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Fix iPhone's Camera Roll display bug

by Dave Caolo Aug 26th 2009 at 1:30PM

Last night I was grabbing screenshots with my iPhone that I'll use in a forthcoming post. After snapping 4 or 5, I launched the camera app to look at them. I saw the preview thumbnail but when I clicked Camera Roll for a larger view, it appeared empty.

I restarted the iPhone to no avail. I connected it to my Mac, and iPhoto imported the screenshots without a problem. After a sync they were in my iPhone's photo album, but I still couldn't see subsequent photos taken with the built-in camera.

After some searching I found this thread on Apple's Discussion Board that describes my issue. It seems that the iPhone fails to display photos taken beyond number 10,000.* That's right, I've taken 10,000 photos with my iPhone. Or have I?

The iPhone in question is a 3GS that I purchased not too long ago. There's no way I've shot that many pictures in such a brief time. However, I did buy an original 4GB phone back on opening day. As I set up the 3GS, I did a restore from backup. Guess what came with it? The "counter" for all photos I snapped back then. The 3GS picked up where the original model left off. D'oh.

I'm glad to say that I've restored the Camera Roll's functionality. Here's how. I connected my iPhone to my Mac and launched PhoneView. From there, I clicked Settings and selected Show Entire Disk. Be careful here, because this lets you fiddle with typically hidden folders and files.

Inside the DCIM folder I found a number of folders with names like "100APPLE," which I deleted (AFTER syncing my iPhone with iPhoto and grabbing all stored pictures). Then I quit PhoneView, restarted the iPhone or good measure and presto! I was back in business.

I'm not the only one with this problem and I hope Apple addresses it in a future update. Note that you can get this done with the free trial of PhoneView, but it's a great app and only $20, so buy it as a thank you.

*Remember, this refers to number of photos shot with the iPhone, not number of photos stored.

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Last night I was grabbing screenshots with my iPhone that I'll use in a forthcoming post. After snapping 4 or 5, I launched the camera app...
 

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23 Comments

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abbassioun

I dont have a mac computer. I'm using windows and when i attach the iphone to my laptop the itunes recognizes it but the computer does not. i downloaded phoneview but it seems to only be for mac. i dont know what to do...

November 12 2009 at 6:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Johnny stemcell

After having this issue I would like to share two very useful observations. Firstly , since I came here a few weeks ago to solve this issue I did figure it was possible I in fact took 10,000 pictures. However I know for a fact this has not occurred this time. I believe but am not certain it may be the total of pictures on your device. Secondly I am very happy to report that somehow my 7 day trial period somehow has not ended and I was able to a second time repair this silly error in the code.

October 14 2009 at 2:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Breanna J.

..Its very simple to use your iphone camera that much as I have as well and its really a time consuming dissapointment when we have to deal with things like this.Its a huge bummer and VERY frustrating for me,Thanx for the info..I guess I have to do this as well.Apple really should've covered all their bases when releasing this phone because there are alot of problems arising now.I recieved my phone as a birthday gift but really wish my husband would've done his homework before his purchase because having this phone is causing too many problems now.

September 07 2009 at 7:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3rdpig

Thanks for the tip on a workaround fix. On a PC I had to use iPhoneBrowser to get access to the folders. Deleted all but the 100Apple subfolder under the DCIM folder after copying all photos to my pc. Camera roll saves start again at IMG_1001. Works for now. Hope a fix will be in the next update otherwise, this'll happen again at IMG_10001.

August 27 2009 at 10:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kinto

as i said on erica's post as well, thanks for casting more spotlight on this bug. it's annoying as hell and i've had to deal with it about 5 times already on a 2 month old (otherwise incredible) device.

FIX IT CUPERTINO! grrrrr

August 27 2009 at 1:37 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kinto

hey, i heard there's teh awesome FTW vs FAIL flamewar going on over at engadget! well, unless everybody's mom called them upstairs for dinner already...

hahahaha (sorry, i couldn't resist =)

August 27 2009 at 1:27 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Orion

Why do you post here? Everytime I see you post on this blog, it's to bash Apple. If you love your Windows and Android platforms so much, why aren't you on those blog sites instead?

You don't see us trolling blogs about your favorite platforms.. and for good reason. You must have a lot of free time on your hands.

August 26 2009 at 3:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Paul Stamatiou

I had the same issue! I noticed when I plugged it in and aperture wanted to load it up, then i saw the file names. Nothing after IMG_10000 showed up. I have yet to fix it though.

August 26 2009 at 3:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Steven

As opposed to Microsoft or Google, who fix all of theirs?

August 26 2009 at 3:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bill

If you have a Windows computer at your disposal, you can do this without spending 20 bucks on PhoneView. Just attach the iphone to the USB port and it sees it as a removable drive. Open the icon, and there's your folder structure :)

August 26 2009 at 2:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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