lightroom import from iphone 6 no longer

[JABetzler]

I have the latest version of Lightroom CC and when I got my iPhone 6 in March the importing of photos and videos has been seamless. I do all the imports manually and other than waiting for my computer to recognize my phone it worked well until May 18, 2015.

- - -

I have Windows 7 64-bit

I do not have any major changes to my set-up since the import for the phone was working. Importing from a card reader and memory card from a camera still works just fine. I have worked to get my photos from my phone using some workarounds into LR; but this is not acceptable for the long run.

my iPhone is running iOS 8.3 and I have rebooted it several times since these issues

- - -

Procedure that I used in the past:

I plug my phone into the USB cable attached to my computer, approve the 'trust' box that pops up on my iPhone 6. Then wait for the phone folder icon to appear in the explorer window.

Then I select the import button and select the phone to import from - after awhile I get a window that indicates that photoshop lightroom has stopped responding.

Any reference to a current thread that addresses this problem would be appreciated -

Thanks,

Joseph

[koitsenko]

Baxter87045963 - that's the problem. It isn't working for many.

The photo import seems to be working again direct without having to use image capture. I'm not able to import videos however.

[peretz]

Agreed.  I am still having this problem.  All apple cables, plugged in directly to computer, used to work, but doesn't.  Sometimes it will display the photos in import view from iPhone.  Sometimes I am able to select and start an import, but it will never complete.  Sometimes it just hangs.  Sometimes, I get an error "The following files were not imported because they could not be read. (1308)"  But this is all sporadic and inconsistent. This is immensely frustrating and affecting my relationship with Lightroom.

[HighContent]

I am having problems with flaky iPhone imports as well and am very frustrated.  Here are some details

• iPhone 6s & iMac & Lightroom all running latest software
• I usually need to go File -> Import Photos and Video to pull up the import window
• The only fancy import option I select is "don't import suspected duplicates" and I am importing to an external harddrvie
• I hit import, and maybe a few files upload and then the import just hangs.
• Once I give up on the hang (after waiting several hours with no progress), I select the "close" on the progress window and I can go back and use LR but the File->Import Photos and Video AND Import to another Catalog options are grayed out PLUS a "current Import" persists under the Catalog drop down which insists it's "Importing files..." and I have to reboot LR to try again.
• Here's what seems to happen at the hang.  A few photos or movies are uploaded until it stops.  Then a folder is generated in the destination directory called something like "Temporary Folder C26B2F25-DF7C-4305-ADE4-727C3A8F1CEA" (each time the long list of random characters is different) and a file is in that temp directory that seems to be the bad egg.  In one case, I had the same 20 Mbyte QT movie in the folder each time I got the hang.  The next time I unselected that movie, restarted import, and LR imported 5 photos then hung on the next movie.

You could say, don't import the  movies, but I don't know how to turn off just movie import and don't have time to manually deselect all of the *.mov files.

I might also add, that I've also had instances where LR says "import complete" and there are some movies imported too BUT NOT ALL OF THE IMAGES WERE IMPORTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very frustrated.

[HighContent]

I continued to troubleshoot and found that I was logged out of Adobe Cloud and thus was NOT getting update alerts and not running the latest Lightroom.  I updated the software on Mar 8, 2016 to the 2015.4 release and tried again.  I started with a new catalog and uploaded to the harddrive.  My iPhone had 9733 images/videos on it and they were all uploaded, even the bad seeds from last time.

During the import, I went to the destination folder in Finder and saw many TEMPORARY folders being created and then disappearing.  There were up to 20 at a time coming and going.  However, the one created in the last failed/hung import with the old version was still there, but I couldn't find it in LR so I deleted it in finder (after confirming the file itself had been uploaded to the right path).

So advice, update your software!

A second strange thing though.  After the import, I thought I'd try to import again with "ignore duplicates" selected hoping there should be no new files, and it found 200 more images that LR said were "new" but they are clearly copies and now I have 2 copies of some images.  My third attempt to import showed no new files.  Always something new...

[Patrick2P2]

My problem seams to be the same. Lightroom is not imprting media from my iPhoneSE.

I can accass the iPhone from Windows Explorer and the Windows Import client will import the media without any problems. But not lightroom.

