iOS iWork Documents not updating iCloud

I am having a similar problem...i cannot get my documents to sync between my iPad, iPhone and the iCloud web app.....does anyone have any suggestions of things to try?

Same problem. There is currently no syncing.

I send a document to iWork, and it does not appear in iCloud directory.

L4Z,

Sorry to hear there wasn't an easly solution for you. Keep us posted on what you find out and if you are able to recover your files. I'm having the exact same issue and cannot open the files that are grey on any IOS device or on icloud.com. Hopefully Apple will have good news for you and for us all.

-Totally Sideways

I was having this same issue until I read this. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4942

@pointer237 What in the link you provided solved your issue? I didn't see any relevent information there.

Thanks

Well maybe I misunderstood what you meant not sure, but I would make a spread sheet or any other document on my mac and upload it to icloud but then I couldn't access the document again from icloud on my mac. I then read that you must open the document on your ios device like ipad or iphone before you could access it again on your mac from icloud in iwork.

This is really frustrating. I've spent quite a bit of time the past couple days trying to figure this out. Once I finally figured out how to upload spreadsheets to iCloud I could only open 1 of 2 spreadsheets in Numbers on my iPhone. Changes made on the sheet on iPhone are not updated as I thought was advertised to my mac. The number one reason I purchased numbers on my phone and upgraded my mac to Lion was so I could update the one spreadsheet that will not open. I did upload quite a few files to Pages and opened them without problem on my phone. Additionally iCal and iPhoto seem to be updating just fine between my phone and my computer. I just wish iWork synced seamlessly.

Same problem here. I've uploaded several Pages and Numbers files to iCloud.com but keep having problems. I open a file on my iPad and make a small change, then close the app and I see network activity and the doc updating to iCloud. Then I can go on my iPhone and half the time the update didn't take, the other half the time the file isn't even there.

This happens all the time. Updates either don't take or the file just disappears. If I access iCloud.com and view the files, several are missing. If I upload me again, then iCloud says the file exists and ask if I want to overwrite it. I say yes and upload it. Wait 5 minutes and try to access it from my iPad and it's not there again. Very frustrating!

What I've had to do is use Dropbox but I can't edit a file and sync it back. I have to email edited files to myself to get the changes back on my Mac. I'm even thinking of switching to Office and using Docs 2 Go, but the reviews are not good. Pages and Numbers for iOS are much better but if I can't reliably sync, what's the point?

once again I was having the same problem until I read this http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4942 now I have had no problems since.

I read that and understand how it's supposed to work, but it doesn't. Last night, I created a simple Pages document on my iPad and sync'd it to iCloud. Then I opened Pages on my iPhone and it downloaded and opened just fine. Today the file is missing... just an icon on my iPad that won't open, nothing on my iPhone, and nothing on iCloud.com either. Thankfully, it was just a test and nothing important.

So now I have 4 documents on my iPad, 3 on my iPhone but 1 won't open, and iCloud shows no files whatsoever... empty.

Everything else in iCloud sync's beautifully... contacts, calendars, notes, and bookmarks. Across all my devices and computers too. Just not iWorks for iOS files.

The explanation here is not so much of a fix for the problem but a description of the problem itself. When I purchased the program I was under the understanding that my files would update to my computer automatically. Manually updating, downloading, and re-uploading is cumbersome and confusing and that is when it works! I still can't get one of my files open and I only get a generic error message with no clues for help (Spreadsheet couldn't be opened. An unknown error occurred). For me the lack of automation between devices and my mac completely defeats the purpose of using iWork on my iPhone. This is at best poor design.

Hello all,

I have been having very similar issues, and through a combination of calling Apple and trial and error I have isolated where I think the issue lies and how to correct it. Be warned though, it may result in data loss.

