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bradbomb

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 7, 2002
568
309
Los Angeles, CA
Out of nowhere today my Camera Roll of 10000 photos and videos just reorganized itself and it is no longer organized by Date Added. I do not use iCloud Photo Library and store my whole Camera Roll on my phone since my first iPhone 3G. I have not had a chance to restore my last backup, but I would rather not do that as the last backup is on iCloud and not on computer. With a backup size of over 80 Gigs, that would be a long restore over WiFi
 
Were you able to fix it without a restore? I just know I will also lose my Move streak on my Apple Watch as if I do a restore on my phone, my watch will be stuck not being paired and having to be restored.
Health is now in the cloud. I have set up multiple devices as new for myself and family members and health returns. All achievements, workouts, everything. Just make sure the health tab is enabled, check your iCloud storage for health, restore your phone and set it up as new. Health will say "restoring from iCloud". Give it about 20-30 minutes for all data to return. Then go into Watch app and follow the instructions to restore your watch and repair. I have done it numerous times over the years.
 
Ok, here's what I did (on my Mac, 10.11):
*this looks time consuming but it isn't

0)
Back up your phone and place it in Airplane mode (DigiDNA's suggestion)


1)
Make sure Photos is running on your iPhone
Download iMazing or similar
Connect iPhone to Mac via USB
In the sidebar select your phone
Click File System > Media > PhotoData
Select Photos.sqlite and Copy to Mac at bottom
Find the file you've just copied
First, make a copy of it in a separate location in case of emergency

2)
Open Terminal
At the prompt type
$ sqlite3
You should see your SQLite version listed
Type .open at the sqlite> prompt, then drag the Photos.sqlite file from Finder to the sqlite> prompt, then hit Enter:
sqlite> .open /Users/yourname/Desktop/Photos.sqlite
To test that you've opened the file properly, type .tables and hit enter. You should see a list of files starting with Z, which is what you want.
At the prompt again, paste in:
UPDATE zgenericasset SET zaddeddate = zdatecreated WHERE zaddeddate>0 AND zdirectory LIKE 'DCIM%';
Hit enter. There should be a slight, 1 second delay before you see the sqlite> prompt again. This means the query is working, which is good. You should also see the Modified date for the sqlite file change in Finder
Finally, type .save Photos.sqlite and hit Enter (not actually sure if this is necessary or does anything, but I did it when I was successful)
Quit Terminal, clicking Close on the warning window

3)
Go back to iMazing into the PhotoData folder
I made a 'backup' of the existing Photos.sqlite by renaming it to oldPhotos.sqlite
Copy over the modified Photos.sqlite from your Mac
Quit iMazing
Force quit the Photos app
Reopen Photos
Hopefully, your photos will be in order!

Let me know if this works for you!

(So I spammed this on the numerous Apple Support posts with the issue and seem to have been banned...)
 
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Nope, didn't work. It moved all the recent pics I took since the problem to the earlier spot. So basically here's how its looking. The start of my camera roll is from pictures from Sept 2014 until Today. After today, it goes back to the pictures from my first iPhone 3G in 2008 until the spot in Sept 2014.
 
So I found a different solution online to fix this, but it was a manual process. It involves selecting the photos out of order and then duplicating them. Obiviously, you need to duplicate them in the proper order to add to the bottom of the roll. Seeing as my photos were just divided at a certain point in 2014, it didn't take long for me. The only thing I lost were burst photos I did not save inside the burst. Everything else including live photos, video, panoramas, etc. copied.
 
Does that maintain their EXIF data?

From what I can see, yes. All these photos were already imported on my computer. When I pulled them up in Photos, they still show their correct date, they still know where the photo was taken, still say if they are HDR or not, or Panoramic or not, Portrait mode or note.
 
Yesterday (10/22/2017) jerky swiping thru photos while viewing Camera Roll caused me to think that maybe a soft reset would smooth out the rough spots (new iPhone 8 Plus, an upgrade from iPhone 6s Plus). All photos in Camera Roll were in chronological order, accumulated since first use of iPhone 3Gs in 2009. Had set up new phone from encrypted iTunes backup of iP 6s Plus and all photos were present after setup completed. I have no photos in iCloud, preferring to keep them on my device.

Soft reset performed, after having to look up how to do it with this new model. A short while later, Photos app is stalled and has the message that many users have seen (lock phone and connect to power, photos will continue to add.) Left iPhone plugged in overnite and this morning the 17K photos are back BUT the Camera Roll only contains pix from 2014, sorted by date. In order to see all photos in the manner of original Camera Roll, I have to use Search, then "Show me all of my most recent photos" option, then scroll down to the newest pix rather than automatically being in that spot. WTF? This is a first for me after 7 iPhones and it's damned annoying.

