I was having the exact same problem. It all started as soon as I added MetalKit as a framework. Anyway in case anyone else is having the same problem, you need to request the Image synchronously even if all your calls are being scheduled on the main-thread I only set this as sync on the DEBUG builds as release builds seems to work fine. PHImageRequestOptions *requestOptions = [[PHImageRequestOptions alloc] init]; requestOptions.synchronous = YES; .... [manager requestImageForAsset:asset             targetSize:targetSize            contentMode:contentMode              options:requestOptions...];