Troubling iOS 17.5 Bug Reportedly Resurfacing Old Deleted Photos

[iamgalt]

Remember, there is no such thing as “the cloud”, just someone else’s computer. Whether that computer is owned by Apple, Google, or whoever, it’s not yours. Yes, if you delete a file from the cloud, it should be deleted, period; Apple will have to answer for that. But if you’re saving your personal photos in “the cloud” just know that your photos are out there. Never trust any cloud service for storing personal files. I keep all my files and photos saved either on device, or on my home NAS, with several backups in place.

 

[antiprotest]

A few years ago my iCloud account got corrupted and my entire photo library got deleted. It was gone from iCloud, gone on all my computers. Libraries were empty. I contacted Apple and after some troubleshooting and deep verification of who I was the person who was helping me said Ok I am going to undelete all your photos. Sure enough they all came back. So, even after deleted, Apple still can bring them back. Deleted is not deleted. Which makes sense that Apple must run all kinds of backups and mirror servers on their systems. I imagine that nothing is ever really deleted, just removed from production servers and left on archives for legal and CYA purposes.

Privacy. That's iPhone Bull**it.

 

[jonnyb098]

Imagine the surprise all of you getting new iPad pros today are gonna have when you “restore from backup”…..

 

[btrach144]

Apple needs to treat this as a Sev 0 and have engineers working on a 17.5.1 hotfix for this issue. This is a serious bug and is going to be a massive PR issue.

 

[wayland1985]

Maybe the 100's of photos that I lost a few years ago due to "Live Photos" error will reappear?

Apple engineers at the time couldn't figure it out...

 

[IllegitimateValor]

How do you check if this has happened? Where’s the recently updated to iCloud or wherever this bug can be detected? Should be included in the article.

 

[Vetiver1]

So why are you still an Apple user if things keep getting worse and worse? Where is your red line that will make you move to Android?

So many betas and no one reported this? Developers, MacRumors denizens who love to install beta releases and complain about them, and no one reported this? Please explain. MacRumors staff didn’t report this in all the beta releases they cackled about?

An alleged, gigantic, massive, hideous bug like this supposed one surely would have been picked up and reported by any of you during the beta process, right?

No, things are not getting worse and worse, they are getting better an better with each update. Juts my opinion.

The article states "Some users running iOS 17.5 developer beta 4 earlier reported similar experiences". So if it was reported to Apple they either ignored it or didn't think it was a big enough issue to further investigate.

 

[Dreamweaver12]

Interesting. Does anyone else have this issue with deleted messages? I use Messages in iCloud. I have Advanced Data Protection enabled (all my iCloud data is end to end encrypted). Sometimes I delete messages. Then I delete them from "Deleted Messages", thereby permanently deleting them. 6 months later, they still come up in my deleted messages, fully capable of being restored.

 

[egorFiNE]

About a dozen pics resurfaced on my phone after the update. I have changed phones like three times over and I have never used any cloud photo service from Apple.

Scary it is.

 

[Fky]

Interesting. Does anyone else have this issue with deleted messages? I use Messages in iCloud. I have Advanced Data Protection enabled (all my iCloud data is end to end encrypted). Sometimes I delete messages. Then I delete them from "Deleted Messages", thereby permanently deleting them. 6 months later, they still come up in my deleted messages, fully capable of being restored.

Yes same issue, as stated earlier.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Users are reporting that years old deleted photos are being restored on new phones that have nothing to do with the original photo or deletion request, so the "cached" explanation doesn't quite stand up in my view. The only explanation is that Apple does not delete photos from their servers even when users delete them, for a reason yet unknown.

Could be a remnant from when Apple was all gung ho on iCloud CSAM detection.

 

[NMBob]

"Your privacy is in our DNA", or something like that.

 

[seek3r]

Apple's priorities under Cook have strayed over the years, unfortunately. From a failed decade-long car project to woke political garbage, it's no wonder we're seeing cracks in quality.