I hope like h*ll this fixes itself over the next day or so but am not holding my breath. I'm afraid of what another soft reset would leave me with...

UPDATE: All photos are in Camera Roll but in the form of a 2014 Sandwich.
 
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Yesterday (10/22/2017) jerky swiping thru photos while viewing Camera Roll caused me to think that maybe a soft reset would smooth out the rough spots (new iPhone 8 Plus, an upgrade from iPhone 6s Plus). All photos in Camera Roll were in chronological order, accumulated since first use of iPhone 3Gs in 2009. Had set up new phone from encrypted iTunes backup of iP 6s Plus and all photos were present after setup completed. I have no photos in iCloud, preferring to keep them on my device.

Soft reset performed, after having to look up how to do it with this new model. A short while later, Photos app is stalled and has the message that many users have seen (lock phone and connect to power, photos will continue to add.) Left iPhone plugged in overnite and this morning the 17K photos are back BUT the Camera Roll only contains pix from 2014, sorted by date. In order to see all photos in the manner of original Camera Roll, I have to use Search, then "Show me all of my most recent photos" option, then scroll down to the newest pix rather than automatically being in that spot. WTF? This is a first for me after 7 iPhones and it's damned annoying.

I hope like h*ll this fixes itself over the next day or so but am not holding my breath. I'm afraid of what another soft reset would leave me with...

Also 2014? Wow, for everyone I read something about the Camera Roll bug, it seems the split off always happens in 2014.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7221828?tstart=0

When you look at the "Albums" view, does the number under Cameral Roll show your full number of pics that are supposed to be there? If so, then you actually might have the same issue as me. When I was looking at the Camera Roll, I first thought I only had photos from 2014 as the top and bottom of the roll were pics from 2014. If I scrolled slowly, I realized the top of the roll started from the end of Sept 2014 and it would go until my most recent photos. After the most recent photo, it was then my oldest photos from 2008 from my iPhone 3G and would continue to scroll down to the end reaching again September 2014 (but the pictures before the ones up top).

The only thing I can surmise is something the iOS 8 update did back in 2014 that restructured the Camera Roll (remember that was when the Camera Roll briefly disappeared as an option). At some point, if the photos app glitches and causes the SQL index to be rebuilt, it does the split this way. I don't know, I was living with the problem for a month till I realized my solution above of duplicating the photos to reorganize it since the camera roll is sorted by Date Added and not Date Taken.
 
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When you look at the "Albums" view, does the number under Cameral Roll show your full number of pics that are supposed to be there? If so, then you actually might have the same issue as me. When I was looking at the Camera Roll, I first thought I only had photos from 2014 as the top and bottom of the roll were pics from 2014. If I scrolled slowly, I realized the top of the roll started from the end of Sept 2014 and it would go until my most recent photos. After the most recent photo, it was then my oldest photos from 2008 from my iPhone 3G and would continue to scroll down to the end reaching again September 2014 (but the pictures before the ones up top).

This! I discovered, by chance after posting today, that although opening the Camera Roll showed the automatic bottom was 09/20/2014 pix and tapping the time at top took me to 09/21/2014 pix, regular scrolling down from the top moved thru 2014 year by year to yesterday. After the last photo from yesterday, the next is dated 09/06/2007, which should be the very top of Camera Roll when sorted by date, followed by 2009, 2010, and so forth (the first half of the Camera Roll before the messed up sorting) going to the bottom 09/20/2014 date I listed above.

A few days ago I had tapped the bottom left button (Photos folder) while in Camera Roll and had gone to Collections > Years > 2014 trying to locate a particular photo. After that, I tapped the Albums button and was taken to my newest pix in Camera Roll as usual. I wonder if I did anything to influence the mix-up by time-jumping without returning to the current year before leaving that Collections > Years choice? It never mattered in every previous iOS but iOS 11 is wonky to me. Or is the technical explanation you propose at fault? I'm fairly certain I'm going to give the soft reset another go today or tomorrow, making sure that Photos > Collections > Years is left in the most current date before returning to Albums, and see if it makes any difference.

FWIW, this is the first bout of trouble I've ever had and it aggravates me to know that I brought it on myself yesterday with that first reset. I should've sat on my hands and resisted the impulse!
 
