Ubuntu 16.04 unable to detect/connect to and work properly with iPhone 4.

[SunBear]

Action 1: Plug an iPhone 4 to a just booted up Ubuntu 16.04 workstation.
Result 1: 2 iPhone connections appear in Nautilus. 1st connect is mount via gphoto2, where access is limited to viewing and copying photos and videos. The 2nd connection that is mounted via afc fail to work, hence other folders in iPhone are not accessible.

Action 2: Unplugged and re-plugged iPhone 4 to the workstation.
Result 2: iPhone 4 does not reappear in Nautilus at all. No iPhone mount point appear.

Checks and Remedy used:
1. "ideviceinfo" and lsusb command show iPhone 4 is connected.
2. "idevicepair validate" command shows "SUCCESS: Validated pairing with device [UDID]"
3. After running "ifuse /media/iPhone" command, iPhone 4 reappears in Nautilus as mounted in /media/iPhone. Furthermore, all folders of iPhone 4 appears and are accessible.

I believe the 1st mounting of iPhone 4 on Nautilus is due to the "gvfs-backends" package. W/o it, auto detection/connection of iPhone 4 would not occur and appear in Nautilus. However, the afc mount failed to work

The 2nd mounting is caused by ifuse. This works perfectly but requires manual mounting and unmounting.

Questions:
1. How to overcome issues/failures mentioned in Result 1 & 2?
2. Ideally, i would like the automatic detection-connection between Ubuntu and iPhone to work. If not, is there a way to automate connection via ifuse?

System and package info:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial

$ uname -or
4.4.0-47-generic GNU/Linux

$ dpkg -l | grep iPhone
ii ifuse 1.1.2-0.1build3 amd64 FUSE module for iPhone and iPod Touch devices
ii libimobiledevice-utils 1.2.0+dfsg-3~ubuntu0.2 amd64 Library for communicating with iPhone and iPod Touch devices
ii libimobiledevice6:amd64 1.2.0+dfsg-3~ubuntu0.2 amd64 Library for communicating with the iPhone and iPod Touch
ii libusbmuxd-tools 1.0.10-2ubuntu0.1 amd64 USB multiplexor daemon for iPhone and iPod Touch devices - tools
ii libusbmuxd4:amd64 1.0.10-2ubuntu0.1 amd64 USB multiplexor daemon for iPhone and iPod Touch devices - library
ii usbmuxd 1.1.0-2 amd64 USB multiplexor daemon for iPhone and iPod Touch devices

$ dpkg -l | grep libusb
ii libgusb2:amd64 0.2.9-0ubuntu1 amd64 GLib wrapper around libusb1
ii libusb-0.1-4:amd64 2:0.1.12-28 amd64 userspace USB programming library
ii libusb-1.0-0:amd64 2:1.0.20-1 amd64 userspace USB programming library
ii libusb-1.0-0:i386 2:1.0.20-1 i386 userspace USB programming library
ii libusbmuxd-tools 1.0.10-2ubuntu0.1 amd64 USB multiplexor daemon for iPhone and iPod Touch devices - tools
ii libusbmuxd4:amd64 1.0.10-2ubuntu0.1 amd64 USB multiplexor daemon for iPhone and iPod Touch devices - library
ii libusbredirhost1:amd64 0.7.1-1 amd64 Implementing the usb-host (*) side of a usbredir connection (runtime)
ii libusbredirparser1:amd64 0.7.1-1 amd64 Parser for the usbredir protocol (runtime)

$ dpkg -l | grep gvfs
ii gvfs:amd64 1.28.2-1ubuntu1~16.04.1 amd64 userspace virtual filesystem - GIO module
ii gvfs-backends 1.28.2-1ubuntu1~16.04.1 amd64 userspace virtual filesystem - backends
ii gvfs-bin 1.28.2-1ubuntu1~16.04.1 amd64 userspace virtual filesystem - binaries
ii gvfs-common 1.28.2-1ubuntu1~16.04.1 all userspace virtual filesystem - common data files
ii gvfs-daemons 1.28.2-1ubuntu1~16.04.1 amd64 userspace virtual filesystem - servers
ii gvfs-fuse 1.28.2-1ubuntu1~16.04.1 amd64 userspace virtual filesystem - fuse server
ii gvfs-libs:amd64 1.28.2-1ubuntu1~16.04.1 amd64 userspace virtual filesystem - private libraries

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Filip Pytloun (fpytloun)]

Hello,

I hit the same issue. Strange is that iPhone gets detected and it can mount gthumb:// and afc:// handle.. but it's using port 3 instead of port 0 which should be used instead.
I can mount afc manually just fine, access files, etc. but applications still doesn't see the iPhone properly to be able to sync.

[indigocat (indigocat)]

Same here; via file manager, entering afc://[device's uuid] allows for file management, but neither Rhythmbox or Banshee can manage audio files anymore.

Ubuntu 16.04 & elementary OS (based on Ubuntu 16.04).
Kernel: vanilla Ubuntu 4.4.0-104

[Rob Cannell (r-cannell)]

This is still an issue for me on Ubuntu 18.04. Can mount iPhone 5 via Nautilus but it doesn't show on Rhythmbox or Banshee.

[indigocat (indigocat)]

Hi, #3 is *still* an issue, as I can't access my iPod, which is recognized by the USB subsystem, but file managers in general only seem to access it via gphoto2:// protocol instead of afc:// (which seems to be recognized as a network protocol).

Syncing files via Rhythmbox or Banshee isn't possible anymore due to this bug.
Entering afc://{devide_uuid} on any file manager allows for accessing the iPod's filesystem and copying the music folder manually, but this is only useful as a music backup procedure.

Transferring music *to* the iPod in a way that the device will recognize is impossible, and has been so at least for the past 3 years.