can't turn on icloud back up

There are several people here suffering the same thing as us.

Can’t get into some iCloud settings, err… - Apple Community

MisterMisterMister in that thread is using 2FA, so that throws a monkey wrench into the theory.

This is exactly my situation. Updated to 16.3 last night (against my better judgment). Seems that if 2 factor is not turned on, the update breaks something. And now, on iPhone, no option to turn on 2 factor. I'm afraid to turn on from browser as long as this bug exists. Is it something they can fix on backend, or are we stuck until 16.3.1? Who knows

My wife isn’t using 2FA a either and I know of two other people that are having this problem that do not use 2FA so maybe that is the common thread.

Try this and see if you have the backup turned on in spite of not being able to enable the setting. Go to Settings>Apple ID swipe down to the list of devices that you are signed into. Tap on your phone in the list. You will probably have to enter your Apple ID password. Then you will have to answer security questions in order to verify. After verifying, a window will pop up showing your Phone and if the iCloud backup is turned on, tap on the arrow to see when it last backed up.

You should also be able to create a manual backup. I did that yesterday and her iPad backed up automagically this morning about 24 hours from when I did the manual backup. That is the behavior I expect.

This is not a fix, but it is giving me some piece of mind knowing that the iPad is backing up. It may do the same for you. I don’t see this as a widespread complaint in the community, but filing a bug report may be in order soon.

Thanks for your excellent response. I had earlier deleted the backup from iCloud when I was trying to troubleshoot the situation. So, I just now went back in to the list of devices and did a manual backup, which worked. So, all you say is accurate.

I am pretty "confident" that 16.3 broke something for those without 2 factor. I'm not surprised that we don't hear too much as most people don't check their automatic iCloud backups every morning like I do. My family wouldn't notice anything until they got a message that there have been no backups for many days.

I would probably bite the bullet and activate 2 factor, but I would not want to do it while things are so messy. My biggest fear is getting locked out of my account. For now, I can get in and do a manual backup. I have heard that some people are activating 2 factor, which seems to solve the problem. But I will wait, particularly since my iPhone no longer gives me the option to activate 2 factor. I could activate from a browser by logging into my Apple ID, but I'm afraid that it might screw up my iCloud access on my phone.

Does your wife's iPad still give her the option to activate 2 factor? As I said, my iPhone no longer does.

Yes, her iPad offers the option to turn on 2FA. I want to wait until she is forced to do it.

I was able to find out that her iPad wasn’t backing up while I was in the settings app just checking on things as the iOS software was preparing the update. Usually, I would have made sure that her backup was current, but I just forgot all about it. I am pretty fanatical about checking that on her devices, but I admit I got complacent about it. Her iPad hadn’t backed up for about 10 days and for some reason, it was trying to backup while the update was preparing.

The backup was going nowhere so I tried cancelling it and it wouldn’t stop. I turned iCloud Backups off, waited a few seconds, turned it on again and it seemed fine. It showed the message about the last successful update being done on 1/11. I figured I would do a manual backup once the software installed.

Well, after the iPad restarted, I did a forced restart which I always do on my devices after updating. When the iPad started up I went into the settings and I discovered this problem. I’m not sure that I want to enable 2FA either until I’m confident that it would solve the problem.

I would be curious to see if your iPhone starts backing up automatically now.

I manually backed up at 2:45 pm yesterday. I just plugged in at 2:50 and locked screen. The phone automatically backed up at 2:52, right on time. So, backup works, both manually and automatically. The issue, of course, is my settings are frozen in time, and cannot be changed (except to totally turn off). Luckily, I am content with my current settings so I can wait until this bug is fixed. And, as I mentioned, I cannot enable 2 factor on my phone. The easiest way to check on time of last backup is to click on my name - iCloud - Manage Account Storage - Backups - iPhone. I can then see the date and time of backup. That is also where I can delete and turn off backup (which I will not be touching again until this is resolved).

So, it seems like the bug prevents my phone from properly interacting with iCloud to manipulate settings, but does not prevent iCloud or the phone from performing tasks previously set up. This can't be affecting just a few people. Clearly, they messed around too much with 2 factor in 16.3 and screwed things up.

I don’t know if I can help because I am experiencing this same thing on my wife’s iPad. Are you getting this message when you try to turn it on?

Edit - are you running iOS 16.3?