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

This also works for me. I have no idea what it all means (and what I have done) and why it cures this problem. I am very impressed that there are people out there who are able to analyse this and even offer a solution (probably with out ChatGPT support :-)). Thank you very much!!!

I used hronk's instruction and it did not work.

But after that I delete only iCloud Outlook in standard Windows 10 settings without deleting iCloud. And after that everything working.

P. S. Additional good news: in current iCloud version you finally can change iCloud Drive directory!

IGNATII wrote:

P. S. Additional good news: in current iCloud version you finally can change iCloud Drive directory!

Ah that's great to hear. I hadn't discovered that yet. But that didn't bother me because I used the Windows feature where you can redirect the location of the of the default user folders: Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music, Videos using the Location tab in Properties. I redirected all those folders to my D:\ drive under D:\Users\<username>. Since ICloud Photos was under Pictures, that moved along with the redirection of the default Pictures folder. Google Drive is really the odd one out. That one you can't redirect to another folder or drive letter.

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.

NOTE: one my computers was impacted (not working). I changed my iCloud password because password vault compromised (hence I changed all passwords). Upon changing the iCloud password, all other Windows computers impacted.

Upon all Windows computers impacted, I followed HRONK (I think poster, I cannot find the original) directions on all computers the. iCloud worked. This is an Administrator level set of steps but works.

I was able to fix this by deleting my Outlook profile (via control panel/mail) and creating a new one. It sounds odd but once I built a new profile and added my accounts, iCloud started working and the red X and all issues went away. I had this issue on multiple machines and the only fix was a new Outlook profile. Hope this helps someone.

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

It seems clear that all of the various workarounds found in this thread are just band-aids. We don't know the root cause of this issues. So, it is really up to Apple to solve this and get an update out.

Behind my home firewall/router I got the same issue: Empty error message. Once I connected to a mobile hotspot the authentication worked without issues. I tested this several times. Worked on mobile hotspot, stopped working when connected behind my home firewall/router. I started to suspect blocked packages. However after some more testing it suddenly started working behind my home firewall/router also. So I really did not get any wiser. I do not completely rule out firewall issues, though.

Can anyone in this forum confirm if they also see different behavior based on how they connect to the internet? Through a restrictive firewall or not? What is strange I only see this unstable behavior on a Windows Client. My mac client works ok through my home firewall/router, always.

I did the 'fix' mentioned above on my home computer, it got rid of the red x error and let me log into icloud from the app. On the down side I can't see my photos, I have to go thru a browser to see them. On my work computer, I have access to icloud thru the app without any issues AND i can see my photos. I just hope Apple gets the issue resolved.

I'm having the exact same issue and have tried everything that the others have tried. Nothing has worked. The issue started after syncing my iPhone 14pro. Immediately prior to that, it was fine.

Same problem, Windows 10 Pro 22H2, OS build 19045.2251. Reinstalled Microsoft 365 and ICloud with multiple reboots, but problem persists

I'm guessing the problem is with version 14 of the iCloud for windows app. I went back to version 13 and everything is working.

OK, but how do you get that older version?