I already changed the cable and the port, but this seam not to be the Problem since it is working with Windows.

What is adobe telling regarding this issue?

Best regards

Patrick

(Windows 7, iPhoneSE, Lightroom CC 2015.6)

[Mustti]

As a workaround to this issue, you will have to connect your iPhone after you opened the import dialog. Not before. This worked for me.

It seems that for some reason El Capitan might be blocking the access to the phone by Lr and when you plug the phone after Lr is expecting to tell from where to import, the phone becomes accesible.

At least after a long support session with the Adobe team I manage to find that. Just be sure your USB it's a 3.0 port. That is why sometimes you have to change the port or the cable.

I have a Macbook pro Retina late 2015 running El Capitan OS latest release at the time. An iPhone 6s+ running the Latest IOS and Lightroom CC latest update.

So, open the import dialog on Lr before plugin you phone.

The person on the tech team assistance said he will notify and the new release will be coming shortly.

Hope it works for you guys like it did for me!!

mustti

[zoomlady]

Yes that worked for me thanks!

Also for anyone reading this - to avoid getting a lot of empty thumbnails in the import dialog you need to temporarily turn off the wireless on your phone. This may have already been fixed but I thought worth mentioning...

[Patrick2P2]

No, this doesn´t work with me. I still have the some issue.

What is Adobe doing regarding this issue?

[jasonh31549116]

If I had a dollar for every time I had to force quit Lightroom I'd be able to pay someone to fix this....

Same thing as a lot of the above users:

Macbook pro

Lightroom CC (latest)

iPhone 6

Import to external drive.

Hangs.... Every time.

Worth noting that it hangs at different stages of the import and behaviours change. Sometimes it shows me the pics on the phone, sometimes it can't generate previews, sometimes it doesn't even get that far. Sometimes it gets to import but then hangs there and nothing actually imports. Almost always it causes a app memory error.

[kathys77476930]

I'm having the same issue.  I do not want to abandon Lightroom.  Please, please, please, fix this!

Macbook Pro

Iphone 6

Lightroom CC

All updated. 

Still no sign of IPhone in Lightroom. 

[mizzLiz]

Last week I was able to import from my iPhone 6 plus. Today, LR sees the phone, opens the pictures, and then ejects the phone.

what is going on???

[vandanacathy]

I am using Lightroom 5, not CC. I thought that if I upgraded to LR 6 I'd be better off...but according to the posts here, maybe not?

In my case I can import photos from my iPhone 6 to my desktop iMac using Lightroom but not to my new Macbook Pro. This leads me to believe the problem is with the laptop, not with LR or iPhone. Thoughts?

[jeffersoncoops]

I don't know how to fix the import, but I figured out a workaround for Mac.  Use the Apple Photos app to import all the photos from your phone to your computer.  Then open Lightroom and import them from the Photos Library to your Lightroom Library.  The only problem is that you cannot immediately find the folder where all your photos live.  This can be solved by creating a symlink to the Masters directory within the Photos Library.  You can do this with your Terminal app.  Launch the Terminal app, and type the following at the command line:

ln -s ~/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary/Masters ~/Pictures/Photos\ Library\ Masters

This creates a folder within your Pictures directory that links to the master copies folder within your Photos library.  Now you can launch Lightroom, and do a photo import.  On the left panel, choose the Pictures/Photos Library Masters folder.  On the right side, choose the folder you would like to import to, as usual.

I hope this is helpful.

[jclin10]

I'm having the same issues

iPhone 6, latest versions of LR and Yosemite, but lots of errors when importing from iPhone straight into Lightroom - there are files that aren't recognized or left out during import

I can imagine a few possible workarounds

1. Import to Photos - then export from Photos to Lightroom. Then delete uploaded photos from Photos.

2. Import to Mac using Image Capture then import using Lightroom.

3. Take pictures using Lightroom Mobile in the first place

One of the things I'd love to do would be to have a foolproof workflow that also tracks what I've already imported, so that I don't have to manually keep track or re-import old duplicate photos

Does anyone have any thoughts or observations on those options in terms of reliability, etc.?

