Short summary: existing iPhone 12 mini (on iOS 14.most.recent) can no longer upload images from its camera roll to Photos. Although the whole iPhone sync completes just fine over USB with backups and album syncing and all, I just cannot get Photos to show my iPhone’s camera roll and import from it. Photos continues to show “Preparing to import from Simon’s iPhone” but it stays stuck at that message forever. Headed over to the old trusty Image Capture but there the iPhone is listed with its name and nothing under it, but a little lock next to the name. Clicked the lock. Nothing.
I assume both problems are related. How do I “unlock” this iPhone with this new Mac? I did all the “trust this iPhone” and “trust this Mac” stuff after MA completed the migration form the old MBP and that all went without a hitch. iPhone syncing still works, so obviously not all of the iPhone is “locked”.
Can we assume that the phone actually has new photos to import?
I ask because Photos can be misleading with its messages when there aren’t any. As I wrote back in May, Photos reports a “please unlock…” message when a device has nothing to import.
Try taking a new photo on your phone and then connect it. Any difference? If you are seeing the problem I reported, then it should connect successfully, now that there is a new photo to import.
Of course, be sure to try the obvious as well. Power-cycle the phone and maybe also your Mac, just in case one or the other got into an impossible state.
It’s not just photos. Clearly there’s an underlying issue beyond Photos when Image Capture shows a non-clickable lock with no apparent indication of what that means or how to remove it.
It’s a bit extreme, but the method to forget all pairings and force the phone to create a new pairing relationship with a computer is to go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Location & Privacy. But, of course, that means that all of the location and privacy settings you’ve created on the phone will have to be redone (generally this means answering the questions “suchandsuch app wants to access your location” and you’ll get new prompts for each app that attempts to access any of the categories in privacy as if it was happening for the first time.)
I have no idea if that will fix your issue with photos but it seems the obvious step that AppleCare would ask you to do.
Which is exactly why I don’t remember when I last asked them for help. ;) No seriously, before I go nuclear, I’d want at least a hunch that this will actually fix it. Right now, I have no idea if this is related to Monterey or the new MBP. Both are actually quite likely considering none of this was an issue just 48 hrs ago on the old MBP and BS. If that’s the case, Apple would need to fix it. Hoping to hear if this is some kind of isolated experience or rather something others have seen as well.
I use iCloud Photos, so I haven’t experienced the problem. However, have you tried selecting the photos that you want to transfer and then using Airdrop to get them to your MBP?
AirDrop works (that’s what I used as a workaround for an urgent pic). Not unexpectedly though, considering it hinges on an entirely different mechanism.
So out of the blue today my iPhone suddenly decided to display its camera roll in Photos again. I was able to import a couple of images to albums on my Mac.
After I was done with that I quit Photos and launched Image Capture. For a split second the lock icon displayed, but upon clicking on it, it immediately vanished and Image Capture proceeded to display my iPhone’s camera roll again.
I have no idea what caused this problem to disappear. It had been this way since my new 14" MBP with Monterey arrived two weeks ago. The only thing that comes to mind is that I had booted into Safe Mode over the weekend (just to see how this now works on M1 Macs, not for anything specific). Although that is known to clear a few caches, I doubt there’s any actual connection since this MBP had a pretty much fresh system when the problem first showed.
