iPhone 17 Pro Photos App consistently crashing and hanging

iPhone 17 Pro on latest iOS 26.0 (23A345) has constant photos app problems.

Photos that I take and screenshots/ screen recordings that I take don’t appear in library until after a reboot. They show in the camera app but are low resolution and then they disappear once camera is closed.
After force quitting the camera app and reopening it, photos appear high resolution but then a second later all go blurry and pixelated. Even photos that were taken on the same day. Once one photo goes pixelated they all do.
Switching from Collections to library freezes and eventually crashes the photos app.
switching from library to collections freezes and crashes the photos app
The collections tab has all blank thumbnails, they only load after a force reboot, but then disappear shortly after
Trying to open “Photos” inside the settings app causes settings to crash and the photos settings never open.
Trying to open “Photos” in the iCloud settings crashes the settings app

I recently moved from an iPhone 15 Pro max to the iPhone 17 Pro, both on 256GB of storage. I had over 150GB free on the 15pro, and I have over 190GB free on the 17 Pro. I used the phone to phone transfer. IPhone 15 pro max was also running iOS 26. iCloud has over 1TB of available storage.

I have tried to disable iCloud photos and selected to remove photos from my device. There’s no photos left on the 17 pro now, except for shared albums, and the problem still happens.

The photos app on my iPad and MacBook sync fine without any of these issues. Running iPadOS 26 and MacOS Tahoe.

I even left my 17 pro plugged in for over 12 hours a night without touching it hoping it would sync and be fine but it wasn’t. I have already submit a bug report to Apple.

iPhone 17 Pro, iOS 26

Posted on Sep 29, 2025 12:07 AM

Top-ranking reply

xMyBell

Level 1

14 points

Posted on Oct 20, 2025 2:02 PM

Update: Apple Support couldn’t really help me. I told them several times that the error occurs for multiple users and pointed them to the thread here. They just kept saying, “No, it has nothing to do with Shared Albums.”

So we tried everything: resetting network settings, deleting the Photos app, downloading it again, restarting multiple times, logging in to iCloud.com via browser — and then they told me to make a backup and reset my iPhone. I already did that yesterday, as I mentioned here this morning.

Now I reluctantly turned off my Shared Albums, and I doubt there will be a solution anytime soon if the problem keeps being ignored. I’ll probably have to spend the next few days backing up my Shared Albums from my other iPhone somewhere and saving them to the gallery. I don’t see any other way to access the photos from my new iPhone. Terrible. Spend several hours today trying to solve this.

Turned off shared albums half an hour ago and now everythings works fine btw! Photo App never worked for longer than 5 mins so I am positive it stays that way 🙃🙃🙃🙃

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19 replies

StNik

Level 1

8 points

Oct 31, 2025 3:56 AM in response to JustDami

Being disappointed on my birthday summarizes this new (2) iPhone 17 max pro encounter. I NEVER upgrade my apple devices (I have 7) unless it no longer works for the fear of what everyone is complaining of. Monday I was gifted the iPhone 17 and the estimated transfer time said about one day (understandable with over 100,000

photos /vids). The next day I could view my photos but I when attempting to share them it would crash, freeze, or just sit blinking on the contacts name I choose but the picture never goes through. Then the screen turned black and stayed this way the whole ride back to the Apple Store, in which then the employee tried to tap the screen and it was not responsive, hence returning that device- only to upgrade to the iPhone 17 pro max (5tb). Three days and two brand new phones later, downloading and reinstalling apps, new verification/ passwords/ Face ID/ it’s become a full time job for it to STILL not work properly. I have the same issues as days ago, and I keep finding more issues: for decades on my previous iPhone when pics are texted , I can tap on that text thread to see all pics shared between us. NOW that option isn’t even there, so I cannot see all the photos shared with someone who we text back and forth regularly under that thread.

[Edited by Moderator]

Oct 13, 2025 7:54 AM in response to JustDami

JustDami wrote: …hopefully there is a patch for this soon, as photos without iCloud sync is useless to me

It seems like someone with this problem should let Apple know:

Feedback - Photos - Apple

Oct 18, 2025 4:26 AM in response to JustDami

How did you disable the shared albums? When I go to settings>photos it crashes. Same if I want to find the shared albums in the photos app it crashes

JustDami Author

Level 1

23 points

Oct 19, 2025 6:02 AM in response to angelika140

Hey ! See my reply above. You need to force reboot then quickly go to settings to disable shared albums

iPhone 17 Pro Photos App consistently crashing and hanging