Photos app stuck on 'downloading x of y'

Question

Hi guys, I had to restore my iPhone 4S yesterday, whilst everything seemed fine at first I noticed that in the photos app it shows 9 pictures with the message "Downloading 9 of 63" yet nothing happens, I cant take photos or screenshots as when I do I go to the app and they're not there.
I'm not sure exactly whats happened or how to fix it.
Any help is appreciated
Thanks

Answer 1

I too ran into this problem after trying to setup a new iPad by restoring from my old iPad's iCloud backup: Photo's app said, "Syncing x of y," and was stuck for more than a month despite hard resets, killing apps, etc. After calling AppleCare, they hinted that the only way they know to solve this problem is by doing a wipe and restore which I did not want to do. So while my AppleCare representative was consulting with a colleague, I tried one last thing which ended up working for me (please keep in mind that I had not sync'd my new iPad with my computer until this point, but this may work even if you have already done so):
Open iTunes and find your Preferences, then in the "Devices" tab, make sure to check the box next to "Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically".
Plug in your iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch into the computer and transfer all your photo's to the computer, then remove the photo's from your iDevice (iPhoto will automatically give you the option to remove the photo's you just imported from the device). Your Camera Role Album should now be empty on your iDevice.
To be safe, since we are about to sync with iTunes, click "File" --> "Transfer Purchases from [iDevice Name]".
Now in iTunes, after clicking on the name of your iDevice in the left-hand column, click on the Photo's tab and put a checkmark next to, "Sync Photo's from [your default photo application name]" and next to "Selected albums, Events, Faces, and ...."
Now choose a small album that is not already showing up on your iDevice. This way, the computer will try to remove the presumably corrupted album and add the album you chose.
Hit Apply, and let iTunes finish syncing with your iDevice.
If the "Syncing x of y" message disappeared, congratulations and remember to restore any of your syncing preferences that you might have altered following these directions, namely whether to automatically sync your iDevice when connected to the computer and which photo albums or events you want synced.
Please reply to this post if this worked or did not work for you so that we can determine if these steps will work for others.