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iCloud Photo Library Bug

JWreck

JWreck

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 23, 2016
193
104
I've recently discovered a potential bug in iCloud Photo Library - and I don't think it's a small one.

Long story short, if you select the option "Disable and Delete" on a device using iCloud Photo Library, it will disable the service and begin a countdown from 30 days to permanently delete your photos - during that time you're able to re-enable iCloud Photo Library and stop the timer.

What the bug seems to affect, however, is that if you re-enable it, it still counts down and deletes your stuff anyway. I disabled and deleted iCloud Photo Library around Jan 10, and enabled it again around Jan 12, however on Feb 10 is when I noticed my pictures were gone.

I've opened a case with Apple Support who is working with their technical teams, but it's seriously frustrating because it seems like I'll have to wipe the iCloud Photo Library and upload my pictures AGAIN, after having done this last month already.
 
JWreck said:
I've recently discovered a potential bug in iCloud Photo Library - and I don't think it's a small one.

Long story short, if you select the option "Disable and Delete" on a device using iCloud Photo Library, it will disable the service and begin a countdown from 30 days to permanently delete your photos - during that time you're able to re-enable iCloud Photo Library and stop the timer.

What the bug seems to affect, however, is that if you re-enable it, it still counts down and deletes your stuff anyway. I disabled and deleted iCloud Photo Library around Jan 10, and enabled it again around Jan 12, however on Feb 10 is when I noticed my pictures were gone.

I've opened a case with Apple Support who is working with their technical teams, but it's seriously frustrating because it seems like I'll have to wipe the iCloud Photo Library and upload my pictures AGAIN, after having done this last month already.
Click to expand...

I disabled and re-enabled iCloud Photos Library a while back... Hopefully that doesn't happen. I actually deleted everything after re-enabling and re-uploaded everything again.
 
cswifx said:
I disabled and re-enabled iCloud Photos Library a while back... Hopefully that doesn't happen. I actually deleted everything after re-enabling and re-uploaded everything again.
Click to expand...

Yep that's exactly what I did and now I'm in this situation. Make a good backup now....
 
JWreck said:
Yep that's exactly what I did and now I'm in this situation. Make a good backup now....
Click to expand...

Yeah I always select the 'Download and Keep Originals' option. I'm gonna wait a while more until the 30 days are up, hopefully the issue doesn't occur.
 
JWreck said:
I've recently discovered a potential bug in iCloud Photo Library - and I don't think it's a small one.

Long story short, if you select the option "Disable and Delete" on a device using iCloud Photo Library, it will disable the service and begin a countdown from 30 days to permanently delete your photos - during that time you're able to re-enable iCloud Photo Library and stop the timer.

What the bug seems to affect, however, is that if you re-enable it, it still counts down and deletes your stuff anyway. I disabled and deleted iCloud Photo Library around Jan 10, and enabled it again around Jan 12, however on Feb 10 is when I noticed my pictures were gone.

I've opened a case with Apple Support who is working with their technical teams, but it's seriously frustrating because it seems like I'll have to wipe the iCloud Photo Library and upload my pictures AGAIN, after having done this last month already.
Click to expand...

This happened to me as well. My photos in iCloud have changed to "Documents" and take up 66GB's. My case was forwarded to Engineering because support couldn't wipe that 66GB of docs.

IMG_0813.PNG
 
It's hard to want to continue using Apple's extended iCloud platform when there are major issues like this.
 
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JWreck said:
It's hard to want to continue using Apple's extended iCloud platform when there are major issues like this.
Click to expand...

Have your Photos also "converted" into Docs which you cannot delete therefore take up space on your iCloud storage?

Anyway, it's been two days now and I haven't heard from support or engineering. Don't know why is it complicated to delete that ghost stuff.
 
Last edited:
high3r said:
Anyway, it's been two days now and I haven't heard from support or engineering. Don't know why is it complicated to delete that ghost stuff.
Click to expand...
Probably some internal paperwork they need to do to access your data... Or you're just lower in the queue.
 
After spending months of work and uploading a library of 28000 photos to iCloud, my whole iCloud Photo Library suddenly disappeared! I didn't change any settings or moved anything at all! The iCloud space still seems to be used though and there seam to be 150 GB of documents on iCloud Drive, that didn't exist before my Photo Library disappeared...
 
I have called them yesterday and this crap is still not resolved. I think Macrumors should write about it on frontpage since it's a fu..ing bug in iCloud. Engineering came up with some terminal commands that do abosolutely nothing and my 66GB is still not released after 8 fu..ing days. Now my case is again forwarded to Engineering and I have scheduled a call back for Wednesday in the morning. I received mail about it and 10 seconds later I got another email that I have cancelled the call-back which I haven't. What the flying fu.. is going on Apple??
 
high3r said:
I have called them yesterday and this crap is still not resolved. I think Macrumors should write about it on frontpage since it's a fu..ing bug in iCloud. Engineering came up with some terminal commands that do abosolutely nothing and my 66GB is still not released after 8 fu..ing days. Now my case is again forwarded to Engineering and I have scheduled a call back for Wednesday in the morning. I received mail about it and 10 seconds later I got another email that I have cancelled the call-back which I haven't. What the flying fu.. is going on Apple??
Click to expand...

