by Dan Moren
Apple explains resurrected photos bug
Speaking to Chance Miller at 9to5Mac, Apple explained the issue (patched in the recent iOS 17.5.1 update) that caused old photos to spontaneously appear in some users’ libraries:
Apple confirmed to me that iCloud Photos is not to be blamed for this. Instead, it all boils to the corrupt database entry that existed on the device’s file system itself.
According to Apple, the photos that did not fully delete from a user’s device were not synced to iCloud Photos. Those files were only on the device itself. However, the files could have persisted from one device to another when restoring from a backup, performing a device-to-device transfer, or when restoring from an iCloud Backup but not using iCloud Photos.
In the release notes for 17.5.1, Apple had attributed the resurrected photos to “database corruption.” This didn’t seem unreasonable—databases can be finicky and corruption is not uncommon—but it also didn’t go far enough into explaining the issue for those who were affected. The further clarification to Miller does hold water, though, especially in terms of how photos moved from device to device. (The company did also say that the single much reported story about a photo cropping up on a device that had been erased and given to someone else was false, which also makes sense: as John Gruber pointed out, it didn’t pass the sniff test.)
Attention has understandably focused on sensitive photos that have showed up in libraries, though I think that’s more of a human bias: what kind of picture are you going to notice popping up? (More to the point: which pictures are people likely deleting the most?)1
While it’s good that Apple has now (after several days of requests) clarified the issue, this does speak to a larger point: why is the company not more proactive in talking about these issues when they come up? For example, there still doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgement of the issue that locked users out of their Apple IDs/iCloud accounts last month. Some of this is undoubtedly an issue of scale—even a problem that seems widespread might only account for a tiny fraction of Apple’s overall user base. But when issues *do *hit the broader press, it still seems like the company only responds some of the time—and though the complaints may subside when the immediate issue is resolved (even if silently), it does all contribute to the feeling that Apple’s devices and services are a bit of a black box.
- Personally, the pictures I delete the most are screenshots I take for writing pieces. Would I notice if one from several years ago suddenly popped up in my library? Probably not. ↩