Q: "the last backup could not be completed"

Someone please help me!! So back in June was the last time my phone backed up. When I take videos, It takes a lot of space on my phone so I wasn't able to back up. I emailed the videos to myself and deleted them along with over 400 pictures and disabling photo stream. I have less than 200 pictures and my camera roll is the only thing I'm backing up. I still didn't have any space to back up my phone even when I deleted the backup and even put the option of not backing up ANYTHING . So today I bought more storage so I can have 15GB. It STILL isn't backing up and I'm not even using all the space. I've tried just about everything you guys have been doing and the backups are still incomplete. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!!!

I haven't backed up to iCloud in months because none of the responses here have helped.

I just back up directly to PC now every month or so. I also manually transfer all of my pictures between iPhone & pc.

Hey johanmarais jst heard that u find difficulties in deleting Old back up in icloud well i have the same problem initially but then i found out solution.

Follow the steps:

1. Connect your device through USB cable to Computer in which u are using itunes.

2. In the iphone tab choose back up to computer instead of back to icloud.

3. Now sync

4. go to setting in iphone > General>Icloud>Storage & backup>Manage Storage

5. In this Tab it will display the Last back up with the name of your device

6. Click on the last back up and the selec show all apps.

7. In the last it will show delete back up.

Its done now go to itunes and the again make it back up to icloud and sync it.

If you dont find any old back up then try another device having same icloud Id.

Hope this works for u as it work for me.

OMG!!! Thank you swijalcool. I haven't been able to update to icloud since 3/30/13. I followed your great step-by-step instructions and it is working.... Although right now it is saying I have 8 hours remaining (and increasing) on my backup, it is at least FINALLY working....

What I would recommend to everyone is to ENSURE you have done a hard backup to your computer. Once that is done, go ahead and delete the old backup in icloud as everyone has recommended. Good luck!

After this is complete, I will download the new IOS.7...

This solved my problem- Worked like a charm; had tried so many things and didn't want to upgrade to the new iOS software the day after it came out,  Thank you for posting.

Message was edited by: Biancajethro

Hi,

I have never been able to back up my phone, that annoying icloud message telling me to back now says it has been 100 weeks since my last back up. In regards to:

2. In the iphone tab choose back up to computer instead of back to icloud.

This option is not availble to me I am using an iPhone 4S and a Macbook pro, where else can I find the option to choose betwen backing up to my computer or backing up to iCloud. I did an iTunes back up but was told this does not cover apps, just bought a 5S and am very apprehensive about synching it until I have backed up my 4S fully.

Please help.

Good morning!

Your advice seems like it could work for me however I am stuck at option 1 :

hi!

I've solved it!

0. Plug iphone to USB

1. Turn off in iTunes "backup to iCloud" by choosing "backup to this computer"

2. Sync

3. Go to iCloud and delete all previous backups.

4. Turn on in iTunes "backup to iCloud".

5. In iPhone click backup to iCloud

I do not appear to have this option anywhere, I am simply told sync, back up or restore back on my computer. Those two options are not in my phone menu either, I could just be looking in the wrong place.

Please help! just got a 5S which is waiting for the magic...

Sadly, same problem, but none of these solutioned worked.

This is for anybody who's been through the 'I found the solution' steps and it's made no difference. This is me  

I can tell you that after many months of trying all these solutions, none have worked for me. I now have a new 5s and same happens.

THE SOLUTION that worked for me is this:

- Transfer/copy all required pictures and videos to computer

- Take a backup of your device on your computer

- Restore iPhone to NEW

- Manually download all required apps to your device via iCloud

- Manally transfer all photos back to device

It's a REAL pain but I can now back up to iCloud after 2+ years of not having the ability (albeit that I've lost some data)

the solution by donbarrett worked here. Be sure to give it plenty of time to do the icloud backup. After the reset, it said it was backing up but it never completed all evening as I checked it every hour or so. It wasn't until I plugged it in overnight that it finished around 12:30 am.

I have an iPad 2 64GB, iPad Air 128GB and iPhone 4S 64GB with a 15GB iCloud account.  Plenty of space avaialble and none of my devices will backup to iCloud.  All stopped working a week ago.  That was about the time something hiccuped on iCloud and my contacts were unavailable.  I had to my iPhone out of iCloud and login again to reconnect with iCloud.  Since then, the backups are non-functioning.  I have wiped the old backups from iCloud and now have my 15GB in full available.  I did a reset of my iPad Air and it is still refusing to backup.  The estimated backup time keeps increasing until it just gives up and says "The last backup could not be completed" and a "Last Backup: Never" display.

Makes me wonder why I am shelling out $20/year for the service if I cannot use it.

I think mine might finally be backing up to the cloud . . . but it's strange to me how random it was. I did synch to my computer, and the first six times I attempted to back up to iCloud it didn't work (the same message as everybody else has gotten). Then, a seventh (or so) time I tried, it started working. No idea why. It has been stuck on 2-3-4 minutes (it goes back and forth) for the past 15-20 minutes, but I'm still hopeful that it'll work. The last times, It almost immediately gave a message that it wasn't working.

All that said, I'm a little annoyed that I (and many others) purchased extra storage for $20 in the hopes that extra storage would do the trick. I don't think I needed it, and while I don't think there's a vast conspiracy to get our money in nefarious ways, it's frustrating to hear how many people are paying for extra storage they probably don't need. If there are a few of us, there are probably many, many, many more.

donbarrett's reply:  "What solved it for me was to do a reset on the phone by holding down the Home and lock buttons simultaneously until the unit reset.  Then, I immediately did a backup to iCloud and it worked.  I had been getting the message that the last backup couldn't be completed for months.  Evidently, there are artifacts in the phone which interfere with the backup which, at least for me, were eliminated by a reset just prior to attempting the backup. "

Thank you, this worked for me! 

You must have iCloud Backup enabled (Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup and toggle the iCloud Backup switch to ON).  Do donbarrett's suggestion. When the phone reboots, make sure wifi is enabled & connected to a trusted network:  Settings > Wi_Fi

Go back to Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup with your iPhone *not* connected to iTunes.  Select "Back Up Now" and let your phone back up to iCloud.

Deleting your backup in iCloud and Usage did it for me!

Cheers, worked for me