iCloud Photo Library - issue resolved

[sdilley14]

I was having some issues with iCloud Photo Library the other day. For some reason, about half of the images I had stored on IPL went from being regular, full-res images to compressed, low-res images. I have "optimization" turned on on my iPhone, so I'm guessing somewhere along the way the system got "confused" and replaced some of my full-res photos stored in the cloud with the "optimized" versions.

Prior to this I was using IPL perfeclty fine for about a week - no issues.

Fortunately, I also had all of my images stored in a Photo Stream. All of the images stored in my Photo Stream were exactly what they should be - full resolution.

So, I went through and manually selected each of my 430 photos stored in my Photo Stream and downloaded them to my Camera Roll on my iPhone.

Next, I went into iPhone Settings > iCloud > Photos, and disabled iCloud Photo Library. I selected to "Remove" all of the optimized photos.

I then went into my iCloud Photo Library account via web browser, manually selected each photo, and deleted them all.

Then I went into my iPhone Settings > iCloud > Photos, and enabled iCloud Photo Library. I selected the "Optimize" settings.

All of the images from my Camera Roll uploaded to iCloud Photo Library. I did a check and the images that were showing as compressed in IPL are now full-res again.

As a fail-safe I'm going to keep my Photo Stream enabled (for as long as Apple supports it and keeps it alive). I just don't trust IPL enough yet to rely on it to safely store all of my full-res images.

 

[macduke]

I was having some issues with iCloud Photo Library the other day. For some reason, about half of the images I had stored on IPL went from being regular, full-res images to compressed, low-res images. I have "optimization" turned on on my iPhone, so I'm guessing somewhere along the way the system got "confused" and replaced some of my full-res photos stored in the cloud with the "optimized" versions.

Prior to this I was using IPL perfeclty fine for about a week - no issues.

Fortunately, I also had all of my images stored in a Photo Stream. All of the images stored in my Photo Stream were exactly what they should be - full resolution.

So, I went through and manually selected each of my 430 photos stored in my Photo Stream and downloaded them to my Camera Roll on my iPhone.

Next, I went into iPhone Settings > iCloud > Photos, and disabled iCloud Photo Library. I selected to "Remove" all of the optimized photos.

I then went into my iCloud Photo Library account via web browser, manually selected each photo, and deleted them all.

Then I went into my iPhone Settings > iCloud > Photos, and enabled iCloud Photo Library. I selected the "Optimize" settings.

All of the images from my Camera Roll uploaded to iCloud Photo Library. I did a check and the images that were showing as compressed in IPL are now full-res again.

As a fail-safe I'm going to keep my Photo Stream enabled (for as long as Apple supports it and keeps it alive). I just don't trust IPL enough yet to rely on it to safely store all of my full-res images.

I finally turned this on the other day when I got my Air 2, and this post scares the crap out of me. I don't want to lose my high-res versions! First of all it has been saying for days that it's uploading 232 items on my iPad, and 49 items on my iPhone. In the iCloud Photo settings on my iPad it starts to show a download bar which disappears after a minute or two, but the label "Uploading 232 Items" still shows. On my iPhone the bar stays but doesn't move. Neither one says anything about downloading anything, and neither device has downloaded photos from the other one. I'm thinking it's probably best to just turn it off. I know that it's beta, but something easily available to the general public shouldn't trash data. At the worst it shouldn't sync properly between devices. But taking full res photos, downscaling them and trashing the originals? That's crazy!

 

[sdilley14]

I finally turned this on the other day when I got my Air 2, and this post scares the crap out of me. I don't want to lose my high-res versions! First of all it has been saying for days that it's uploading 232 items on my iPad, and 49 items on my iPhone. In the iCloud Photo settings on my iPad it starts to show a download bar which disappears after a minute or two, but the label "Uploading 232 Items" still shows. On my iPhone the bar stays but doesn't move. Neither one says anything about downloading anything, and neither device has downloaded photos from the other one. I'm thinking it's probably best to just turn it off. I know that it's beta, but something easily available to the general public shouldn't trash data. At the worst it shouldn't sync properly between devices. But taking full res photos, downscaling them and trashing the originals? That's crazy!

Better safe than sorry. I would just disable iCloud Photo Library for now since it sounds like you're having trouble getting the photos uploaded from each device.

I would keep "hard copies" of the photos, either on the devices or backed up on a computer, before you upload them to the cloud and delete them off your devices.

Try enabling iCloud Photo Library again, see if they upload, and check them (via web browser) to make sure the full-res photos are being held in the cloud. Even then, I would keep copies of the originals stored somewhere for a little while, at least until IPL goes from Beta to "final".

 

[crashoverride77]

I was having some issues with iCloud Photo Library the other day. For some reason, about half of the images I had stored on IPL went from being regular, full-res images to compressed, low-res images. I have "optimization" turned on on my iPhone, so I'm guessing somewhere along the way the system got "confused" and replaced some of my full-res photos stored in the cloud with the "optimized" versions.

Prior to this I was using IPL perfeclty fine for about a week - no issues.

Fortunately, I also had all of my images stored in a Photo Stream. All of the images stored in my Photo Stream were exactly what they should be - full resolution.

So, I went through and manually selected each of my 430 photos stored in my Photo Stream and downloaded them to my Camera Roll on my iPhone.

Next, I went into iPhone Settings > iCloud > Photos, and disabled iCloud Photo Library. I selected to "Remove" all of the optimized photos.

I then went into my iCloud Photo Library account via web browser, manually selected each photo, and deleted them all.

