iOS 13 on iPhone 11 Pro Max: Photos stuck syncing

[MikeElmendorf]

Set up my new iPhone 11 Pro Max Friday.

Other than the usual iOS 13 bugginess, my photos seem to be stuck on uploading 2 items.

if I take photos on the phone, they do upload to other devices (and the count goes up and down appropriately), but there are usually 2 left. Once in a while it will show as up to date, but when I look again it is stuck at 2 again.

Any ideas?

 

[Just_Me_D]

Other than a syncing glitch, I can’t think of what could be causing it. You can try logging in to the iCloud website via a web browser to verify that the 2 photos are present. If so, they should sync to all of your connected devices like the other photos.

 

[MikeElmendorf]

Part of the problem is I have no idea what the two items are. Everything appears to be up to date other than the 2 mystery items.

 

[MikeElmendorf]

Update: This is still happening.

I've talked to Apple Support a few times and have been escalate up at least 1 or 2 levels.

They have had me turn off iCloud photos (I've done this multiple times, both telling it to download and to remove). I then turn it back on, and it spends hours syncing with iCloud, only to end up with some number of mystery photos permanently syncing. It is going through that process now.

I do have a theory I'm going to test out when this sync is done (takes about the whole day!). I am wondering if photos saved while it is going through this update are somehow not syncing correctly because they may not be full resolution on the device and perhaps iCloud is getting snagged there? It seems that the number always "updating" could be what has been added while this long process is going on. I'm going to experiment with that.

Failing that, any other ideas out there?

I'm also thinking of turning iCloud Photos off and then deleting all photos from the phone. That should then just redownload everything in iCloud (which is accurate on all other devices) to the phone, right? Is there an easy way to delete all the photos? There are like 15,000+ in the library.

Thanks.