[barbarasaustin]

Last week I had no problem importing from my iphone 6s to LR. Tonight, it refused to recognize my phone, no matter what I did. I have had issues before and had followed some of the previous suggestions with successful results - using a new cable, restarting my computer and/or phone, etc. Tonight, nothing worked. I finally ended up discovering image capture in my applications (I'm on a Mac which I just updated to El Capitan) and was able to download my photos to my pictures folder, then upload them into Lightroom.

This is crazy! I hope Adobe or Apple or whoever gets these kinks worked out! Something that should take 5 minutes ended up taking me several hours.  I'm so grateful to all of you for your suggestions!

[MikeDiakuw · Accepted solution]

LR was telling me that there were no photos to import from my iPhone SE (when it had previously worked without a hitch).

1. Opened Photos on my MacBook Air and tried to import.
2. A dialogue told me that my computer had not been granted access to my iPhone. Must have been on iOS 10 upgrade?!?
3. Unlocking my phone (while plugged in to USB), photos began to appear in the import screen for Photos.
4. Closed Photos and tried importing into LR again and it worked.

[ryand87687348]

This fixed the problem for me.

[benl4449106]

MikeDiakuw​ this finally got LR to recognize the phone, thanks! Definitely not showing all photos though - most recent were from a few months ago for some reason... hundreds since then that are not showing - any other ideas?

[MikeDiakuw]

Sorry benl4449106, I've never had that particular issue. Only thing I could think of is if you had managed to import them without realizing and LR was seeing them as "duplicates" and ignoring them. Bit of a wild guess, I'm afraid. Good luck.

[Psaintpierre]

hi,

how can I unlock my phone? i am having the same issue.

thank you

[EPICDirector]

Same Problem with a WIN10 and iPhone 6+. This is extremely frustrating and yet it worked fine before. Adobe seems to be putting a lot of effort into LR mobile and nothing into fixing this mess. I can import from Android's Samsung Note7, and the Note5 no problem. I can import from thumbdrives and even CDs and ext drives. But on the iPhone 6+? A mess. It doesn't "see" all my images, and those it imports are problematic (e.g. "your imported 100 images have no frames in the video").

1. Open LR CC (2015.7) 6.7 on my WIN10

2. Power up and access iPhone 6+ images on the phone; Connect with Lightning/USB3.0 to USB 3.0 port on computer.

3. Ignore "what do you wish to do" [when iPhone is connected] popup because LR is not an option (Yet Bridge is!?)

4. In LR, click "Import" and select iPhone 6 at the top left.

5. Wait considerable cycle time for thumbnails to be populated (why so long? a 128 GB thumb drive is much quicker).

6. Way too many thumbnails are gray with " Preview unavailable for this file".

7. Select 400 or so jpgs, MOV and even some grayed out "Preview Unavailable..." files and choose "IMPORT"

8. Way too long upload to computer resulting with error messages (e.g. "100 videos have no frames" or something like that).

9. many jpgs are smeary and pixelated as if they are low res files.

10. many movies, actually most movies are only 3 seconds long!

Obviously LR no longer plays nice with Apple or is it vice versa? Yet Adobe LR wants me to synch to my phone? I think not!

[tvcrider]

My setup

• Windows 10
• No usb 3.0 ports, all are 2.0.
• LR 6.7 
• Iphone 6S+ running OS 10.0.2

I have tried all of the suggestions here.  LR will recognize our two cameras when attached via usb port to the pc, but it does not recognize my Iphone.

Bummer.

[tvcrider]

Well, I finally had had success.  My Iphone was set to auto-lock after 2 minutes.  For the purposes of trying to download or Import to LR I reset the Iphone to 'Never'.  I have now Imported files from the Iphone to LR twice. 

[paulwieczorek]

Had the same issue, tried everything and then found this thread. Thanks guys!

SOLUTION - YOUR PHONE MUST BE UNLOCKED THE WHOLE TIME WHILE IMPORTING THE PHOTOS/.MOV FILES

[larsenjm]

Unlock iPhone 6:

iPhone 6 on Mac Pro -> Swapped out Apple iPhone cable -> no improvement -> tried import via Bridge -> Bridge said iPhone 6 was locked -> unlocked iPhone 6 -> Lightroom import started working.  All software up to date as of 2 Oct 2016.