iCloud Drive not syncing with 2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro

GEBurkett Said:

"iCloud Drive not syncing with 2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro"

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Some Things you Can Try:

A. Single Out this User:

See what happens when you create a new Administrator user. Log in to it, seeing if anything is different. If it works, then it is something misconfigured in this current user.

B. Remove Login Items:

Go To: System Preferences > Users & Groups > Click your Username > Login Items > Rid of Terminal, and remove any unnecessary items.

C. Reset the SMC and your NVRAM:

Sometimes when changes are made to the system(i.e. updates), system configurations (i.e. for the keyboard) become manipulated, technically. So, reset the SMC and NVRAM.

D. Try Safe Mode:

[Hold Down shift key] upon boot. In Safe Mode, corrupted system setting files (caches), are intentionally fixed.

1. Boot: in Safe Mode
2. Log In: as Same User
3. Wait: 30 seconds 
4. Shut Down: the Mac
5. Wait: 30 seconds 
6. Boot: the Mac normally
7. Log In: as Same User
8. See if can get this to work

@TheLittles ... fyi, your instructions are for Intel MBPs, and don't apply to M1pro MBPs.

In particular your C and D instructions.

C. Reset the SMC and your NVRAM:

D. Try Safe Mode: [Hold Down shift key] upon boot.

The OP indicated a M1 Pro 2021 MBP was his device, and thus the above does not apply to those computers.

The Safe Boot for M1pro instructions are here (as well as Intel) https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201262

btw, my problem still exists and I will report any progress once Apple Support get back to me next week.

😀

I have the same or similar problem with my new 16" M1pro.

Problem is that any FILE I create on the M1pro does not upload into iCloud. However, any FOLDER that I create, does upload into iCloud Drive and can be seen on my other devices.

If I create anything on one of my other 5 Apple devices (2 x 27" iMacs, 2015 MBP, iPhone, iPad) in iCloud Drive, the M1pro DOES sync the files/folders perfectly.

If I create a FOLDER in iCloud Drive and then put a file/s into that folder, the other Apple devices can see the Folder, but not the file/s and it shows as 0 items on the other devices. Interestingly, the FOLDER shows a dotted outline to show that iCloud synching is not complete, but the FILES show solid icloud icons in the List View for the files (which don't appear on the other devices in iCloud).

I have tried everything from, signing out of iCloud, to changing AppleID password. I have even reset the new M1pro back to factory default and re-set up again, but still the problem remains.

One of the 27" iMacs is running Monterey 12.0.1 (same as M1pro) and has no problem with synching up/down with iCloud.

Also, the M1pro is synching just fine with Photos.app iCloud Library.

It seems it is a M1pro device problem.

Have also raised it with Apple Care and they are getting back to me next week.

To: GEBurkett How did you reset the SMC on your M1 MacBook Pro?

The new M1 changes how that is done (compared to Intel Macs).

From what I see online, to do a SMC reset, one shutdowns the computer for at least 30 seconds, and then simply restart the computer. And that’s all one does.

Is that what you did?

MacGazza Said:

“your instructions are for Intel MBPs, and they don’t apply for M1pro MBPs.”

———-

Welcome to the World of Mac Troubleshooting:

Okay. So they tried it, and it worked? Maybe the OP doesn’t have an M1, as expected. As I said: “Somethings you can try:”. So, give it a try. It’s just another method of troubleshooting. Don’t like the idea, then don’t perform it.

All is fine from here.

@GEBurkett Thanks for posting that info re Intel MBPs. In your original post you indicated a 2021 M1 MacBook Pro? (not an Intel Mac).

Did you do that process with the combination of Shift+Cntrl+Option+PwrButton on your M1 MBP?

From what I see online, to reset the SMC on M1 Macs, one Shuts Down the Mac, then close the lid for 30 seconds, then simply power on the Mac. 

btw, in my desperate quest to try anything, I did do the intel SMC combo on the M1 MBP ... but no change to my particular iCloud sync problem.

I tried the SMC and that has fixed the problem.

