person reconigPhotos app stuck on “Searching for People” – no featured photos or memories (iPhone 17, iOS 26.1)

Hi everyone,

I recently got a new iPhone 17 (about two weeks ago) and since day one I’ve been having an issue with the Photos app that hasn’t gone away.

Symptoms:

• In People & Pets it always says “Searching for People…”, but it never analyzes anything or shows any faces.
• I don’t get Featured Photos, Memories, or Wallpaper Suggestions.
• iCloud Photos is enabled and working — all my photos and videos appear correctly on icloud.com.
• I’ve left the phone plugged in, locked, and connected to Wi-Fi overnight many times, with no change.

What I’ve tried so far:

1. Updated to the latest iOS (26.1).
2. Disabled and re-enabled iCloud Photos.
3. Reset all settings.
4. Deleted and reinstalled the Photos app.
5. Restored the iPhone from an iCloud backup after resetting.
6. Made sure Low Power Mode and Adaptive Battery are turned off, with plenty of free storage available.

Even after restoring from backup, the issue remains exactly the same.

It seems the internal process responsible for photo analysis (photoanalysisd) never starts.

Has anyone else experienced this on iPhone 17 or iOS 26.1?

Is there any way to force Photos to start analyzing again without doing a full wipe and setting up as new?

Thanks in advance for any help or advice!