i Phone X cannot import photos -device is locked

Well.. accidentally sent this first from a different account that I didn’t realize was logged into my phone. And once fixed, now my post seems to have vanished. soooo... trying again, from my proper account now:

I have a solution that I *THINK* may work for everyone. If all of the above haven’t worked for you, give it a try.

Yesterday I was importing photos via Dropbox, just fine. I had to leave the house before the import finished, and took my phone.

When I tried again today, suddenly it was telling me the device was locked. Now, yesterday, it gave me that message ONCE, and my phone WAS locked, so I unlocked it, and it proceeded without a problem.

Today it was insisting that my phone was locked, even as I scrolled through my photos.

Here are my tech specs, and the list of solutions I tried, before finally getting my import working again, as of 1/16/2020:

PHONE-
iPhone Xs, 256GB capacity (with WAY too many photos, and trying to clear off my phone storage, to my Dropbox)
running iOS 13.3
Dropbox iphone app version 172.3.2

COMPUTER-
Dell Latitude E5540 laptop (old and VERY sluggish. Trying to complete import and make sure all photos are in Dropbox and not scattered/duplicated, and then swapping to new laptop).
Running Windows 7, which just became obsolete. No more windows support for windows 7, as of 1/10/2020.
Dropbox application for Windows - v88.4.172

SOLUTIONS I TRIED TODAY, THAT DID NOT WORK FOR ME:

- unplug and replug
-unplug, make sure to have photos open when plugging back in.
-unplug phone, pause syncing on computer, re-plug in, resume syncing
-plug into a different USB port, which requires “trust computer” again.
-restart computer and Phone, try all again.
-using gear icon/preferences in computer app, under import tab, change “auto play settings”, to allow to manually select “import with Dropbox” when plugging in phone. Unplug and replug with new setting. (Still failed, same error message)
-check privacy settings on my phone .. some suggested marking sure app had access to read/write. I did already, but tried turning it off, opening closing app, turning access back on, trying again. Still no dice.
-playing with iTunes: a) making sure iTunes was closed before plugging in phone, opening iTunes after. B)making sure iTunes was open before plugging in iphone, C) with both of the above, “ejecting” the iphone from iTunes app, and then trying (since now I could manually select import, AFTER trying other stuff, due to changing auto play settings.)
-locking and then unlocking phone, to see if that would fix it (since yesterday, unlocking it seemed to fix, even with auto play setting. It auto-began import after unlocking.) not today, apparently.
-opening Dropbox app on phone before (and after) plugging into computer
- make sure no other device is plugged into any other USB port at the same time (a YouTube video suggested this was the culprit for stuff not transferring. Figured maybe it would make a difference here too. But no).

Thing I did NOT try:
- I did NOT try uninstalling all traces of iTunes, as one person suggested. Mainly because I know my computer is slow and the uninstaller has always been massive PITA...
plus the people from old 2015 thread, on iPhone 5 who it worked for, said they were on a Mac. I didn’t want to go through all that work and have it not even apply.


HOWEVER, I thought I remembered something about iTunes process from yesterday; So, this last one got me thinking, and I believe I finally found the solution that is —gasp—universal? Maybe. Worked for me when literally NONE of the other solutions worked. (On a phone and computer that just yesterday was totally fine).

It is at least a solution that explains why it was fine yesterday but not today...

NEW SOLUTION WHICH WORKED FOR ME (using Windows 7):

Close all “process trees” related to iTunes AND QuickTime!! (And possibly one other app. I’ll explain. Keep reading.)

(Yes, in task manager. Find the offending processes—NOT applications, which are likely already closed—right click, choose “end process tree”. MAY work with just “end process”. I went straight for the throat. You do you.)

MUST close all processes for both. After the suggestion to uninstall/delete iTunes, I decided I could try closing all iTunes processes. Still didn’t work. Decided to browse task manager and see if I had missed one. All iTunes processes were gone, but then I remembered that QuickTime is related, and also uses phone media.

I found a whole collection of “QT” processes. Turns out some were QuickTime. Others were something like “qtwebengineprocess.exe”

I didn’t remember seeing them in my process list yesterday, so— being at my wits end, very impatient, and going full blitz... ended the process tree for the ~5 instances of that process running, as well.

Unplugged, replugged back in... AGAIN; and Suddenly it worked.

FYI— just did some quick googling to find that the qtwebengine process is nonessential, and appears connected to Dropbox. Also, in a quick search, there’s a forum question, someone asking why Dropbox installs that process.

I don’t get it.

ANYWAY, mess with ending processes via task manager at your own risk.

Now that I’ve just read what I did, I’m not sure if it was the iTunes/QuickTime processes keeping a lock on the phone? Or the qtwebengine process that was running multiple instances. Initially I was going to say it was an iTunes problem, not a Dropbox problem. But truthfully, now not sure.

Either way, closing them all (all processes under iTunes, QuickTime and qtwebengineprocess) allowed import work again, without another restart of computer or phone. Been running for a few hours. 31 minutes to go. Supposedly.

Good luck everyone!