Cannot sign into Windows iCloud: get a pop-up with only a red circle with a white cross

Actually I found a cert file with APNSDaemon keyword in that directory using powershell, but the associated Sid is an unknown user, here is the powershell script I use to find the file.

Get-ChildItem -Path "$env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Crypto\" -File -Recurse | ForEach-Object { if (Get-Content $_.FullName | Select-String -Pattern "APNSDaemon") { $_ } } | Format-Table -Wrap

scuba-fan wrote:

Now I get an error "unable to create a directory for icloud photos, please restart your machine". Argh.

• Open the iCloud settings window. Sign out of iCloud.
• In Windows Explorer, Go Quick Access and click on Pictures. (The Windows default Pictures folder.)
• Delete the folder: iCloud Photos
• Sign in to iCloud.

This worked for me when I got that message.

Replying to Carpathos:

No just search for the previous app as iCloud 12.5.74

I just searched and don't find a link that one can truly trust. Please post a link that is supported or trusted by Apple. BTW, it's version 14.x that's broken. I'd prefer a 13.x version to downgrade to. And also, if one is able to downgrade, the only way to prevent auto update is to disable it for all apps.

None of the suggestion solutions work for me but I think it is because if have Advanced Data Protection enabled. It seems if you have that turned on, you are stuck as the older versions of iCloud won't work. I have 3 different Windows devices and this issue only impacts 1 of them.

This is so frustrating. I've tried the steps Honk described, but there was never an Apple certificate to be found. Is this normal/possible?

I wanted to try what tsu272 said about Outlook profiles, but don't see the profiles like this in Windows 11. I can only remove an email account. Is that what I should do?

Apple had told me that the bug had to do with me being on a Developer Preview version. I now updated to Windows 11 Busienss, v22H2, build 22651.14.13 which is supposed to be fully up to date.

So the steps from Honk did not work and neither did downloading version 13. When I did, I now receive a pop-up that says "Update iCloud for Windows to the latest version to sign in"... I'm going around in circles!

Any other thoughts?

Many thanks to all

Mathieu

Me too ….

WARNING … do NOT change your password as any “working” device will start getting this same error.

(I have a parallel discussion. And someone shared this discussion. Maybe moderators can merge and get enough for an answer.)

This is a pain. The version with the problem is the only version that has the password sync included.

Given that we're in 2023 and this was posted in November 2022, I'm guessing a swift fix isn't likely!

I just noticed that all three Apple Discussion threaded were posted on 2022 November 14. (I stated one of the discussions.) I am wondering what releases or add-one to OS, apps, iCloud signin flow / sequence or something running happened on or about November 14.

Per previous posts, I uninstalled the latest version of iCloud because of the red X issue. I tried to download the older version of iCloud and got an error message saying: "One or more users on this computer have installed iCloud from the microsoft store. All users must uninstall iCloud before this installation can continue."

Anybody have any luck fixing this issue? Now, I've added a new issue...ugh.

I've been looking for a solution for months!

Following your instructions, but the files inside %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA are not text files that can be read with notepad. These are encrypted key files and I have THOUSANDS (over 500 thousand to be exact) of them across four different directories that all start with S-1-5-21...

So how do I actually find the file that needs to be deleted? Thank you!

They're binaries, but you can open them up in notepad and still see some text strings. I only had 4 though; if you have thousands I guess you'll need to use some sort of find in files tool to identify which ones contain the string APNSDaemon .

Hundreds of thousands! I used findstr, built into windows, to locate the string. Deleted the files and it worked! Thank you!

Now I get an error "unable to create a directory for icloud photos, please restart your machine". Argh.

This is disheartening that after two months, this error is still blocking people to log into their accounts! I can't log in either, and am not game enough to try deleting files, nor download an old program from a website I'm not sure is safe. Sorry I don't have anything to add, just frustrated I can't have iCloud on my PC anymore :(