The problem:

1. The issue seemed to be with the actual downloading of the file data to my iPad from the cloud, because newly created files uploaded without issue.
2. Although previews of the files would appear, the icons would be grayed out with stalled progress bars.
3. The problem occurred in all iWork apps running on my iPad and iPhone 4S, both using iOS 5.0.1
4. The situation remained after re-installing numbers and pages, and after de-activating and re-activating iCloud sync under their own settings pane, and after de-activating and re-activating iCloud documents and data under the global iCloud setting pane.

Observations:

1. When iCloud was re-activated on the iPad, documents that did not appear on iCloud.com would re-appear there, and most (but not all) the files on iCloud.com and some new ones would appear on the iPad, grayed out as described above.
2. These same files would also appear on the iPhone, where these new files would be the only ones that wouldn't download properly.
3. When trying to download the files from iCloud.com, occasionally it would give an error saying the file could not be downloaded at that time. Also, it would flag up sync conflicts on some files, giving identical creation dates on the same device, the iPad.
4. This suggested to me that a) there were corrupt files present both in iCloud.com and somewhere in the sync conduit between iPad and iCloud.com, possibly due to interrupted uploads.

The solution, and what appears to be a bug:

1. I deleted iCloud as an account on all my devices, and de-activated it on my Mac.
2. On both iPad and iPhone I launched each iWork app, okayed the alert saying that now iCloud had been deactivated, documents would be wiped and was left with empty file lists for all.
3. I rebooted both iOS devices
4. Starting with the iPhone I re-activated iCloud, and tested push with notes and contacts, checking they appeared on iCloud.com, which they did.
5. Next, I launched numbers and, hey presto, the documents all downloaded.
6. On the iPad, I followed the same steps, but in each iWork app the same situation would occur, with grayed out files and the sudden re-appearance of files that were not on iCloud.com until then. These would again appear on the iPhone but not download.
7. On iCloud.com I tried to delete the files that were grayed out on the iPhone, which did not resolve the issue because they still appeared as stalled downloads on the iPad.
8. On iCloud.com, I then downloaded everything I could and deleted the lot, leaving me with no documents in the Cloud.
9. I re-ran steps 1-5 on both devices, and then uploaded a few documents to iCloud.com, where they apepared minus preview icons.
10. On iPhone, the documents were immediately pushed out, minus previews.
11. On iPad, the documents appeared, but could not be opened, they had generic icons and were still grayed out. But changes to file names and adding/deleting on iCloud.com were reflected on the iPad immediately, and vice-versa.
12. On iPhone, opening each file created a preview that appeared on the iCloud.com icon too on closing the document, and at last this seemed to wake up the iPad which downloaded the new file, with preview, and that could be opened.
13. This same, somewhat bizarre workaround seemed to correct the issue and documents created on iPhone appear fine in iPad and vice versa, and from either iOS device to iCloud.com as well. Documents uploaded to iCloud.com appear on both devices, but until the file is opened on the iPhone it will not download or open on the iPad, appearing there with a generic icon, as it does in iCloud.com.

Conclusions:

1. In my case, there was obviously an interruption to the sync process at some point that caused corrupt files to be cached somewhere in the iCloud back-office.
2. The fact that previews were used for the icons seems to be irrelevant as these must be image-grabs that iOS creates during the save process, hence the document needs to be opened on an iOS device before this preview is generated. Therefore these files could well have zero content despite appearing to be OK by their preview.
3. Deleting all files in iCloud.com appears to also clear the cache and any damaged files.
4. There appears to be a bug either in Numbers, Pages and Keynote for iOS; or in iOS 5.0.1 itself on the iPad that prevents documents being downloaded from iCloud.com to the device directly. This bug does not seem to affect files created on other iOS devices that are synced to the same iCloud account.

So, if you have two iOS devices you should be OK, but I recognize that it is only by virtue of having an iPhone running iWork that I was able to work around this issue. It is clearly a software issue with iCloud servers or the iOS, I just hope that Apple are made aware of it and address it un the forthcoming update.

Good Luck!

Tim