Photos stopped syncing

[PaulQ]

My photos stopped syncing in Google Photos a few days ago. I can't get it to restart. Anyone have this and solved it? It seems we can't uninstall/reinstall Photos on the 6P. I'm posting here because we are all on Nougat. (well, most of us)

Tried:

• Restarting my phone several times while doing everything below
• Clearing cache of Photos setting up Photos again.
• Clearing all data in Google Play Services (read this when researching)
• Wiping cache in the recovery mode
• Turning sync on and off

One thing is that I didn't do all of that in any particular order. If there is a special order you need to do that in, please let me know.

Thanks!

 

[PaulQ]

Wait... I may have noticed something specific here.... it's only not syncing my Camera folder with new pictures. When someone texts me a photo and it goes into my Textra folder, that is being backed up.

Ok, back to my puzzled state.

 

[GSDer]

When you look at Photos -> Settings -> Device Folders does it show the upload symbol for Camera?
If you select Camera in that view it should show that 'Backup up & sync' is turned on.

 

[PaulQ]

Yes, blue cloud with up arrow rather than slashed cloud.

To turn this off, it says I have to turn off syncing completely. So I've done that. Then turned it back on.

No luck.

 

[Munter2]

I switched over to One Drive some time ago as the Google photo app has always been crap. No dealing with picture resolutions and it just works. A concept Google doesn't seem to understand.

 

[GSDer]

Yes, blue cloud with up arrow rather than slashed cloud.

To turn this off, it says I have to turn off syncing completely. So I've done that. Then turned it back on.

No luck.

And the individual pictures that show up in the Camera folder - do they all have the little circle symbol on them which shows that they're waiting to be synced? (Or in this view it shows the upload arrow)

Do you have the Photos app setup to only backup on WiFi?

 

[PaulQ]

And the individual pictures that show up in the Camera folder - do they all have the little circle symbol on them which shows that they're waiting to be synced? (Or in this view it shows the upload arrow...Do you have the Photos app setup to only backup on WiFi?

Thanks for all the attempts to help. I do appreciate them. I have checked all the options, settings, etc. that would possibly affect this. I do know what all the indicators mean. Again, I appreciate the help especially since some people do overlook settings.

SOLUTION FOUND!

After taking dozens pictures, examining filenames, watching file behavior, downloading other camera apps... I fixed it. Unfortunately, I can't say exactly what was actually causing it.

I have used the app "Open Camera" since the first week with my Nexus. No problems with G-Photos. The problem started sometime in the past 1-2 weeks. I can't associate it with the Nougat update because I've had it since preview 5 and then the day the final build was released.

What I witnessed was when I took a picture with Open Camera, the image would appear in G-Photos with the circular arrows. Moments later, the arrows would spin indicating it was uploading. Seconds later, the picture would just vanish from G-Photos. It remained on my phone. What the heck?

I backed up then deleted everything in the Camera folder. Maybe a corruption? Nope.

I then decided to use the Google camera app. These pictures were uploading to G-Photos normally! I downloaded another camera app and it worked! Now I have narrowed it down to Open Camera. My next thought was maybe the filename prefix I used was causing a problem. Yes, that makes no sense but why not? I changed it to match Google Photo's filenames. Problem persisted.

I had been using Open Camera forever. I hadn't changed any settings in months. I was going to delete it and sadly abandon it but then I thought... reset Open Camera to defaults. All of a sudden, Open Camera photos were uploading normally.

I have no idea what caused Open Camera photos to be rejected. I did see an update to G-Photos recently. Maybe that broke Open Camera.

I have to disagree with Munter2 when I say the Google Photos app has been great to me for years. This was my first problem. I'm glad it's fixed. Through all of this, I decided to switch over to the Google Camera app for now. I had stopped using it because of the camera shutter beep. No, I am not a pervert taking locker room photos or up women's dresses. I have an extremely unique need for it and it's perfectly legal and appropriate. I managed to set up a macro that silences it. I have to see how HDR works out. I wasn't using it before.

Thanks all. This was a pain! But it's solved.