I suspect this is temporary; I've had this problem from the start, though it took a while to become apparent. Generally a reboot works, and I've just found that logging out and logging back in works. Photos is also affected; so cropping a picture on the MacBook "Pro" will not propagate to anything else (including the M1 MacBook Air).

But the problem recurs, again and again on a daily basis. I'll try to report it as a bug, which it clearly is. Endless workarounds are not the solution here.

Hello all. Well my problem has now been fixed, but I'm not sure how it was fixed, nor what the fault was, causing the problem.

Here's what I did. I had 6 computers/devices logged into my iCloud Drive.

I firstly moved the entire contents of the iCloud Drive onto an area of the hard drive disk outside of iCloud.

I then signed out of (turned off) iCloud Drive on ALL 6 devices.

I then logged into iCloud.com via Safari on the 27" iMac and went to the Restore All Files section.

I had approx 4,500 files using about 32GB of data. (this is not counting Photos.app which had been working perfectly the whole time).

fyi, My internet speed is 100 Mbps download and about 18Mbps upload.

It took about 4 or 5 goes at restoring until all the files had been done. I had to re-start the process because it stopped for some unknown reason/s. Each time I restarted the process there were less files, until I got to zero files to restore.

I then re-activated iCloud Drive on each of the devices and it took around 30minutes before there was any action or indication that it was working. There is no progress bar. It just got to the stage where ALL the Folders (and files within) suddenly appeared, showing in the Finder under the iCloud Drive location.

However, they were only "place holders" and not the "full file" as the iCloud download progress bar was indicating that it was still downloading e.g. 2.7GB of 32Gb. It was downloading "slowly". As if Apple's servers were releasing the information slowly.

I left it to finish downloading on all devices overnight (only the iPhone and iPad were set to Optimise Storage. The other four Macs were to download the full res files).

To my delight, the next morning, when I tested the creation of files and folders on any device, everything sync'd almost instantly with all changes reflected correctly.

My original problem was with the new M1pro MBP being able to create Folders within iCloud Drive location (and being seen by all other devices) but it was FILES created on the M1pro that did not propagate onto the other devices.

My thinking is that a corrupted file/s was the problem, as I had quite a few files being shared collaboratively. But who knows?

I hope that above info helps anyone else.

Note: The PRAM and SMC resets (where possible to do so, on the M1pro) had no effect.

😀

Same problem here with an M1 MacBook Air. With OS up to date. macOS Monterey.

For example, files created on any folder an iPad Pro from 2020, appear and disappear on the same folder in macOS Monterey, making impossible to open, while on iPadOS keep alive.

As stated, folders sync, but not the files inside the folders.

The worst is that I have a windows machine with Windows 11 ( SurfaceBook 3) that syncs the drive perfectly.

@Darisraits I've seen since found solution to the problem of a device not synching with iCloud correctly.

The give away is that Folders WILL sync where as Files will NOT sync.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/313716/icloud-drive-wont-sync-on-mac

The weblink above has more details (about moving files out of iCloud and keeping a copy of that data in case there is a file/s in that folder that you may want, but hasn't yet uploaded into the iCloud "master library" and therefore not kept anywhere else).

Some users reported just the simple Terminal command  killall bird  made iCloud start syncing straight away.

However, please allow enough time for the files to start to physically show on the Mac. In my case 32GB took about 30 minutes before the place markers showed. (and then longer to download the full set of data)

Another user had 300GB in iCloud and it took 4 hours before anything showed in Finder on his Mac.

My thinking remains that a rogue corrupted file that was stuck "mid-sync" was the cause of my problem.

Thanks. I tried but it didn't work.

What did worked for me was doing another user in my MacBook Air m1 with admin privileges.

Then I unlinked the iCloud account of my MacBook Air m1.

Log in to my new user in the Mac.

Removed the old Mac user that was linked to the iCloud account.

Verify on iCloud.com or with the iPad to remove the MacBook Air m1 is not in the list of my devices.

Then logged in the new user of the Mac, I linked the iCloud account, activate the sync of documents... and all with the MacBook Air plugged.

The syncing worked, it lasted around 2hours to sync all files (about 5Gb) But worked.

I had the same exact experience as you several months ago and when I simply restarted my router, everything from iCloud started to sync perfectly.