Download photos from iPhone stopped working

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1

Hi everybody.

I just discovered that it’s not possible anymore to download photos from my iphone 12 mini to a pc with Leap 15.4 and KDE Plasma desktop.
When I connect the iphone to the usb port of the pc, I get a notification that allows me to mount the device.
When I do that, Dolphin appears but it shows my home directory instead of the contents of the device.

Output of dmesg after connecting the iphone:

usb 1-1.3: new high-speed USB device number 6 using ehci-pci
usb 1-1.3: New USB device found, idVendor=05ac, idProduct=12a8, bcdDevice=13.01
usb 1-1.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 1-1.3: Product: iPhone
usb 1-1.3: Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
usb 1-1.3: SerialNumber: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
usbcore: registered new device driver apple-mfi-fastcharge
ipheth 1-1.3:4.2: Apple iPhone USB Ethernet device attached
usbcore: registered new interface driver ipheth

I did an update of libimobiledevice from 1.3.0+git.20210921-150400.1.15 to 1.3.0+190git.20230705-lp154.1.1 using the “hardware” repository
which didn’t resolve the problem.

The command ideviceinfo works and shows a lot of info about the device, including this:

ProductName: iPhone OS
ProductType: iPhone13,1
ProductVersion: 16.6.1

My guess is that this happened after an iOs update on the iphone.
My question is, is anybody here using an iphone and able to download photos using OpenSuse?

2

I must admit direct download via USB always seemed to me like a gamble - sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Sorry, I can’t help with details. Never bothered to dig into this as the fruit company doesn’t seem extremely supportive. I still think it has improved over time. However, I’m not using it that often.
Maybe have a look into KDE Connect. Originally it was developed for Android devices but the support for iphone is now quite OK.
Or search for Air Transfer in the app store. It will provide the photos or other data via http in your (W)LAN.

3

@Teuniz Hi, I use ifuse to mount my iPhone 12… But in TW it does open in Nautilus, only for the Photos and then sometimes not…

I have a python script and tray icon to mount in ~/iphone (need to create) directory.

#!/usr/bin/python3

import os

import gi
gi.require_version('Gtk', '3.0')
gi.require_version('AppIndicator3', '0.1')

from gi.repository import Gtk as gtk, AppIndicator3 as appindicator

def main():
  indicator = appindicator.Indicator.new("customtray", "semi-starred-symbolic", appindicator.IndicatorCategory.APPLICATION_STATUS)
  indicator.set_status(appindicator.IndicatorStatus.ACTIVE)
  indicator.set_menu(menu())
  gtk.main()

def menu():
  menu = gtk.Menu()

  iphone_one = gtk.MenuItem(label='Mount iPhone')
  iphone_one.connect('activate', mount)
  menu.append(iphone_one)

  iphone_two = gtk.MenuItem(label='Unmount iPhone')
  iphone_two.connect('activate', unmount)
  menu.append(iphone_two)

  exittray = gtk.MenuItem(label='Exit iPhone mounter')
  exittray.connect('activate', quit)
  menu.append(exittray)
  
  menu.show_all()
  return menu

def mount(_):
  os.system("ifuse $HOME/myiphone")

def unmount(_):
  os.system("fusermount -u $HOME/myiphone")

def quit(_):
  gtk.main_quit()

if __name__ == "__main__":
  main()
4

Working here on Leap 15.5, though I usually prefer KDEConnect, as I don’t need to search for a cable. But since KDEConnect doesn’t transfer the meta data of images, I am using cable and preferrably digiKam or Gwenview, and sometimes Dolphin.

Since you were asking about Dolphin:

  • I had to install Dolphin Kamera plugin via Discover (actually Dolphin notified me that it needs to have this installed in order to access the device)
  • Make sure that you trust the computer from your iPhone
  • I usually unlock the iPhone and try to keep it unlocked
  • Sometimes it helps to unplug the cable, then plug it in again
  • Sometimes it helps to close all instances of Dolphin

What I learned: the Devices notification usually provides several actions once you have your iPhone connected:

  • Open in File Manager (default action) → doesn’t work at all; simply opens Dolphin
  • Mount → useless
  • Download Photos with Gwenview → works, but Gwenview is slow as hell when displaying the pictures in the selection box
  • Download Photos with digiKam → works and is much faster than Gwenview (you need to install digiKam)
  • View Photos with File Manager → opens Dolphin with camera:/<path to your iPhone> in location; from here, you can navigate down Apple’s ugly folder structure; mind: if your phone is getting locked, Dolphin will just end up in an endless loop trying to acces the folder and won’t be really recovering from this unless you close all Dolphin instances and unplug the phone

In general: it works, but is a bit fragile and doesn’t recover (easily) once messed up.