Unable to add 2nd iCloud email account to iPad?

And the fix is..........

Related to the need to accept updated 'Terms and Conditions' for iCloud! So, sign out of the Primary account you want to use. Sign in to the account you are having problems adding, accept the new T&C, then sign out. Re-add and sign in to your primary account again. Then add the problematic account again under Email / Add Account / iCloud and this time, after inputting your credentials and the 2FA code, the device should add the account correctly.

I'm glad I finally got it sorted but this is way, WAY too complicated and cumbersome procedure to have to do simply to add a legacy email account to device where you have not yet accepted the current iCloud T&C. At the very least, Apple should find a way of triggering that T&C acceptance from the Add Email Account option, maybe having it pop up after the two factor ID code has been input but before actually adding the account, not force people to jump through these hoops, especially when Apple don't even make it clear that the hoops exist and exactly what they are!

While one can never be sure I really do think this is an IOS 15 issue. All the standard suggested ways to fix these problems (reboot phone, reboot router, try another network etc etc, reset network settings, reset and set up as new device) all centre around connectivity, OS glitch on the device or even a messed up OS install). In this case though it's none of those things:

• I get the ID prompt on the phone
• It can contact and verify at the servers (thus moving to the password stage)
• Once I've input the password I get the two factor authorisation code
• It's after the verification code input that it stalls

Seems that the OS itself has a bug in some cases and is just not going to the next stage of bringing up the T&C and / or account screen once you have successfully input the two factor code, just returns to the account credentials box showing the two boxes filled in and the 'Next' still highlighted blue. Pressing that does nothing at all, just sticks at the credentials box. I think the problem is the phone end simply because there's no problem with the account I'm trying to add, I can log into it via either the Apple ID page or iCloud page and from the Apple ID page I can even see that the iPad is a signed in device.

Further, I finally tried a restore from back up from about 2 years ago and this time the accounts I was trying to add to the iPad, which were on it at the time of the back up, were restored OK and I was merely asked to input the account password when I opened the account (which had changed since the back up) and accept the latest T&C. I half expected the restore to stall at the password stage but it worked fine so it really doesn't seem that there's a problem with communication / servers.

Guess there's nothing to do but wait for an IOS update, provided Apple are aware of this and fix it.

Hung on for a while as I hoped IOS 15.0.1 would fix this problem but no. Wasted yet more time today trying to get this to work but STILL the problem persists. Wouldn't be so bad perhaps if I was having a problem adding an account from another provider like Google or whatever but this is Apple account!

I'd seen a post somewhere that someone had gone into their Apple ID on the web and changed the password for the rogue account and it then worked. Tried that, nope! What's even more bizarre is that as well as the iPad showing up one the web interface as being signed in to the Apple ID in question, when I removed the MacBook Pro and signed in again, I even get the 2FA approval code show up on the iPad. The device IS signed in so I've no idea why the OS doesn't move to the next stage after entering the credentials an add the email account to the list of accounts! I even hunted around to see if they'd buried the account somewhere in another setting but no, nothing. The account is signed in, receives 2FA codes but is not listed under email accounts.

I did wonder if it the rogue account would add properly if I signed out of the primary account, added the rogue account (it if would add), select email only, then add the primary account again selecting all the options. Loathe to try that though in case I can't sign back into to my primary account again. If that's what is needed it's a really cumbersome and unintuitive way to add a second email account, given the need to de-activate 'Find my phone' etc before signing out of the main account. Surely you should be able to just add an email account from the email 'Add Accounts' setting without this much hassle?

IOS 15 certainly seems to be a botched, buggy release as I've never encountered a problem like this before. What's the point of buying Apple devices if you can't use Apple IDs / accounts on them? We did have 2 iPhone 13 Pro on order, cancelled now until they sort this mess out.

Now I just need to find a way to edit the email account 'Description' that no longer seems to be an option? Surely we don't need to put up with multiple long email addresses in the Email app side bar?

One other thing I'm wondering is whether it's an IOS 15 bug?