I first contacted the maintainers of libimobiledevice, but so far with no resolution, so I'm guessing that the problem may be with the Fedora build rather than the libimobiledevice suite of applications proper.

My initial report is at

https://github.com/libimobiledevice/libimobiledevice/issues/1650

To recap:

I'm running Fedora 41, the xfce4 spin, on my trusty laptop 'xena,' an Acer A315-44P (AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, 32 GB of RAM). My phone is an iPhone 2020 SE, the miniature version of the iPhone 11.

Digikam can download photos and videos from this iPhone; it works flawlessly (except for large videos of around 6 GB, for which I use LocalSend). And the xfce4 file manager, Thunar, can see the iPhone and can mount its photos directory. I thereby have the ability to download photos and videos from the phone via Thunar as well as via digikam. Thunar shows the iPhone's photos directory as

'gphoto2://Apple_Inc.iPhone_nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnE/202503_/'

where the middle part is the iPhone's 23-digits-plus-one-capital-letter UDID (as shown by iTunes running under Windows 10) minus the hyphen between the eighth and ninth digits.

I can also delete photos and videos on the iPhone from the laptop using either digikam or Thunar.

But what I want to do is download iMessage threads. I'm trying to create a backup on a 256 GB Samsung usb 3.1 thumb drive formatted as a single exFAT partition. I have created a directory on it, titled 'iphone'. Starting a terminal window from this directory, what happens is:

admin@xena:/mnt/exfat_usb/iphone$ idevicebackup2 -u 'nnnnnnnn-nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnE' backup --full .
No device found with udid nnnnnnnn-nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnE.
admin@xena:/mnt/exfat_usb/iphone$

I also get no success with idevice_id list:

admin@xena:~$ idevice_id list
ERROR: No device with UDID list attached.
admin@xena:~$

The above, even while I used Thunar to download three videos from the iPhone, through a usb port, over the lightning cable. And then I used Thunar to delete those videos from the iPhone. A fourth video on the iPhone was 9.49 GB in size and so I used LocalSend to download it over wifi (for some unknown reason, files above a certain size, the threshold being somewhere around 5-6 GB, do not show up in the digikam and Thunar iPhone photos directory listing).



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install libimobiledevice, libimobiledevice-devel, libimobiledevice-glue, libimobiledevice-glue-devel, and libimobiledevice-utils via dnfdragora, all version 1.3.0^20230705git6fc-41f5 release 5.fc41 for x86_64.

2. Attach iPhone 2020 SE (iPhone 11 miniature)

3. Attempt to run idevicebackup2 -u 'nnnnnnnn-nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnX' backup --full .

'nnnnnnnn-nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnX' is the iPhone's UDID as shown by iTunes running under Windows 10.
Actual Results:  
admin@xena:/mnt/exfat_usb/iphone$ idevicebackup2 -u 'nnnnnnnn-nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnX' backup --full .
No device found with udid nnnnnnnn-nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnX.
admin@xena:/mnt/exfat_usb/iphone$

admin@xena:~$ idevice_id list
ERROR: No device with UDID list attached.
admin@xena:~$

Expected Results:  
Both of the above commands should work to, respectively, back up and list the attached iPhone.

Fedora 41, the xfce4 spin, on my trusty laptop 'xena,' an Acer A315-44P (AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, 32 GB of RAM). My phone is an iPhone 2020 SE, the miniature version of the iPhone 11.

Digikam can download photos and videos from this iPhone, it works flawlessly (except for large videos of around 6 GB, for which I use LocalSend). And the xfce4 file manager, Thunar, can see the iPhone and can mount its photos directory. I thereby have the ability to download photos and videos from the phone via Thunar as well as via digikam. Thunar shows the iPhone's photos directory as

'gphoto2://Apple_Inc.iPhone_nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnX/202503_/'

where the middle part is the iPhone's 23-digits-plus-one-capital-letter UDID (as shown by iTunes running under Windows 10) minus the hyphen between the eighth and ninth digits.