This! I discovered, by chance after posting today, that although opening the Camera Roll showed the automatic bottom was 09/20/2014 pix and tapping the time at top took me to 09/21/2014 pix, regular scrolling down from the top moved thru 2014 year by year to yesterday. After the last photo from yesterday, the next is dated 09/06/2007, which should be the very top of Camera Roll when sorted by date, followed by 2009, 2010, and so forth (the first half of the Camera Roll before the messed up sorting) going to the bottom 09/20/2014 date I listed above.

A few days ago I had tapped the bottom left button (Photos folder) while in Camera Roll and had gone to Collections > Years > 2014 trying to locate a particular photo. After that, I tapped the Albums button and was taken to my newest pix in Camera Roll as usual. I wonder if I did anything to influence the mix-up by time-jumping without returning to the current year before leaving that Collections > Years choice? It never mattered in every previous iOS but iOS 11 is wonky to me. Or is the technical explanation you propose at fault? I'm fairly certain I'm going to give the soft reset another go today or tomorrow, making sure that Photos > Collections > Years is left in the most current date before returning to Albums, and see if it makes any difference.

FWIW, this is the first bout of trouble I've ever had and it aggravates me to know that I brought it on myself yesterday with that first reset. I should've sat on my hands and resisted the impulse!

I can confirm that my break of photos was the same exact dates. All photos before Sept 20th were at the bottom and my Camera Roll had started with any photos afterwards (basically the photo that showed as the most recent was dated September 17th, 2014 and the photo that started the camera roll was September 27th, 2014). So my camera roll (before I fixed by using the duplicate method since @Mr_Brightside_@ method did not fix anything for me) showed as follows:

START OF ROLL
September 27th, 2014 to Current
July 14th, 2008 to September 17th, 2014
END OF ROLL

I believe it happened to me on the date I started this thread when the Photos app also crashed on me. Since then, no soft reset or anything fixed it besides manually duplicating the images in my roll.
 
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On Page 4 in the thread linked in Post #19, there is this:

pagemakers4 - Oct 4, 2016 12:18 PM in response to 75sam75

Oct 4, 2016 12:18 PM in response to 75sam75

I got fed up of waiting for Apple to fix this.

Restored my phone from my last iPhone 6 backup. Just restored without erasing first.

Camera roll fixed and there was no need to reset Touch ID or Apple Pay.

That was in reference to iOS 10.x on iPhone 7 one year ago. Any reason to think that using this fix wouldn't result in the same good outcome now using iOS 11.x? Realizing, of course, any photos taken since iPhone 8 Plus was set up on 10/16 using the same backup (one week ago) would be lost. That initial installation on the new iPhone was perfect.

I'm tempted to do this without a wipe as noted.
 
On Page 4 in the thread linked in Post #19, there is this:



That was in reference to iOS 10.x on iPhone 7 one year ago. Any reason to think that using this fix wouldn't result in the same good outcome now using iOS 11.x? Realizing, of course, any photos taken since iPhone 8 Plus was set up on 10/16 using the same backup (one week ago) would be lost. That initial installation on the new iPhone was perfect.

I'm tempted to do this without a wipe as noted.

It should work if the backup is before the reorganization. The reason I didn't do this was I was going to lose text message history, health history, etc. I do reference old texts from time to time and don't want to lose anything that has happened.
 
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For the week that would be lost, I'd lose a few text messages (which I screen shot) and my Fitbit app will restore the info for that time period. Memos/Notes are synced to Google account and will come back. I can recreate Calendar entries. I can send (via PhotoTransfer app) that week's pix to my iPhone 6S Plus and then send them back to the iPhone 8 Plus afterward. I think that mostly covers the differences that will occur. If I'm overlooking anything, please tell me.

Luckily for me, last week was pretty slow.
 
For the week that would be lost, I'd lose a few text messages (which I screen shot) and my Fitbit app will restore the info for that time period. Memos/Notes are synced to Google account and will come back. I can recreate Calendar entries. I can send (via PhotoTransfer app) that week's pix to my iPhone 6S Plus and then send them back to the iPhone 8 Plus afterward. I think that mostly covers the differences that will occur. If I'm overlooking anything, please tell me.

Luckily for me, last week was pretty slow.

I think you have everything covered. Yea mine was as basic as some texts within that day, and I was on a Move streak with my Apple Watch and I didn't want to lose my activity progress for that day whatsoever. I knew I didn't lose any pictures, just had the inconvenience of them being out of order, so I said f*ck it, I would deal. And eventually (2 weeks later), found the idea to use the duplicate feature. I still don't recommend the other solution with Terminal as all it did was force Photos to rebuild the SQL database which is what I believe the crash of the App caused in the first place.
 
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