Then I went into my iPhone Settings > iCloud > Photos, and enabled iCloud Photo Library. I selected the "Optimize" settings.

All of the images from my Camera Roll uploaded to iCloud Photo Library. I did a check and the images that were showing as compressed in IPL are now full-res again.

As a fail-safe I'm going to keep my Photo Stream enabled (for as long as Apple supports it and keeps it alive). I just don't trust IPL enough yet to rely on it to safely store all of my full-res images.

There have been some glitches but it's been pretty good so far. I hope you have a backup of your photos externally since the 430 photo stream pictures you downloaded are NOT full resolution. I wonder why you said they are in full resolution. Also dont forget that they will only stay in photo stream for 30 days.

 

[Stuke00]

There have been some glitches but it's been pretty good so far. I hope you have a backup of your photos externally since the 430 photo stream pictures you downloaded are NOT full resolution. They will also only stay in photo stream for 30 days.

If you have photostream import into iphoto they are full resolution.

 

[crashoverride77]

If you have photostream import into iphoto they are full resolution.

Yeah I thought you talked about importing from iOS because you mentioned camera roll. On iOS saving from photo stream is not full resolution.
I airdropped all my photos from my Mac to my iPhone and did the IPL upload, worked quite well.

 

[iolinux333]

I watch in wonder as my photos have been appearing and disappearing, at different resolutions, completely at random, ever since ticking the beta box.

 

[macduke]

Better safe than sorry. I would just disable iCloud Photo Library for now since it sounds like you're having trouble getting the photos uploaded from each device.

I would keep "hard copies" of the photos, either on the devices or backed up on a computer, before you upload them to the cloud and delete them off your devices.

Try enabling iCloud Photo Library again, see if they upload, and check them (via web browser) to make sure the full-res photos are being held in the cloud. Even then, I would keep copies of the originals stored somewhere for a little while, at least until IPL goes from Beta to "final".

Yeah I disabled it. From what I can tell I still have the full-res photos. It's funny because before I enabled it I used DropBox camera roll sync to keep backups of my photos. But limited multitasking and spotty campus WiFi means that my photos take forever to sync to DropBox. It's a clunky solution and I was more than happy to pay $3.99/mo for a better version (I don't need 1TB of space, heck I didn't even have my 140GB filled before the upgrade). I also liked that it kept the full-res version in the cloud meaning I would have even more available space on my devices. I just don't get why Apple can't get services right? They have plenty of money and talent. How long is this thing going to be in Beta? When I login to iCloud today, iWork is still in beta, and that started back in June 2013! Siri was in beta for two years and hardly improved during that time.

 

[sdilley14]

There have been some glitches but it's been pretty good so far. I hope you have a backup of your photos externally since the 430 photo stream pictures you downloaded are NOT full resolution. I wonder why you said they are in full resolution. Also dont forget that they will only stay in photo stream for 30 days.

From what I could tell, the photos that I stored in my Photo Stream were full resolution. Or at the very least they were much larger and a better resolution than the "optimized" photos that iCloud decided to swap out on me. Does Photo Stream compress images in some way? I've never seen or read anything about that.

I was also curious about the 30 day thing. I've seen mention of that 30 day time frame before. What happens after 30 days? They just delete your photos without warning? I'll probably just get all of my photos backed up to my Mac tonight, "just in case".

 

[crashoverride77]

From what I could tell, the photos that I stored in my Photo Stream were full resolution. Or at the very least they were much larger and a better resolution than the "optimized" photos that iCloud decided to swap out on me. Does Photo Stream compress images in some way? I've never seen or read anything about that.

I was also curious about the 30 day thing. I've seen mention of that 30 day time frame before. What happens after 30 days? They just delete your photos without warning? I'll probably just get all of my photos backed up to my Mac tonight, "just in case".

Hey,
Photo stream deletes all pictures after 30 days, it does that because photo stream doesn't count towards your iCloud storage. On iOS devices photo stream also only saves the last 1000 pictures. Furthermore pictures downloaded from photo stream to an iOS device are not full resolution (http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201317 , check the 2nd last bullet point)
If you have a Mac use iPhoto to import your photo stream pictures, since on macs photo stream downloads are full resolution. You could also airdrop you pictures to your Mac and if you dont have a Mac try doing another backup somehow. Photo stream is not a permanent solution and you never know what Apple will do when IPL moves from beta to final, they might reset everyone's library. Better safe than sorry

 

[sdilley14]

Hey,
Photo stream deletes all pictures after 30 days, it does that because photo stream doesn't count towards your iCloud storage. On iOS devices photo stream also only saves the last 1000 pictures. Furthermore pictures downloaded from photo stream to an iOS device are not full resolution (http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201317 , check the 2nd last bullet point)
If you have a Mac use iPhoto to import your photo stream pictures, since on macs photo stream downloads are full resolution. You could also airdrop you pictures to your Mac and if you dont have a Mac try doing another backup somehow. Photo stream is not a permanent solution and you never know what Apple will do when IPL moves from beta to final, they might reset everyone's library. Better safe than sorry

Good info, thanks!

 

[crashoverride77]

Good info, thanks!

Your welcome

 

[sdilley14]

Hmmm...after a few days of IPL working as advertised, I'm having the same issue again - a number of my photos that are sitting in IPL were converted to smaller, compressed versions of the originals, and look like crap when I view them. What the crap?

 

[sdilley14]

I'm also not seeing an "Upload" option on the iCloud Photo Library website when I open it up on my Mac. I was hoping to just upload all of my full-res photos (again) via web browser (since there is mysteriously no option to upload to IPL directly from iPhoto). Blaaaaahhhh.