iOS 12.1.4 - iPhone Photos app stuck on uploading after restore

[iMore Question]

I know this kind of question has been asked a lot through the Internet but I’ve not found any one with my exact same issue.
I substituted my iPhone after an accident which got its camera destroyed and I restored it from the iTunes backup made the night before.
I bought a 256gb iPhone to always have my entire photo library on the device (as you know, turning on Optimize always cancels the pictures as soon as you have seen them) so the backup contained those pictures as well.

Since then, the Photos app is stuck on 11.800 pictures and it is not uploading new ones to iCloud nor downloading new ones I may have taken on my iPad or uploaded on my Mac.

The Apple support made me:
1) power off/on the device
2) turn off/on the iCloud Photo Library
3) sign out/in to iCloud account
Nothing helped... they just told me to wait 72h because that is the amount of time an account with more than 50gb takes to synchronise!

Apart from this, my iPhone (which had Camera Roll switched off for iCloud backups before restoring) made up a 45gb backup into iCloud Drive containing all the pictures in camera roll (which had been restored from iTunes backup). I obviously cancelled that backup and turned off that feature. Now I see my iCloud Drive folder with 15gb extra data which I cannot identify and the iPhone still locked on uploading almost 12.000 items.

How can’t it see they are all already in the Cloud?
What can I do? I’m getting crazy about this here...

Thank you so much

 

[Tartarus]

iCloud Photo Library only updates when the iPhone is idle and on WiFi and on charger.
My advice is to leave the device on charger during nights with WiFi enabled.

 

[NotationMaster]

Thank you. I did that yesterday and the night before but then it got stuck. Do you think it’s normal? Should I restore from iCloud backup in the future instead? Or configure it as new?

 

[Tartarus]

Thank you. I did that yesterday and the night before but then it got stuck. Do you think it’s normal? Should I restore from iCloud backup in the future instead? Or configure it as new?

I just know it takes time and that iCloud Photo Library has it’s own weirdness happening. I learned to give it time and count on it working after a few days.

 

[NotationMaster]

After a whole night it went from about 11800 to 9500, then jumped to 8511, then got stuck there for a couple of hours and now it is 8513... also, the device is not backing up to iCloud even if it was plugged and all the rest. Still all normal?

 

[Tartarus]

After a whole night it went from about 11800 to 9500, then jumped to 8511, then got stuck there for a couple of hours and now it is 8513... also, the device is not backing up to iCloud even if it was plugged and all the rest. Still all normal?

Looks like there is progress. Leave it be for the time being.
The more you look at it, the slower it will go

 

[Annie_M]

Looks like there is progress. Leave it be for the time being.
The more you look at it, the slower it will go

Right, remember the saying “a watched pot never boils...”!!!!!

 

[NotationMaster]

Just to update: almost 10 hrs later, still connected, not looked at it... still at 8513...
Very tempted to restore as new... very fed up with this lack of quality of service.
I’d rather know iCloud Photo Library is not a reliable service and save my photos somewhere else but the hard truth is that at the Apple Store they didn’t know that this kind of backup would have caused this, they didn’t even know that new devices come with 12.0 while my backup had 12.1.4 so they had to put the phone in recovery mode to update it...
Crazy bad service...and wait, I’m a total enthusiast of Apple products and ecosystem, but this is just pain...

 

[Tartarus]

Just to update: almost 10 hrs later, still connected, not looked at it... still at 8513...
Very tempted to restore as new... very fed up with this lack of quality of service.
I’d rather know iCloud Photo Library is not a reliable service and save my photos somewhere else but the hard truth is that at the Apple Store they didn’t know that this kind of backup would have caused this, they didn’t even know that new devices come with 12.0 while my backup had 12.1.4 so they had to put the phone in recovery mode to update it...
Crazy bad service...and wait, I’m a total enthusiast of Apple products and ecosystem, but this is just pain...

I’m sorry this is happening to you. Hopefully it will get fixed soon, because, frankly, I’m all out of suggestions.