iPhone re-uploading entire iCloud Photo Library. Again!

[loyking]

Long story short: rather than mess with manually deleting pics from your phone - even while iCloud Photo Library is disabled! - it's probably easier/safer/faster to just restore your phone. Also, good job, Apple!

Looks like I’m heading down the same route too. Did your health and activity data just synced once you logged into iCloud? That’s the main thing that’s holding me back. And you are right about the iMessages too but like you, I’ve got copies of the messages on my other devices.

 

[loyking]

Anyway, I got tired of waiting on mine (36 hours into it, and it had only managed to process 300 pics or so) so I made a 'restore checklist' and by getting the timing/sequence right, I was able to get everything done - manually! - in about an hour (fifteen steps, on my list) ... So I set the phone up as new (not restoring from a backup) and re-paired my Apple Watch; fortunately Apple has made health and activity data sync with iCloud now so I got all of that back, and my photos have synced just fine. The folders and albums appeared last, but they did appear and are full now, and my keywords are still there as well so that's good. Basically the only thing I lost, through this method, were my iMessages - but they're on my iPad and iMac, so whenever Apple gets around to enabling iMessage in the Cloud, they'll sync.

I got off the phone with Apple Support and they are as puzzled as I am why this issue should happen. One of the things they are convinced about is that the iCloud Photo Library should not be at fault here since it works fine on all the other devices. So the issue lies with my phone. They have suggested that I try setting the phone up as new to see if it resolves the problem and if it does, to get back to them to see how they can restore a backup of my phone and still have iCloud Photo Library work. Could you share with me the fifteen steps on your list?

Thanks in advance!

 

[mavis]

I got off the phone with Apple Support and they are as puzzled as I am why this issue should happen. One of the things they are convinced about is that the iCloud Photo Library should not be at fault here since it works fine on all the other devices. So the issue lies with my phone. They have suggested that I try setting the phone up as new to see if it resolves the problem and if it does, to get back to them to see how they can restore a backup of my phone and still have iCloud Photo Library work. Could you share with me the fifteen steps on your list?

Thanks in advance!

Sure, I'd be happy to! I'm afraid most of it is probably not relevant to you - the hassle I go through whenever I restore a phone or set up as new is mostly due to the fact that I have three Apple IDs: one for iCloud stuff, one for US iTunes purchases and Apple Music, and one for Japanese iTunes, because there are a number of apps (for example, carrier apps, etc) that I can only get from the Japanese iTunes Store.

Here are the steps I put together - following this checklist made the entire process fairly "simple" ...

• Transfer Suica (Japanese train pass) from Apple Watch back to iPhone
• Unpair Apple Watch
• Backup Line (texting app, like WhatsApp)
• Backup iPhone
• Reboot
• Backup again (just in case)
• Confirm iCloud backup time stamp

• Erase all content and settings.

• Restore phone

• Set up as new iPhone; Region: Japan, separate AppleIDs for iCloud and iTunes, and start with Japanese iTunes!!
• Download Japanese apps
• Add Suica cards to Wallet
• Switch to US Region
• Change clock back to 24h (personal preference).
• Add Japanese keyboard
• Sign into US iTunes, begin installing apps.
• Check to make sure Health and Activity data have synced, and then pair Apple Watch.
• After pairing process is complete, change name of Apple Watch to something unique (can be changed after the following steps)
• Rename iPhone in Settings/General/About to something unique (can be changed after following step)
• Go into Health app, select activities one by one (steps, distance walking/running, etc) and move newly named iPhone and AW to top of list.
• Go back into Settings/General/About and name devices as desired.
• Transfer Suica card back to AW

Done. Well, there's a ton of small settings that need to be re-done - home screen organization, turning reachability back on, setting wallpaper, changing text size, Do Not Disturb schedule, Night Shift, etc ... Took me about an hour or two to get it 90% done. Also need to re-customize the AW, so it does take a while.

Looks like I’m heading down the same route too. Did your health and activity data just synced once you logged into iCloud? That’s the main thing that’s holding me back. And you are right about the iMessages too but like you, I’ve got copies of the messages on my other devices.

Yes, that stuff syncs even on a clean install - as of iOS11, it all gets saved to iCloud! Very cool.

 

[mman454]

Given the number of people that have had issues with albums disappearing I HIGHLY suggest calling apple to have the issue escalated to tier 2 support where they can file a ticket with the iCloud engineers. They will probably rebuild your photos database. From what others are saying here, this WILL NOT BRING BACK YOUR ALBUMS, but it will get your case added to some list of statistics.

I would also submit a bug report from the developer page (you don’t need a developer account to do this).

 

[high3r]

This first happened to me back in iOS 9 and it occurs randomly every few months. The fastest way for me solve this was to disable iCloud Photo Library on my iPhone and delete all the photos manually Moment by Moment because iOS is so fu++ing advanced that it doesn't have a "delete all" button. Then re-enable iCloud Photo Library with Download Originals enabled. My Library is around 70 gigs so it took around 2-3 hours to download my whole Library on my 60mbit connect. However lately I ONLY get 5 mbit/s from iCloud no matter what while I get full speed to everywhere else.

Apple is going downhill. Software is plagued with errors, iCloud infrastructure is crap compared to other cloud providers and you still get 5gb free iCloud storage no matter how many devices you have on your account. For me iCloud Library is still in ALPHA status and I wonder if it ever gets better but I doubt it now considering how many years have passed since its introduction.

 

[loyking]

Sure, I'd be happy to! I'm afraid most of it is probably not relevant to you ...

Yes, that stuff syncs even on a clean install - as of iOS11, it all gets saved to iCloud! Very cool.

Thanks for the tips! I managed to set up my iPhone from clean along similar lines. I have iTunes accounts in Singapore, UK and USA. Most of the things that I have on the UK and USA accounts are already in the Singapore store so with the exception of some tv shows and books I purchased while I was living in the UK. I managed to get the majority of my phone back (including a working iCloud Photo Library) within a couple of hours. An overnight sync restored most of my data on the cloud (including the health data). I’m surprised at how much I was able to build back up from scratch with my Apple ID including the credit card info on Apple Pay. Like you said, the only thing that is missing most are old SMS messages but I’ve got a copy of them on my iPad and iMac for reference if I ever need them. Considering that I’ve not really done a clean install for the past four years or so (previously on iPhone 5S and then the 6S), I was amazed at the ease I managed to get my phone up and running almost without missing too much of a bit. But really, Apple shouldn’t be making it so hard to with iCloud Photos in the first place

 

[joonahe]

Thank you all for the info in this thread. Helped a lot.

I got this problem recently after updating my iPhone X to iOS 11.2.6. My photo library is quite large (almost 70 000 photos + thousands of videos), and iPhone was totally stuck trying to upload everything. My iPhone was set to optimize storage in iCloud Photo Library settings.

I did a full restore on my iPhone and have now restored from the most recent iCloud backup. Seems to work ok, for now. Let's hope it lasts.

 

[4492865]

Have had several problems like this as well. Whatever you do, don't delete albums from the phone. When you disable photo library on the phone, most of your photos will be deleted after a while, but albums won't. You can remove remaining photo's from the phone, but not albums. If you do, the phone will delete the albums from iCloud too once you enable icloud photo library again. It shouldn't, but it does.

 

[petererr]

2021 now and tring to migrating from iPhone 11 to 12, iCloud is still having the exact same issue.

**** you Apple.