Shop Meural NFT Display
Welcome to the Community Please Login
Reply

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

niklebOO
Aspirant

Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

I selected to link an iCloud album for my Meural. However, the app gets stuck 0 of 24 images uploaded. Any ideas what is going on?

Message 1 of 22
KevinLiT
NETGEAR Moderator

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

Hello niklebOO,

 

Thank you for your post!

 

Please turn off your private IP address if you are using an iOS device. 

 

To turn off the Private IP address please follow the directions listed below:

 

  • Open "Settings"
  • "Wi-Fi"
  • Select the "i" icon next to your connected network
  • Toggle off "Private Wi-Fi Address"

 

Best,

Kevin

Community Team

Message 2 of 22
niklebOO
Aspirant

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

thanks. But "Private Wi-Fi address" was already off.

Message 3 of 22
KevinLiT
NETGEAR Moderator

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

Hi niklebOO,

 

Thanks for the fast response. 

Please PM me a screenshot of what happens when the Meural app freezes.

 

Best,

Kevin

Community Team

Message 4 of 22
Jeffgear
Luminary

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

I had a similar issue and fixed it in iOS by going into Settings, Privacy, Photos, then ensuring the Meural app was set to "all photos" and not selected photos.  

Message 5 of 22
niklebOO
Aspirant

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

thanks for the tip. I checked, and Meural app had already access to all images

Message 6 of 22

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

I've been battling with this for more than a year, Netgear knows about the bug since there has been MANY forum posts about it, but they have done NOTHING about it besides pretend the bug doesn't exist.

 

I suspect that Apple changed the format of Live Photos and this broke the Meural service- linking albums doesn't work via either the app or website. But pictures that aren't Live Photos upload fine (this is useless for us, since we almost exclusively use Live Photos).

 

The only workaround I've found is giving up on Linked Albums (you know, the feature that we purchased three of these devices for) and I manually create "Playlists" instead, then manually select and upload all the photos from my iCloud Photos album to the Playlist.

 

It's 100x more manual, and something I could have done on several other competing photo frames that cost less and have higher quality software, but hey, Netgear already has my money, and they've squeaked through their stunningly short 90-day warranty (I thought Meurals were supposed to be a higher-quality, premium brand?).

 

I can't wait for someone from Netgear to try blaming my IOS version or something.

Message 7 of 22
niklebOO
Aspirant

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

Is there any update on a fix? Workaround?

Otherwise I need to return...

 

BTW. It is not just Live images with the issue, generally newer ones do not work, even without Live on.

Is there a size issue on Netgear's cloud? I am assuming the images go from my album to Netgear cloud before going to device?

Message 8 of 22
Jeffgear
Luminary

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

I've just created a new playlist in the Meural app and added 64 photos from a new iCloud Shared Album I am a member of. All 64 photos uploaded to the playlist fine. Added another 100 in two phases from two other shared libraries, one of which was my own iCloud shared library, the other was a family member who shared to me - all photos are showing in "All Uploads" under "Your Library" and the new playlist is showing all 164 photos, albeit not in the order they appear in the original shared albums, so they are not in any apparent sequence - possibly by their original time stamp. Anyway they are all in the Meural library and have started to display on my canvas after clicking "send" and display in what appears to be a random order rather than sequentially as they appear in their original iCloud albums, but this is what I prefer.

 

I did have a quirk where I could not add more that a certain amount from iCloud despite how many I selected, but this seems to have been fixed. I have since re-installed the Meural app on my iPhone and re-logged in. So maybe this helped. Some of the earlier quirks seem to have been ironed out now and I've got the NFT side of things working as well. The available artwork under the subscription seems to be getting regular additions and I'm enjoying adding some of this to my playlists. There are some features that I find clunky but overall I'm very happy with the Meural concept and am getting another when my local supplier has a sale. My aim is to have one fixed in landscape and the other fixed in portrait.

 

I have not tried linking to an iCloud album and then adding photos to the iCloud album to see if these additions then automatically sync to the Meural playlist. I will have a play with that feature some time and report back.

