Photos app freezes upon import / photo importing problems

The Dell blog fix worked for me but then all my pics started downloading in the .heic format after my last update.  I'm sure the high def is better but this format does not work for my needs so I had to change setting back to "automatic" so that pics would download as .jpg.  For now, the issue seems to be gone. 

I've had this problem for months and months and I've tried just about everyone's suggestions and it just still freezes up when it gets to my total pictures and does not advance to the import phase. One thing I didn't try is transferring my pictures in batches:  how do you do that? I don't see how to tell Photos (or my iPhone XR) to batch photos.  I also don't want to spend $100 to buy Adobe Photoshop Elements. This is a MICROSOFT bug; I shouldn't have to buy another company's software to fix a Microsoft bug, and I don't know if I bought Photoshop Elements that that would work in my case!  I agree with DavidEwin:  Hey Microsoft get off your butt and fix this problem!!!!!  Thanks.

I have been going through the same as all of you since last november.  I am not comfortable with making changes to the computer, so I just kept reading and reading and found anything i dared to do, did not work.

So since downloading photos is as important to you as myself....i kind of got angry. :)

I shut my iphone off while it was still plugged in and restarted it.  

The photos came up, and I chose to click on the month of May, rather than the other options, being most recent photos.

anyway, my photos downloaded!  I dont know if it was because i restarted the phone with the cable or if I chose the month of May!

Hopefully next time I will remember this!

I hope it works for you

I've been having this same problem for a long time now. It would find 3784 pictures and freeze. I was going to try resetting my iPhone to see if that would work but I tried importing with my phone off and it worked right away. I don't know if it'll help and or work for anybody else but that was my fix for it. Hopefully this helps! : )

The problem is with the April 2020 "update" MS did to the app. 

That's why some users have success when doing a System Restore - it wipes the new cr*ppy version & reinstates a working version - until Windows updates it again & then you are back to square one.

Unfortunately, even going into the \Windowsapps folder to reinstate previous versions of WindowsPhotos.exe & WindowsPhots.dll is futile, as none exist!

To verify, I plugged my phone into another old laptop that had not been updated & Photos was able to select only new photos without crashing.

Is it that difficult to release a product that has any kind of testing done to it?

The problem is with the April 2020 "update" MS did to the app. 

This thread was started in September 2019, so clearly not.

It seems to have been the September 2019 Windows 10 update that did the damage, and no subsequent update has fixed it.

Some iPhone users seems to have found ways to get around it, but for Android phone and camera users the only workaround seems to be to use File Explorer to manually transfer photos onto your computer. Once there, the Photos app will at least display them.