Photos app freezes upon import / photo importing problems

Hi all,

Just to let you know that I've had the same issue for several months, including Windows Photos...

simply saying it can't find any photos on my device;

finds something but then stays a 0 for an eternity and never moves on;

finds all the photos but then freezes at that point and doesn't allow me to select the photos to download;

lets me downloads the photos (once in a blue moon) but then crashes midway through.

I've tried two different laptops and two different iPhones - same issues.

I've followed all of the solutions I've seen on this thread (well not all, I've not read all 11 pages) and none have worked for me.

While I don't have a solution to fix this issue, I have overcome it by downloading FastStone Image Viewer which is free for personal use. It only appears to download images in the device's native format (HEIC for an iPhone) but it downloads the photos the way I downloaded them in Windows 10 (organising photos in folders by date YYYY-MM-DD) and that's all I actually wanted. I never knew about HEIC and stuff like this until the problem and I must say I prefer it - saves so much on file size!

If you do download this software and want to convert the images to JPG, the software has an inbuilt batch converter but it doesn't seem to work. I've tried multiple times but it keeps failing.  However, as I'm happy to keep them as HEIC, no biggie.

One final issue - if you have the most recent update of Windows 10 (anything after October 2018, apparently) Windows Photos is supposed to have an HEIC extension installed. Even though I have this, the photos were not viewable.   A quick Google told me to install the extension from the Microsoft App store...

HEIF Image Extensions

HEVC Video Extensions from the Device Manufacturer

Note: When I tried to install the 'HEIF Image Extensions', it did say it was already installed.

Install both and you'll be able to see you images and videos.

Hope this helps until Windows Photo is fixed

SOLUTION!

Hey everyone. I have this problem since September. I tried everything and every time my Photos App freezes while it scans for import from my iPhone. 

First of all I tried the process to a new PC with the exact same windows (and photos)  version only to find out it works normally and it is not an iOS issue.

What I did is this:

Press import as normal while you remember the number that your scan freezes and press "Cancel" once, before it reaches this number. Basically, dont let it freeze and press cancel in time. If it freezes, kill the task and launch again. Just a random number before the one it freezes works. After that, press import again and you will notice that the scan number continues from the one you pressed "cancel". But this time it will reach the max number and you will get to the "choose what to import" screen. 

I tried the process  10 times exactly and it worked all times. This looks like a good workaround until the App gets fixed (maybe in November update?). Please try this and post. 

I've had this freezing problem for about 2 weeks, on two iPhones with two Windows 10 PC's. The incremental downloads had been functioning (partially) for a long time. Agree that it is a Microsoft Windows issue. 

This workaround was successful for me. I just hit Esc before it reached the photo count it was freezing on, and it went to the photos screen where you can select what to download. So until MS fixes this, I can move new photos from my iPhone to my PC. 

The reason for the partial functionality is that Windows always selected a set of old photos that had obviously been downloaded before. My workaround was to unselect ALL, then choose the ones I wanted.

SOLUTION!

Hey everyone. I have this problem since September. I tried everything and every time my Photos App freezes while it scans for import from my iPhone. 

First of all I tried the process to a new PC with the exact same windows (and photos)  version only to find out it works normally and it is not an iOS issue.

What I did is this:

Press import as normal while you remember the number that your scan freezes and press "Cancel" once, before it reaches this number. Basically, dont let it freeze and press cancel in time. If it freezes, kill the task and launch again. Just a random number before the one it freezes works. After that, press import again and you will notice that the scan number continues from the one you pressed "cancel". But this time it will reach the max number and you will get to the "choose what to import" screen. 

I tried the process  10 times exactly and it worked all times. This looks like a good workaround until the App gets fixed (maybe in November update?). Please try this and post. 

This works for me but with multiple reboots of the iPhone to get all the photos.  I had over 2500 photos to download.

My systems: Windows 10 Pro Version 1903 OS build 18362.449.  Photo App 2019.19071.17920.0.  iPhone 8 Plus with iOS 13.2.

Below are the things I have tried until I came across your solution!

1.       Updated Windows program and apps (to update apps go to MS Store and update all apps there)

2.       In Windows Apps and Features setting for Microsoft Photo and under Advanced settings, tried repair and reset the app.  It didn’t work.

3.       Updated iTunes to the latest revision

4.       Updated iPhone to the latest revision

5.       Tried different USB ports

6.       Tried to download photos from another phone (iPhone 8), with a lot fewer photos, around 700 photos) and it worked.

7.       Tried using the Windows Administrator account but still didn’t work

8.       Tried download photos using Windows Explorer and using the Import Pictures and Video right-click context menu.  This seems to work ok but had multiple errors about files not available or something like that (but doesn’t tell you which files!).

9.       Switched on iPhone Photo app settings from "Automatic" to "Keep Originals" (this will download .heic files from iPhone).  Still didn’t work.

10.   At this point, tried your solution and it worked!  Btw, using the Esc key is the same as using the Cancel button on the popup.  After the cancel, tried to download again and the Photo app was able to move on to the next step – which is to allow one to choose which photos to download.  

11.   During the download process there were numerous errors with the “Something went wrong” and to try again popup.  I had to shut down and reboot iPhone numerous times to get all the photos out.

After reading this and other threads I wasn't hopeful.

but had a thought.

I had just deleted a heap of photos, perhaps the system was jamming up because it was saving those deleted shots in case I had made an error.

this may be part of the updated photos app.

After emptying the recycle bin I was able to import 2047 images without issue.

given my system has 16gb ram and tons of processor speed these issues rarely present for me.

try it....

I have the same problem but unlike most of these comments, not with an iPhone but two different Samsung phones.