 

I hope your experience improves and you decide to persevere and keep it.

 

Message 9 of 22
Jeffgear
Luminary

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

Now this is quirky: I have many iCloud shared albums, a mix of my own that I have shared to others and some that others have shared to me. However, there is one specific shared album where trying to add a batch of photos into the Meural playlist fails with a message "some items failed to upload" - on investigation, none of them uploaded. Repeating for just a single photo also fails. Adding a single or multiple photos from any other shared iCloud album or my own non shared photos in iCloud works fine, so there is no image limit in my Meural playlist that I have reached and hitting. I tried restarting the Meural app, but get the same error. Looks like a bug with the iCloud shared album - so I'll ask the other family member to re-share it to me and see if that works, if not, then I will check the source image properties in that shared album in case there's a bug with Meural's support for different file formats.

Message 10 of 22
niklebOO
Aspirant

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

Is there a fix by now from Netgear?

Message 11 of 22

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

If by "fix" you mean "still pretends there is no bug, after several years," then yes, otherwise, no.

Message 12 of 22
Jeffgear
Luminary

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

The app on the iPhone still fails to add a photo from an iCloud shared album and gives an error that says "File extension 'heic' is not allowed..." which is incorrect as all 592 uploads in my Meural library are HEIC format!

 

I can add a photo that I've just taken on my iPhone and it adds fine, and that's also HEIC format. I also see all the photo's meta data in the details. 

 

If I log in to the my.meural.netgear.com portal from my MacBook Pro using Safari, I can upload any number of photos (I tried 200) from that same iCloud shared album without error. However, the photo meta data is not upload and all the titles are replaced by a useless hex string unique to each photo, like this 1D62FC13-D242-4576-B86A-621F48C269D1. I will have to delete them all and re-upload when the bug has been fixed.

 

So two bugs: (1) the Meural app on iPhone cannot add from 'some' iCloud shared albums despite all image formats being heic. (2) the work around for adding photos using the Safari browser does not upload the photo meta data.

 

I will play around with the iPad app and Safari browser to see if the bugs are consistent across devices or unique to one device type.

Message 13 of 22
Jeffgear
Luminary

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

The Meural app on the iPad fails to upload a single photo from a shared iCloud album. 

A Safari session to my Meural account uploads fine, but the uploaded photo title is the long hex string. 

Therefore the Meural app has a bug with iCloud shared albums and/or heic format (older shared albums with different image formats to heic or older versions of heic seem to upload in the app). There is also a bug with the browser session upload feature messing up the photo EXIF data, or ignoring it and replacing it with some unfriendly hex string ID. 

A few further potential tests I could try are saving a JPG photo in the shared iCloud album that has been failing and seeing if that uploads in the Meural app from the iPhone and iPad. And trying a different browser like Chrome or Brave on both devices. 

Message 14 of 22
Jeffgear
Luminary

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

Interim update: iOS 15.6.1 has not made any difference, which isn't a surprise as that update was for security vulnerabilities. I installed Chrome on the iPad and it gives the same results as Safari in the Meural web portal - uploads are fine from an iCloud shared album but it still loses the photo data and changes the title to an unfriendly hex string. Meural app still fails to upload any photo from a shared iCloud album (containing recently taken photos) giving an error that relates to the image's header. 

Will see what iOS 16 brings in terms of heic image interoperability with Meural with the browser. Hopefully Netgear will rollout an updated app as well. 

 

Message 15 of 22
Jeffgear
Luminary

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

I still cannot link a number of shared iCloud albums after the update to iOS 16.1 - I was hoping Photos would have had some bug fixes. Meural app still the version from a few months ago. I cannot determine why some other shared iCloud albums from the same sharer and their same phone work fine. Same photo format just more recently taken. Not Live Photos and no videos in the album, but the photos may have originally been Live Photos prior to them being edited. I have tried re subscribing to the shared album, deleting it in the Meural app etc. and a manual upload of a single photo from that share album gives a format error. 