I needed my problem to be resolved and wanted to have access to my iCloud Photo Library again. Apple support promised to call back with a possible solution, instead of that they simply deleted everything...
 
W M R said:
I needed my problem to be resolved and wanted to have access to my iCloud Photo Library again. Apple support promised to call back with a possible solution, instead of that they simply deleted everything...
Click to expand...

This is very embarassing to say the least. Macrumors should write about it on the frontpage but somehow my email
to the editors are considered spam. :(
 
Just an update. I called Apple twice this week and this sh** is still unresolved. Now it's been 13 days since my iCloud Photo Library was wiped and converted to Docs due to Apple's bug and I still cannot use the whole 200GB of iCloud Storage that I subscribe for. Fu**ing hilarious. Shame on you Apple.
 
high3r said:
Just an update. I called Apple twice this week and this sh** is still unresolved. Now it's been 13 days since my iCloud Photo Library was wiped and converted to Docs due to Apple's bug and I still cannot use the whole 200GB of iCloud Storage that I subscribe for. Fu**ing hilarious. Shame on you Apple.
Click to expand...

You may want to ask them to directly transfer you to engineering. The people there may be able to help you.
 
high3r said:
Just an update. I called Apple twice this week and this sh** is still unresolved. Now it's been 13 days since my iCloud Photo Library was wiped and converted to Docs due to Apple's bug and I still cannot use the whole 200GB of iCloud Storage that I subscribe for. Fu**ing hilarious. Shame on you Apple.
Click to expand...

I talked to a senior advisor straight away and got my 200GB of iCloud storage back pretty soon. You should insist! They couldn't do anything more though and I'm very annoyed about the unreliability of iCould!
 
At last my stuck 66GB of Documents had been deleted by Apple eventhough I didn't receive any email from them saying so. If I don't check it myself then I'd probably never know. Great customer service. NOT!

Anyway I turned on iCloud Photo Library on my macbook which has the full library. It started to upload my library and considering my upload speed (4mbit/s) it went too fast. Checking Activity Monitor -» Network I saw that there was only 18GB data sent while my complete library in iCloud is 58GB. This means that 30GB must have come from some kind of cache or something as I have only uploaded 18GB.

What does it mean? Do Apple keep customer data even after deletion?
 
There's a good chance your data was still there somewhere, with the blocks marked for re-use.

Apple most likely uses deduplication in their iCloud platform. This saves bandwidth by sending a checksum of the file you're going to upload first; the server then determines if it has a copy already and if it does, the file is not uploaded and the copy they have already is used.

Either way, I suggest having your Mac download a complete copy of your iCloud Photo Library, then checking for corruption against your original data.

high3r said:
At last my stuck 66GB of Documents had been deleted by Apple eventhough I didn't receive any email from them saying so. If I don't check it myself then I'd probably never know. Great customer service. NOT!

Anyway I turned on iCloud Photo Library on my macbook which has the full library. It started to upload my library and considering my upload speed (4mbit/s) it went too fast. Checking Activity Monitor -» Network I saw that there was only 18GB data sent while my complete library in iCloud is 58GB. This means that 30GB must have come from some kind of cache or something as I have only uploaded 18GB.

What does it mean? Do Apple keep customer data even after deletion?
Click to expand...
 
zorinlynx said:
There's a good chance your data was still there somewhere, with the blocks marked for re-use.

Apple most likely uses deduplication in their iCloud platform. This saves bandwidth by sending a checksum of the file you're going to upload first; the server then determines if it has a copy already and if it does, the file is not uploaded and the copy they have already is used.

Either way, I suggest having your Mac download a complete copy of your iCloud Photo Library, then checking for corruption against your original data.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for the explanation. How I'm supposed to do that corruption check you mention?
 
high3r said:
At last my stuck 66GB of Documents had been deleted by Apple eventhough I didn't receive any email from them saying so. If I don't check it myself then I'd probably never know. Great customer service. NOT!

Anyway I turned on iCloud Photo Library on my macbook which has the full library. It started to upload my library and considering my upload speed (4mbit/s) it went too fast. Checking Activity Monitor -» Network I saw that there was only 18GB data sent while my complete library in iCloud is 58GB. This means that 30GB must have come from some kind of cache or something as I have only uploaded 18GB.

What does it mean? Do Apple keep customer data even after deletion?
Click to expand...

All my data was obviously totally deleted, because the second time uploading my photo library took as long as the first time. I do hope, Apple won't delete my library a second time without warning!...
 
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