Manzana released this week the latest update of iOS which brings the operating system to the version 17.5. This update, which includes security improvements, new functions and some aesthetic changes, has brought a bug that is causing some users of iPhone and iPad are seeing images they deleted years ago, including nudes, as their most recent photos .
The media MacRumors has echoed the complaint from affected users on Reddit. The person who started the thread claims that NSFW photographs – short for Not Safe For Work, referring to explicit images – that he had deleted years ago were back on his phone. “I went to send a photo (to his partner) and I saw that the last photos were NFSW material that we had done years ago when we lived apart (covid, etc.). But what the hell. It was permanently removed. It's been years but magically it's back?? I checked my iPad and it has pictures on it too (some artwork I did years ago). I feel so uncomfortable,” she wrote.
“Here too. Have four photographs from 2010 that keep reappearing like the last photos uploaded to iCloud. I have deleted them repeatedly,” says another testimony.
Another user has pointed out that he saw images taken in recent years appear in the album. 2016 as if they were new and other than “around 300” of his old photographs, some of which he describes as “revealing,” appeared on an iPad that he had erased following Apple guidelines and subsequently sold to a friend. Another affected person has described it as “the worst software experience ever.”
These just came out of nowhere🫤🫤 this has to be the worst software experience ever. I thought Apple had a solid OS, ever since iOS 16 it's been shambles pic.twitter.com/0e0zIVVovE
— ISAAC🦒 (@Isaac_Kea) May 15, 2024
Not all cases are being equal. A user who You don't sync your phone or use iCloud noted that he has also seen deleted photos appear on his iPhone, implying that they could come from the device's storage. And another pointed out a similar problem, but not with the images but with voicemail messages. “After updating to iOS 17.5 on my Xr, voicemails that I had already listened to or deleted reappeared. Before the update, I only had one unheard voice message, but now I have 26,” he explained in X.
After upgrading to iOS 17.5 on my Xr, voicemails that I had already listened to or deleted reappeared. Before the update, I had only one unheard voicemail, but now I have 26. pic.twitter.com/eqx1buJIx0
— Stacey (@ssmithdev) May 15, 2024
iOS offers users the option to restore deleted photos, but after 30 days they are supposed to be permanently deleted. However, in an operating system, when a file is deleted it does not disappear, but rather the references to it are deleted, so that it is hidden from the user but remains. until the space it occupies is rewritten to hold other data. This is what allows there to be software programs that can recover previously deleted files.
MacRumors points out other possible explanations. According to the media, the failure could be due to “an indexing error, corruption of the photo library or a synchronization problem between local devices and iCloud Photos. Another possibility is that when trying to fix a photo sync error that occurred in iOS 17.3, Apple may have inadvertently caused a new syncing issue that may involve iCloud backups.” Apple, for the moment, has not referred to this bug in iOS 17.5.