Malcolm Owen
Users of iCloud for Windows are having problems viewing videos and images, with corrupt footage and images that may belong to other accounts appearing on their PCs.
The iCloud for Windows tool makes it easy for Windows users to synchronize their photos, videos, contacts, and other items with their other Apple ecosystem hardware. However, while usually a reliable service, some users are starting to encounter issues on Monday.
A small number of users are discovering that if they try to watch video recorded on an iPhone 13 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro that has been synced with iCloud for Windows, they see black footage with scan lines.
More damningly, as reported by MacRumors, the corrupted videos can sometimes insert still images from unknown sources. One user said the stills include photos of other people's families and soccer games.
While AppleInsider staff have not encountered the issue in person, we have confirmed other reports about the incident — albeit not to the level of severity as reported.
It is unknown where the still images stem from, but there's a good chance that it could be coming from other iCloud accounts. Attempts to reinstall iCloud for Windows doesn't solve the problem, which means that it's likely a server-side issue.
Apple has been informed of the instances. There has yet to be any confirmation that employees are working on a solution.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
7 Comments
iCloud for Windows is a Windows app you download from the Microsoft store. It's for PCs running at least Windows 10, using Windows Media Player (per https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204363). It appears Apple's iCloud servers are being used but photos and videos are accessed either on an iPhone or a PC. This article says an iPhone was used and synced to iCloud using iCloud for Windows which isn't available as an iOS app so my assumption is the photos/videos were synced to a PC then uploaded to iCloud. This gets to be convoluted when various OSes are used on totally different platforms (I see everything from Apple as being on the same platform). Windows uses different file naming processes and data storage types so it wouldn't surprise me if something gets screwed up when going between these two systems.
Just exactly how is it even remotely possible? You cannot inject corrupted images into videos or visa versa as they have fundamental differences in processing images.
I never got it to work.
It could be a windows bug