iCloud issues with note sync and backup not working, Apple tech support have no clue what to do

Tech Support
1

Hi all

I hope someone might be able to help please.

I have issues with iCloud.

iCloud backup does not work (backup failed). (I have gone through “troubleshooting” several times with Apple support. Nothing has worked.)

Notes does not sync - if I write a note on the iPhone it stays there, if I go to iCloud.com and write a note there it stays there.

Photos works fine.

Reminders works fine too.

I have googled it and tried the various troubleshooting methods. I even reset the phone and set it up again, no luck.

I have considered abandoning the account and making a new iCloud account (but years worth of purchases etc) and as I am in the UK I will lose ADP.

I have contacted Apple support again but no one seems to want to take ownership of the issue.

I am certain it is an iCloud issue and Apple need to do something their end.

(I previously had a data usage mismatch and other iCloud issues and Apple’s senior engineers fixed it. I think they did something on the server which houses my iCloud account.)

As you can imagine this is really frustrating and has been going on now for around 18-24 months with no resolution in sight.

The tier 1 and tier 2 support tech support people really don’t know and I don’t know why they don’t pass it to the developers/engineers.

Some of the techies are speculating as to the cause and making suggestions which are unreasonable e.g. turn off ADP, make a new ID instead etc.

If anyone has experienced anything similar and resolved it I would be pleased to know.

Apple’s whole iCloud set up is complete rubbish and its shocking that regulators do not make them open up allowing backups to other storage locations e.g. Dropbox etc.

Apple does not allow deleting an alias and then making a new account with it, which I would be open to doing as a last resort as I am sick of dealing with Apple’s support people. All they seem to do nowadays is churn out rubbish (that includes the hardware sadly)…

2

You don’t say what steps you’ve taken with iCloud support. What have you tried?

Do you only have an iPhone? You’ve mentioned that there are issues with your iPhone. do you have other devices? If you have a MacBook or an iPad, what happens if you create a note on this, does it sync to the iCloud website?

In the end, Apple owns this whole process, but it’s strange that iCloud backup fails but Photos in the cloud (I assume that’s what you mean) works fine.

How much spare space do you have on your iCloud account?

3

I forget the exact dates, but about a year or more ago I spent months (a call here and there, a screen share here and there, etc.) back and forth with a nice support rep. He couldn’t help me, but he would take the info, pass it to the engineers, they would pass something back, etc.

The issue was Podcasts.app syncing. Shows would just randomly disappear. Episodes would randomly mark as unplayed, leaving me with a station that suddenly had thousands of unplayed episodes. Devices would not stay in sync. My phone might have 10 unplayed episodes, and my MacBook Air might have 35,000.

Nothing they told me ever worked. Eventually, I tried on my own undoing the Apple ID migrating merge thingy (one ID for iCloud and another for purchases). I began having a hunch that perhaps there was something going on with that. I undid the migration/merge thing, and so far it seems, seeeeeems, that things are okay. Now, instead of waking up to 45 shows randomly unfollowed, there are about 5 out of 100 shows I follow that won’t stick. I keep an Apple note of “problem podcast” that I go back in and follow when I need to.

Reminders, notes, files, and photos all seem to sync fine. For me, podcasts follows are the biggest culprit. Occasionally, Safari acts up (reading list takes forever to sync or just never does, deleted bookmarks show back up after I have deleted them).

I’ve sent in feedback on MPU and another on MGG and also ATP asking them to explain in laymen’s terms what is going on with syncing that can make it just not work. I don’t understand what is going on to make a server and my device stay in sync, but I know that it is frustrating when it doesn’t, and nothing has changed on my end.