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defaultajlwgknmv27q
Participating Frequently
November 3, 2022
Answered

Cannot download photos from a phone or a camera

  • November 3, 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 1072 views

I have never been able to successfully download my photos directly from the camera, or from the phone. The camera I have to take the chip out and put this in the PC, then it works. The phone... only downloads one or two photos then I get the below error. I have tried different cables, different connection profiles (eg media, mass storage) also Ive had new phones and still the same problem. The computer is adequately specified. I have elements 2021. Am I supposed to pay out for the next version for this to work? Does it ewven work anyway, the new version?

 

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Correct answer MichelBParis

I think that my recent history with Samsung phones may help you.

For some years, I stopped using card readers for the phone and I found two ways to connect my Samsung S8 and my wife's S7 without a cable, directly from Dropbox or Google Photos. That's what I would recommend now, here is why.

 I had to change my ageing S8 because the USB socket failed;  not a rare occurence described on the Web. No way to charge the phone as I was not aware of the ability to charge via an induction charger. So I bought a Samsung A53 and asked the dealer to migrate my data while I still had enough charge level. This also prevented me to use a cable. Also it was time to get a new battery.

Big problem in the migration. I had a big micro SD card where I had stored many files from my other cameras. I had also set the phone to store my phone photos on the SD card. This meant that the transfer could not be  processed in a couple of hours, that required nearly a full day. Worse, when I attempted to 'Get the photos from camera...' I realized that the transfer had created duplicates and triplicates on the phone AND on the SD card. The downloader was not smart enough to filter the duplicates, so I had to stop the process and to try to solve the duplication problems.

That meant using the Samsung original cable to connect the phone to the PC.

I did not succeed immediately. I had to understand that the phone had to be active and watched the Windows autoplay message asking me to choose between downloading media or using the phone as an external drive (the good solution). That enabled me to clean up the mess and to delete most of the duplicates.

Even after that cleaning, the organizer downloading time is much too long as the downloader insists on scanning all the photos on the phone and the card. The obvious solution for me is to 'Import from files and folders' to be selective and scan only the DCIM folder on the SD card and only select by date the latest shots.

Side note:

I do use the downloader advanced feature to automatically create date based folders in the catalogs. So, my workflow is to go to the DCIM folder, select all the files for a recent period and I copy them to a USB stick, from which I import in the catalog.

 

 

 

 

3 replies

John Corris
John Corris
Participating Frequently
November 4, 2022

Yep, I have the same problem using a USB cable with an Olympus camera,  have to use SD card reader. For the iPhone I upload photos to Microsoft OneDrive which puts a copy in the cloud and a copy in a folder on my PC.

 

MichelBParis
MichelBParisCorrect answer
Legend
November 4, 2022

I think that my recent history with Samsung phones may help you.

For some years, I stopped using card readers for the phone and I found two ways to connect my Samsung S8 and my wife's S7 without a cable, directly from Dropbox or Google Photos. That's what I would recommend now, here is why.

 I had to change my ageing S8 because the USB socket failed;  not a rare occurence described on the Web. No way to charge the phone as I was not aware of the ability to charge via an induction charger. So I bought a Samsung A53 and asked the dealer to migrate my data while I still had enough charge level. This also prevented me to use a cable. Also it was time to get a new battery.

Big problem in the migration. I had a big micro SD card where I had stored many files from my other cameras. I had also set the phone to store my phone photos on the SD card. This meant that the transfer could not be  processed in a couple of hours, that required nearly a full day. Worse, when I attempted to 'Get the photos from camera...' I realized that the transfer had created duplicates and triplicates on the phone AND on the SD card. The downloader was not smart enough to filter the duplicates, so I had to stop the process and to try to solve the duplication problems.

That meant using the Samsung original cable to connect the phone to the PC.

I did not succeed immediately. I had to understand that the phone had to be active and watched the Windows autoplay message asking me to choose between downloading media or using the phone as an external drive (the good solution). That enabled me to clean up the mess and to delete most of the duplicates.

Even after that cleaning, the organizer downloading time is much too long as the downloader insists on scanning all the photos on the phone and the card. The obvious solution for me is to 'Import from files and folders' to be selective and scan only the DCIM folder on the SD card and only select by date the latest shots.

Side note:

I do use the downloader advanced feature to automatically create date based folders in the catalogs. So, my workflow is to go to the DCIM folder, select all the files for a recent period and I copy them to a USB stick, from which I import in the catalog.

 

 

 

 

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    defaultajlwgknmv27qAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    November 4, 2022

    Thanks for the reply. I think youre saying copy the phhotos onto something, like the computer, and then import them from that folder. Ive also bought a new SD card, as that may be the problem as the computer takes a while to navigate through it. Plus its bigger anyway, the sd card.  

    Greg_S.
    Community Expert
    Greg_S.Community Expert
    Community Expert
    November 3, 2022

    This is a common problem for iPhones.  Upgrading will probably not improve the issue, but you can try a free download of Elements 2023 to see for yourself.  As far as I am concerned, this is an ongoing Apple problem that doesn't just exist with importing via Elements.  I have had the same issue using the Windows Photos app to import from my iPhone.

     

    I have found that the situation is much improved if you set your iPhone to use the most compatible format for transfer.  In you iPhone settings go to the Photos app and make sure that the last control (Transfer to MAC or PC) is set to Automatic.

     

    As for transfer from the USB port on your camera, have you tried using a different USB port?  Generally, the back ports of a desktop PC are more reliable for this purpose (but often hard to get to).  So, if you are able to use a memory card reader and it works, I wouldn't worry about it.  Using this method is probably safer for your camera anyway.

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    defaultajlwgknmv27qAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    November 3, 2022

    Hi thanks for the reply. I actually have a samsung phone, not an iphone. Also I have tried using different ports on the back of the pc box. I also find that it makes multiple copies of the same photo at each failed attempt. I recently cut down this problem of 80,000 photos down to 37,000 such was the extent of duplication. 

    D
    Community Expert
    Daniel KramerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 4, 2022

    I would try a different USB cable and see if that helps or not

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