iOS iWork Documents not updating iCloud

I've tried everything I can think of... deleting all the files and uploading from scratch via iCloud. Deleting everything and syncing files manually thru iTunes, then updating to the cloud. This last time, deleted all the files from iCloud, disabled iCloud on my iPad and iPhone, then re-enabled iCloud and checked that there were no files available. Then I uploaded some Pages and Numbers files to Dropbox and opened them that way, basically 'creating' the iOS versions on my iPad. The first file I open in Pages or Numbers seems to sync just fine. Any other file hangs and won't upload to the cloud.

So then I started all over again and this time just opened 1 Pages document and 1 Numbers document. I can make changes and they are sync'd to the other device. So far, so good.

Open a second Pages file on the iPad and it uploads. Open Pages on the iPhone and the file is there but hangs while updating. Do the same thing on Numbers and 2nd file won't even show on the iPhone. Make a change to the first file and it updates, but now won't sync to the iPad.

So far, all I can do is keep one document for each app in iCloud.

I may be on to something here. In testing, I've always used the same files with the same file names. On a whim, I changed the file name of a file that wouldn't update between devices and now iCloud is working. I now have 4 Pages and 4 Numbers files that I've been able to update for 2 days now. I'm guessing that the original files were cached somehow on the server and that kept corrupting the sync.

I'll keep working on it and see what happens...

Wow, Tim Whelehan thank you for the detailed documentation. I will give that a shot in the event that the Apple engineers cannot resolve my problem.

My Problem:

iWork (Numbers, Pages, and Keynote) documents created on my iPad are in a constant state of "updating". Most documents are greyed out with a progress bar as if it is attempting to upload. Occasionally the progress bar will get a blip of blue, but it never completes. The status in the iWork app claims it is updating x number of documents and just seems to cycle repetedly. The documents that are greyed out cannot be opened within the app. When I visit iCloud.com (which I NEVER did before this happened, come on who wants to go download something from a website), the same documents say that they are "updating" and I do not have the option to download them.

Troubleshooting:

I worked with a higher tier of support last night. I created a test pages document on my iPad which appeared in iCloud.com, but had the same "updating" state and I could not download it. I was however able to open the test document on my iPad as it was not greyed out.

The tech had me delete my iCloud account from my iPad and create a new test account which I did after a quick back up of my iPad to my mac (not iCloud), contacts, and calendars. (I've lost calendar content by relying on time machine so I did an export.) With iWork using the new test account, I created a new pages document that immediately synced and I could download it from iCloud.com.

Progress:

The tech said there is definitly a problem with my account. It has nothing to do with my hardware's ability to sync as evidenced by the test account. He has forwarded my case to Apple engineers to review my account to see what the problem is. I have another call scheduled for next week so hopefully I'll know more soon.

Stay tuned....

I'm having the exact same issue as you. I'm using iOS 5.1 with iPhone 4 and iPad 3 (the new one). If you find a way to resolve this please let me know.

Eric

So... same here... very frustrating. My ipad2 worked fine with the same account. Now neither my phone or my ipad will upload its updates... but if I upload to the website on my imac... it does show up on my ipad but not my iphone... any updates will be appreciated..

Not sure whether this will help anyone, but i have noticed similar behaviour when altering certain settings. To complete the changes a sync has to be performed between all devices to ensure that the settings data base files between all devices are consistent. Failure to observe this leads to spurious behaviour and in some cases broken links. Quick example is the Contacts settings in icloud on my pad. I get a message if i move it from On to off. move it back again. No message. Perform a sync to update everything, then move the slider agian and I get the message.

If this is typical of the default behaviour of the system and its sub routines, no wonder people are having problems. It appears syncing is the only method of confirming changes. Further changes cannot be recognised until the sync's are done.

Maybe uploading a file sets a sync flag, that will not allow changes until the sync has been performed. Has anyone tried this. I noticed that GONESIDEWAYS noted where he had synced towards the end of his post, everything behaved as it should.....??

By looking at iCloud.com, my iPad, and my Mac, I noticed that my spreadsheet was not being updated from the iPad to iCloud. I did try changing settings and that did not work.

I powered down the iPad and powered it back up. When I ran Numbers again, it updated the spreadsheet that would not previously update.

In my case, the problem was the iPad operation. One could consider this a software bug.

I never completely power down any of these Apple devices and they have worked well. This looks like one small thing to fix.