Hello everyone, I am having some issues with my iPhone 11 Pro Max that I am hoping I can get some help with. For the past couple days, I have noticed a steady decline in the operation of my iPhone leading to today, where most functions are not even able to be completed. I have the 64GB model (mistake #1, lol) and I got the dreaded "Storage is Full" message a couple days ago.
I do a lot of photography and record lots of videos, so my first instinct was to upload some photos to cloud storage and delete them from my phone. When I select whatever media I would like to delete and click the delete button, one of three things happens. My phone will either:
A) Bring up the conformation dialog box and ask if I am sure I want to delete these items, as normal. When I click delete to confirm, the dialog box goes away, the photos stay selected, but they don't ever actually delete. The screen doesn't freeze, per se, but the photos remain selected and eventually the app crashes or I close out.
B) Confirmation box appears, I choose delete, and the photos and videos will disappear from my camera roll, making me think they were successfully deleted. Then, I reopen the Photos app, and they reappear in my camera roll.
C) I click the delete button and nothing happens at all. The icon does dim as it normally does when clicked, but the dialog box doesn't come up at all and the items do not delete.
Same goes for my Recently Deleted folder, I am not able to empty this out either.
I have since noticed a few other issues that have arisen. When I try to screenshot or screen record, it is very hit or miss. Sometimes it functions as normal, and other times it does not. I will take a screenshot, the image preview appears in the bottom left corner of my screen, but it does not save to my camera roll. When I try to screen record, the same UI change happens as normal with the red fill of the time at the top left corner of the screen, but when I stop recording the video is not in my camera roll.
The apps that I have running in the background immediately close. For example, I can open one of the photo editing apps that I have and begin working on an edit, then open another app to look at a reference image, and return to the original app I was using seconds later, and it has completely reboots the app as if it was closed out and all of the work I was doing is lost. This is the case for any apps that I use, as soon as I open another app the background app. I have Background App Refresh turned on, and my device is not running in Low Power Mode. This issue comes and goes, but is the case more often than not and makes it very difficult to complete the tasks that I essentially purchased the phone for.
In hopes of solving the issue, I upgraded my iCloud Storage today. I use another cloud storage app, but since deleting isn't working, my next course of action was to hopefully offload pictures and videos using my iCloud Photo Library. As luck would have it, this is not working either. After uploading to iCloud, these photos and videos are still taking up the same amount of storage on my iPhone and I still am unable to delete anything.
I am not able to perform an over-the-air software update because my phone does not have enough storage. I have offloaded the majority of the apps on my phone, but with the Documents and Data that I cannot afford to lose, I wasn't able to get down to enough space. I downloaded the update on my MacBook Pro and when I went to install, it remained stuck on the "preparing to update" stage for about an hour and still has not begun.
I launched a chat with Apple Support, and after about an hour with them, I began a Diagnostics evaluation that will take 24 hours to complete. The agent that I spoke with was very courteous and helpful, but essentially had no known solution beyond evaluating the results they receive tomorrow and/or sending my phone in to be checked in-house. I was given a direct link to a representative and told to contact if my issues aren't resolved over the next few days.
I am currently backing my data up in case I have to face my last resort, a factory reset, but I am turning here first in hopes of someone being able to suggest some troubleshooting options that will work for me. Thanks in advance to anyone who has any suggestions!
EDIT: Another random issue, but my network connectivity has been really off as well. Sometimes videos through Safari would not load at all, and when they do it takes a few minutes to load what would normally begin instantaneously for me under normal conditions. I have also noticed that album artwork is not appearing for the majority of my Apple Music Library. Not sure if these are related, but figured I'd add since they popped into my head.
I do a lot of photography and record lots of videos, so my first instinct was to upload some photos to cloud storage and delete them from my phone. When I select whatever media I would like to delete and click the delete button, one of three things happens. My phone will either:
A) Bring up the conformation dialog box and ask if I am sure I want to delete these items, as normal. When I click delete to confirm, the dialog box goes away, the photos stay selected, but they don't ever actually delete. The screen doesn't freeze, per se, but the photos remain selected and eventually the app crashes or I close out.
B) Confirmation box appears, I choose delete, and the photos and videos will disappear from my camera roll, making me think they were successfully deleted. Then, I reopen the Photos app, and they reappear in my camera roll.
C) I click the delete button and nothing happens at all. The icon does dim as it normally does when clicked, but the dialog box doesn't come up at all and the items do not delete.
Same goes for my Recently Deleted folder, I am not able to empty this out either.
I have since noticed a few other issues that have arisen. When I try to screenshot or screen record, it is very hit or miss. Sometimes it functions as normal, and other times it does not. I will take a screenshot, the image preview appears in the bottom left corner of my screen, but it does not save to my camera roll. When I try to screen record, the same UI change happens as normal with the red fill of the time at the top left corner of the screen, but when I stop recording the video is not in my camera roll.
The apps that I have running in the background immediately close. For example, I can open one of the photo editing apps that I have and begin working on an edit, then open another app to look at a reference image, and return to the original app I was using seconds later, and it has completely reboots the app as if it was closed out and all of the work I was doing is lost. This is the case for any apps that I use, as soon as I open another app the background app. I have Background App Refresh turned on, and my device is not running in Low Power Mode. This issue comes and goes, but is the case more often than not and makes it very difficult to complete the tasks that I essentially purchased the phone for.
In hopes of solving the issue, I upgraded my iCloud Storage today. I use another cloud storage app, but since deleting isn't working, my next course of action was to hopefully offload pictures and videos using my iCloud Photo Library. As luck would have it, this is not working either. After uploading to iCloud, these photos and videos are still taking up the same amount of storage on my iPhone and I still am unable to delete anything.
I am not able to perform an over-the-air software update because my phone does not have enough storage. I have offloaded the majority of the apps on my phone, but with the Documents and Data that I cannot afford to lose, I wasn't able to get down to enough space. I downloaded the update on my MacBook Pro and when I went to install, it remained stuck on the "preparing to update" stage for about an hour and still has not begun.
I launched a chat with Apple Support, and after about an hour with them, I began a Diagnostics evaluation that will take 24 hours to complete. The agent that I spoke with was very courteous and helpful, but essentially had no known solution beyond evaluating the results they receive tomorrow and/or sending my phone in to be checked in-house. I was given a direct link to a representative and told to contact if my issues aren't resolved over the next few days.
I am currently backing my data up in case I have to face my last resort, a factory reset, but I am turning here first in hopes of someone being able to suggest some troubleshooting options that will work for me. Thanks in advance to anyone who has any suggestions!
EDIT: Another random issue, but my network connectivity has been really off as well. Sometimes videos through Safari would not load at all, and when they do it takes a few minutes to load what would normally begin instantaneously for me under normal conditions. I have also noticed that album artwork is not appearing for the majority of my Apple Music Library. Not sure if these are related, but figured I'd add since they popped into my head.
Last edited:
