Thanks for the advice. I have done that multiple times. Turn off messages in iCloud, turn phone off and turn back on, then turn on message in icloud again and it still gets locked up and says syncing paused. I have logged out of my appleid, logged back in, reset network connections. I did all of the tricks I found on the internet and then called apple support. They walked me through all of the same things I did and it still doesn't work. The tech said this is a problem they are having, noted it in my account and said that hopefully it gets resolved in the next iOS update. I have successfully backed up my calendar, photos to iCloud, but imessages will not back up.