Hopefully a Meural app update is on the way. 

I may try asking the sharer to create a new shared album and add one of the offed ing photos and one new photo to it and see if this links. 

Message 16 of 22
Jeffgear
Luminary

Re: Can't upload iCloud images from linked album

I have been experimenting.

 

If the photos are JPEG then it works. If Apple HEIF and after a variant of iOS 15 (not sure which but mid last year), then the linked album is empty and cannot be synced. It goes through the download process and progress bar in Meural app but the linked album never refreshes and remains empty.

 

All my own photos in iCloud that are HEIF upload fine to Meural, manually to new playlists or via linked albums.

 

if I create a shared album in iCloud, add photos that are JPEG and HEIF, then create a linked album in Meural to this iCloud shared album, only the JPEG's sync up to Meural. Yet I can manually add those HEIF photos to a playlist. 

 

The Meural linked album process rejects HEIF images from iCloud shared albums but these same photos can be manually uploaded into Meural library playlists. 

 

Message 17 of 22
Jeffgear
Luminary

Re: Can't upload iCloud images from linked album

I had a further update from NG Support this week. They were able to reproduce the issue on their end and have forwarded the issue for further investigation. I’ve also done some more testing with Meural linking to iCloud shared albums and they always work with JPEGs but fail with Apple iPhone source HEIF images. Even taking an image from a shared album that fails to upload any images and then adding that image to the existing shared album that has been syncing older HEIF fine in Meural, then fails to sync with that new image. So original shared iCloud albums that have been fine no longer work with new HEIF images that are added to it, suggesting the Meural app or cloud is now rejecting all HEIF images from iCloud shared albums, old or recently taken. Yet saving those HEIF images from the shared album to the local iCloud library and then linking that in Meural is fine. That’s a work around for sure but that defeats the whole purpose of shared libraries that are meant to automatically resync when the owner adds new photos for the participants to receive and view a display on the canvas.
Message 18 of 22
johndmeara
Initiate

Re: Can't upload iCloud images from linked album

Thanks for this info.  I think it holds true for all, but I'm just disappointed with Netgear/ the Meural.  I absolutely love it but I am constantly dealing with syncing issues.  I too learned about the HEIFs and issues with linked albums.  Support just tells me to add them via a playlist and I try to tell them that it completely defeats the point of a linked album that I can update through my phone.  Generally disappointed and sick of the amount of time invested in trying to figure out how to get my three meurals to act like I want them to.  

Message 19 of 22
avassigh
Tutor

Re: Can't upload iCloud images form linekd album

Well it’s June of 2023 and I’m still experiencing the same problem as most of you… linking a shared iCloud photo album won’t upload 100% of the photos. Oddly enough, each time I start over and retry, I get a different number of photos uploaded! No consistency! 

Also, when I unlink an iCloud album, all the previously uploaded photos from that album remain in the “All Uploads” and continue to show as being “linked”! So, then I have to go online into my account and manually delete photos one at a time! 

For such a great product, it’s unbelievable such issues would exist. Sincerely hoping Netgear invests in fixing these issues. 

Message 20 of 22
johndmeara
Initiate

Re: Can't upload iCloud images from linked album

Couldn't agree more with this sentiment.  Bought high end items that I love but are not used to their full potential due to syncing issues.  I'm sick of investing time and dealing with unhelpful NG Support (polite but don't resolve the issue).  I also don't understand how or why this issue cannot be remedied by NG.  

Message 21 of 22
Jeffgear
Luminary

Re: Can't upload iCloud images from linked album

I regularly check the app to see if any of my iCloud shared and linked albums populate with the photos the sharers are adding, but none upload. I did some further testing and only jpeg sync but none of the default heic format Apple uses. However pre ios 15.x heic do sync ok. I don’t know the exact version or date Thai stopped but it was over a year ago.
Message 22 of 22
Top Contributors
Discussion stats
  • 21 replies
  • 3865 views
  • 8 kudos
  • 6 in conversation
Announcements

Shop Meural NFT Displays