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Forum Discussion
Photo backup on iPhone isn’t working
I’ve been using Dropbox to backup my iPhone and noticed recently it’s been really slow. Last night I went to back it up again but it just said it was starting photo backup, but it still hasn’t found ...
Ákos M. , glad it’s not just me. Please let me know if yours gets sorted, I haven’t gotten any further with it myself
I'm also experiencing this "starting photo backup" "looking for photos" issue since an app update a few days ago. The process was so stable prior to the app update that I used it as my primary way to move photos from phone to internet, I hope they can get this figured out ASAP.
- Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
- Unfortunately did not help, i checked my GFs phone as well, it’s not working for her either, but on her iPad the app was not yet updated and it’s working fine there, so this seems to be an issue with the latest app update.
So what did work for me was signing out of the app, restarting my phone, and signing in again. After I signed in again, I was re-onboarded to turn on photo backups and there appeared to be 4 new settings related to that process. It may be that the update isn't gracefully handling the inclusion of those settings, especially because it now defaults to 'back up new photos since photo backup was enabled' rather than backup all photos.
- Evan P.4, can you link a screenshot of your photo backup settings after updating? I tried just what you said and at first the photo backup settings did seem to be different, but after closing the app it went back to the same layout / not working. Thanks
Also Megan, that didn’t work for me unfortunately. Currently just have to log in and out for it to upload my photos and videos so it does seem likely it’s to do with the update but doesn’t explain why it would lag before then - I also logged out and back in again. It works after logging in until I close the app, after reopening, the error is back.
I also noticed that after login, when it’s working, the layout of the Photos tab is the same one I’m used too. When it stops working, the layout slightly changes (different font size, icon and wording on the Photos tab). It looks like if some sort of beta feature was switched on… - MeganEm_6 & Ákos M., I appreciate the info!
Also, Ákos M. great work on your troubleshooting skills! When you see the error message, is the app up to date with your Camera uploads?
Let's check one more thing, Em_6. Can you please ensure that background uploading is enabled? Here's how:
- Open the Dropbox app
- Tap the ‘Account’ tab
- Press Camera Uploads
- Ensure ‘Background Uploading’ is On
Thank you both! The *only* way to get this new version to sync properly for me is to log out, log in, re-set all the photo backup, background, videos etc etc settings. Then it works until I leave the app (background upload set or not, doesn't matter).
When I go back in it after adding a new image, it just says "Starting photo backup. Looking for photos...", but it never actually does anything. Been messing with this off and on since this last update a few days ago.
Dropbox team, this is happening to several people here, obviously. I've updated to the latest IOS, rebooted, deleted the app and rebooted and re-installed, turned of every possible option available in Dropbox/Account area, and in settings (except for auto update of the app). Nothing works except logging out. logging in, and then going through all the steps. Yeah, that's not going to be a thing that I'll be doing much longer. So let's focus on this problem, ok?
IOS: 14.5
iPhone 7 Plus
256 Gig, 68 Gig available
- Megan I’ve tried that, on or off doesn’t make a difference. It’s the same for me BuckWebb. And we’re both on iPhone 7, don’t know about the others here though.
I’ve been in contact with somebody through reporting a bug on the AppStore and tried clearing the cache, uninstalling the app and reinstalling as they suggested. That doesn’t work either. Waiting to hear back from their team.
This has to be something to do with the app because everything that has been suggested either doesn’t work or only works after signing out and back in. That’s the ONLY thing that’s letting me backup my phone and has only been an issue since the update.
Thanks for your time replying though, appreciate it. - To anybody who it works for ONLY after signing in & out, have you noticed any lagging / change in upload patterns? For me it used to upload photos then videos last but now it uploads randomly and still lags and gets glitchy.
Thanks
Ákos M. Evan P.4 BuckWebb } since you guys have been having problems too - It is not nearly as responsive, in terms of noticing new photos and uploading them.
Once it starts uploading it does them about as fast as in the past.
The startup phase seems to be where it is now much much slower. I could deal with that if it were reliable.
I can say that it has gone two days where I haven’t had to log out and back in every time and it does eventually do it.
I just tested it with a photo and it took about 30 seconds after “looking for photos” to find it and then quickly upload it.
It feels like the message is misleading - they have changed it to not consume a lot of battery so it is doing a lot more stuff that it’s not telling us, but leaving the message.
It’s a mess. I also had the 'iPhone not backing up my new photos' issue after I updated to the most recent version. I had done lots of things over a week or so. After reading this thread I signed/out in and it now works. Hurrah. The last message I got before reading this forum was
'Dropbox photo backup stopped working Contact Dropbox to fix it'
Which would seem to imply it was more than just an authentication issue.
- It has become more reliable over time. And the weird pause thing is much less now. I’m guessing that it is unreliable for a few days at first because though it says it is looking for photos, in fact it is doing something else - indexing, building a local DB, checksum, etc. because it is happy now.
Like Rob above, I'm now receiving "Dropbox photo backup stopped working Contact Dropbox to fix it". I had 28 images/movies to upload, and the error happened after it finished syncing the first movie. After restarting the app the other 27 images were no longer recognized as being in queue to be uploaded. Ended up having to text them to myself on a Mac - definitely would love this issue resolved ASAP.
- Aannndd, my Dropbox just gave me the Dropbox has stopped working, contact support message. Grr
- Does anybody know how long it’s meant to take to hear back from the specialist team? I was put through to them a week ago, heard from somebody and then there’s been nothing since. Spoke to somebody else who chased it up and was meant to hear back from them yesterday but didn’t.
Mine stopped working again 😞
Really happy to have found this thread. All the issues that are covered here are the same ones I've been experiencing since late March. My assumption was that it would have been resolved by now through some sort of update, but apparently not.
I was able to enable camera uploads after logging out and logging in again, but that functionality stopped after closing the app. The only way to make sure all your most recent photos are being updates is to log out, log back in, and then keep the app open. And don't get me started on "background uploading" - this feature has never worked for me. The only way to back up photos through dropbox is to keep the app open (and by open, I mean never locking the screen and keeping it on Dropbox).
Why is this issue still happening after weeks and weeks?
- Megan
Hey k_svensson, I'm sorry to hear about this.
Please let me know if we can reach out to your email address associated with your profile.
I'd love to take a closer look into this with you.
Thanks!
