Camera Photos Won’t Save to iPhone? Here’s a Fix

by Jody Mitoma on May 13, 2008 at 1:28 pm

iPhone Atlas has recently posted a story in regards to a fix for those who have been having issues saving images via the iPhone’s built in Camera application. It is being said that there are a select few of you out there who go to save an image right after taking a photograph, and can’t seem to find it within the Camera Roll application.

Below you will find the complete guide:

Restore your iPhone using iTunes, but do not restore custom settings data from the computer-stored backup after the restore process is complete. Do not set up as a new iPhone, and do not restore from backup — just disconnect the iPhone when prompted to make this choice. Note that you’ll temporarily lose text messages, notes, call history, contact favorites, sound settings, widget settings, etc with this method,.

Try taking a photo — it should properly save to the device.

Connect your iPhone again, and in iTunes, restore your personal information from the backup when prompted.

Also, an iPhone Atlas reader by the name of bhdude76 stated that you can also try the following:

Or you can ssh into your iPhone and issue a command.
Navigate to var/mobile/Media and issue this command.
chown -R mobile DCIM

No need for restoring or backups or anything.

Hopefully it doesn’t get to the point where any of you have to follow this guide, though.

(Source: iPhone Atlas)

7 Responses to “Camera Photos Won’t Save to iPhone? Here’s a Fix”

MM said:

June 11th, 2008 at 11:02 pm

Thanks. Disconnecting after restore worked like a champ. Much appreciated.
MM
josefoortiz said:

July 20th, 2008 at 12:04 pm

The same problem happens, but its very funny, only when i turn off the sound of the phone, i can’t save pictures, then i turn on the sound, and the first picture i take doesn’t save, but the next are saved
Roger Wagner said:

August 7th, 2008 at 3:09 am

I think I may have found what “triggers” this. I noticed that my last successfully saved image on my iPhone was IMG_0999.JPG.

I’m guessing that the bug in the iPhone is that the photo counter doesn’t handle image numbers greater than 999.

After the restore procedure described here, I’m guessing the image number goes back to 0001, but that the problem will reappear 998 images from now.
Alex Doucette said:

October 13th, 2008 at 11:06 pm

Thanks you soo much bhdude76 for the command line, I just restored my phone 2 days ago and didnt want to do it again, thank god for SSHing.
Thanks again!
Bård said:

October 24th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

There’s also another way to fix this:

If you have a finder-app on your phone you may navigate to the folder that stores the images(DCIM). Inside this folder there is a hidden folder called .MISC and inside this folder there’s a file called info.plist. This is the file that determines the filenames given to the photos and by deleting the whole .MISC folder you may solve your problem.

The system will generate a new folder upon next image taken and name this IMG_0001.JPG

NB! I didn’t have any images in the folder when I did this and do not know the consequences if you do have any.

I’m no expert, but this wotked for me:)
Nadav said:

October 25th, 2008 at 2:23 pm

Hi!

I just wanna say it seems I’ve solved the problem.

I’ve entered in WinSCP to the directory that contains the photos (in 2.1),
which is: var/mobile/Media/DCIM,
and change the whole folder’s permission to 777.
Didn’t have a problem ever since.
crystian said:

November 10th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

I deleted the .MISC folder like Bard told and now it works just fine. Thanks!