iCloud deleted my keynote files

The files should be safely store in LIbrary/Mobile Documents.delete (that's where I found them), but the point is not where they are, it's why do they get deleted. This is obviously a synchronization issue with one of the devices (or the Mac) telling iCloud to erase upon sync: but which sync process?

Interesting, Felix! But I can't see a Mobile Documents.delete folder. Is it hidden? If so, how do I show it?

I may have found a fix. Delete the iCloud account at both the main level of Settings (i.e., by selecting iCloud) AND by deleting the account in the Mail, Calenders, and Contacts section of Settings. Have it remove everything from your device (careful, this is scary and ymmv). Once it's done. Go to the main level, select iCloud, and re-enable your account there and set all settings there for sync. Let the sync happen.

Since doing this on both my iPad and iPhone, iCloud has been stable with iWork documents. I had noticed that my PhotoStream was different on the two devices and so I am thinking that, somehow, iCloud got 'confused' w/r/t state and was alternating between a state WITH iWork documents uploaded and WITHOUT, in which case it deleted them.

I've had stable documents that survive device restarts for about 4 hours now...so we shall see.

Thanks for the suggestion but I didn't work for me. I deleted the account in iCloud and selected to have it remove everything from the iPhone. When I went to delete the mail account it was gone. Then I redid the account under iCloud. iWork files are still being erased on restart however.

Great tip on the ~/Library/Mobile Documents.delete folder—I found what appears to be my file there. However, it shows up as a directory with the ".numbers-tef" extension, and I can't seem to find a way to actually open the file in numbers or get it back onto my iOS devices (tried changing the file extension to ".numbers" and loading it on the device by several means, moving the contents of the "Mobile Documents.delete" folder to the "Mobile Documents" folder, etc. I do get a file that appears in Numbers on my devices but I can't open it, export it, etc.

Found a solution in another thread on this same problem to recovering documents from Mobile Documents.delete folders. See the post from "gvde" quoted below. It's convoluted but it works! At least my data is safe now.

gvde wrote:

I have managed to get my Numbers documents back:

1. I have copied the documents folder in "~/Library/Mobile Documents.delete.Sat Oct 15 09:01:32 2011/com~apple~Numbers/Documents" to "~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Numbers/Documents".

AGAIN: MAKE A COPY! Don't move the folder in case it doesn't work. Maybe even make a second copy fo the whole ".delete" folder to have a backup copy available!

2. I have renamed each document folder, removing the ending "-tef", e.g. renamed "My First Document.numbers-tef" to "My First Document.numbers". This makes the document appear in iCloud shortly afterwards. You can't open it as it is considered a document created by the Mac Numbers application.

3. I have renamed each document folder back, i.e. "My First Document.numbers" to "My First Document.numbers-tef"

4. Now iCloud seems to sync it up again and recognizes it. It reappers on my iPad and I can open it.

5. I did this for each of my 9 documents. If you have more, you may want to use a little script.

6. To get the previews back I have also copied the contents of "~/Library/Mobile Documents.delete.Sat Oct 15 09:01:32 2011/com~apple~Numbers/iWorkPreviews" to "~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Numbers/iWorkPreviews"

Now everything seems to be O.K. Documents are back. They show up on icloud.com, iPad and iPhone. I haven't done anything with Numbers the last two days thus at least for me: no loss.

I'm seeing at lot of posts about the same problem:

Here is another discussion, with a temporary solution for those who have documents on their computer. I lost those I used on my iPad 1 and iPhone 3GS.

iCloud deleted my documents. How do I get them back : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3382799

I seemed to have solved this problem by deactivating iCloud on every device (including the Mac!) and then activating it again, after trashing the "Delete Mobile" folders I had found in the LIbrary. Now the IWork documents have resumed regular syncing and I haven't experienced any deletion since. Here's the steps I took exactly: (a) tun off iCloud on Mac, iPad, iPhone after backing up Calendars and Address Book, (b) deleted "Mobile Documents" folders from Library and (c) reinstated all ICloud accounts commencing with Mac. Who knows, perhaps it was just a synchronization issue.

I have also been looking at the issue, I seem to have found a log file for the Mac side, it is "~/Library/Ubiquity/username/ubiquity.log", everytime I upload, or do any change on any device (iPad, iPhone or Mac) I see a number of errors being reported. I have just deleted the application support files located in "~/Library/Application Support/Ubiquity/" and performed a restart to force the files to be recraeted. Lets see if this helps fix the probelm.

Also removed the invalid certificates in my keychain related to Ubiquity. The files are not being deleted, but time will tell.

Sort of fixed it here as well.

I have 2 apple IDs...one for the store and another from mobile me that I moved over to icloud. When I first setup icloud on my iphone (just the phone, don't have a mac), I used my store ID and that was the one that pages//numbers saved to on icloud. I decided to change this and use my mobile me ID so I changed the incloud ID. That's when the problem started.

I tried deleting BOTH from the iphone and again use my mobile me ID for icloud. The problem still existed.

FInally, I deleted both again and this time reverted to using my original store ID for icloud and the problem resolved.

I guess that.even after deleting both accounts from the phone and starting over the problem existed as long as I used the mobole me address for incloud. Reverting to the originally used ID solved the problem.

I would still like to someday change that....