There is no such thing as software that doesnt have bugs

the car project was started under Jobs not Cook and it likely yielded a lot of useful work on AI, image recognition and other ML tools, carplay work, and other things. Also not every corporate project is a success (and yes, I’ve worked for big corps in R&D, you might be surprised at how much gets piles of money poured in and then shelved, have to take risks with new things) and R&D is pretty easy to write off corp taxes

“Woke garbage” is such a unique and variable phrase that basically means “whatever the OP doesnt like, usually some form of actual, god forbid, diversity in some form”

As for cracks in quality I guess you dont remember some of the OS releases I do, like the initial release of Leopard, a release so bad Snow Leopard was needed as Apple did an entire year of bug and performance fixes. And that was under Jobs

Tl;dr you’re weirdly arrogantly wrong about everything in your comment

 

[robantonelli]

More troubling is that this is a known bug throughout the beta cycle and they haven’t fixed it yet. I know it’s known because I submitted this bug to Apple at the beginning of April and have updated the ticket 4 times since then with each subsequent release of a new build. They have never responded to my ticket despite screen shots and screen recordings proving the bug’s existence and they never fixed the problem. Unfortunately apples software has gotten to the point where they will ship pretty much anything and will generally fix major problems when sites like MacRumors report on it. Same thing is happening with the “low volume alarm bug”. Submitted feedback on that back last year and they still haven’t fixed it.

 

[victorvictoria]

I haven't seen any evidence since updating.

 

[Populus]

About a dozen pics resurfaced on my phone after the update. I have changed phones like three times over and I have never used any cloud photo service from Apple.

Scary it is.

You mean… that those photos resurfaced on a different iPhone that they were taken, and you also have iCloud Photos deactivated? Did you have it deactivated as well on the device where you took them? I ask because it is on by default when you set up a device as new.

 

[seek3r]

I wonder if this was actually a fix for a bug with local library deletion, which we know can happen if the db gets damaged, but instead of purging the files that were supposed to be deleted it surfaced them and re-uploaded them. That would also explain the icloud timestamps

 

[bLackjackj]

This is a MAJOR breach. “Deleted” must be “DELETED”! If the photos are resurfacing that means that Apple is somehow storing these photos illegally.

Apple doesn't handle storage for icloud, Google handles data storage.

Apple confirms it uses Google's cloud for iCloud

A document contains Apple's first public acknowledgment that it is storing data for its iCloud services in Google's data centers.

www.cnbc.com

 

[MacLawyer]

Wife: So who is this woman????? Me: Honey, I deleted her long ago. Wife: 🤨

 

[seek3r]

Apple doesn't handle storage for icloud, Google handles data storage.

Apple confirms it uses Google's cloud for iCloud

A document contains Apple's first public acknowledgment that it is storing data for its iCloud services in Google's data centers.

www.cnbc.com

Based on how the upload is timestamped as new in icloud I’d bet this is a local-to-device issue, not icloud. I’d also expect the issue to be vastly more widespread if it were icloud

 

[JohannesO]

I have Advanced Data Protection enabled (all my iCloud data is end to end encrypted).

So you don't use

• iCloud Mail?
• Contacts?
• Calendars?

iCloud data security overview - Apple Support

iCloud uses strong security methods, employs strict policies to protect your information, and leads the industry in using privacy-preserving security technologies like end-to-end encryption for your data.

support.apple.com

 

[aloysiusfreeman]

No way an excuse for Apple, but with the amount of constant bugs and notifications from CISA on numerous applications this paints a more global issue with everything in the tech industry - for that matter any industry. Seems quality everywhere is going out the window in order to pinch pennies and push out a product.

 

[sw1tcher]

WOW.

This is a MAJOR breach. “Deleted” must be “DELETED”! If the photos are resurfacing that means that Apple is somehow storing these photos illegally.

Doesn't Apple use Google Cloud as their cloud provider?

Maybe this isn't an Apple issue but rather an Alphabet/Google Cloud issue.

Apple is now Google's largest corporate customer for cloud storage | AppleInsider

Apple has dramatically increased the amount of data that it stores on Google's cloud services, suggesting that its storage needs have grown faster than it can handle with its own servers.

appleinsider.com

 

[bobbie424242]

"What is not on your iPhone stays on your iPhone"

 

[antiprotest]

I'm curious to know how the pictures were originally delivered to the users in question. Did they take them with their own phones or perhaps were they sent to them via Messages. If the later, what sort of message retention do they have set (30 days, 1 year, forever)?

Could it be possible that the "Shared With You" option got flipped ON for Photos? (I had turned it off myself but now see it's back ON after the installation of 17.5.)

I only keep messages for 30 days so I don't foresee this as an issue for me, but may be worth checking for others.

Several of my 2022 pictures got moved to the most recent positions. They were downloaded from Safari, never deleted, and never shared to another app. It seems that this bug is happening in more than one way.