created - if you open the photos app and click on the photos link at the bottom of the screen you should be able to see the photos taken but for me they just show in the order of the date they were taken. However following advice in the linked thread I have got my albums back.

Look for the instruction on how to get back to the previous iTunes. Users on that thread have contacted Apple who say they are working on a fix.

can not sync photos with ios 11.3 and itunes 12.7.4

Deleting the .itl simply destroys a user's library. Reverting to an older version of the database means they might need to manually reimport some recent additions to the library, but otherwise keep content, ratings, play counts, playlists etc.

tt2

It would only work for me if I stopped it syncing then did it, but it still doesn't work properly, most of my photos are in collections but it has not transferred them as albums so its still useless to me. Looking like I'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy a Samsung as Apple obviously not interested in fixing the issue