Unable to load iCloud and Internet accounts in System Preferences

Hi,


After installing OS X 10.9 Mavericks, I seem to be unable to open iCloud settings as well as Internet Accounts.


The top pane just reads "Loading iCloud" and then it hangs and I have to force quit/relaunch System preferences in order to acces other settings.

Have you experienced this and if so what is the solution?


Best rgds

jbinzer

MacBook Pro (13-inch Late 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Oct 30, 2013 9:22 AM

Reply
17 replies

Oct 31, 2013 5:46 AM in response to jbinzer

Same problem here.


Yesterday I deleted com.apple.systempreferences from User / Library and it seemed to solve the problem.

However today the problem is back and deleting that file no longer solves it.


This affects iCloud and Internet Accounts preference panes. It also stops my Photostream in iPhoto from displaying correctly.


Any ideas?

Nov 5, 2013 2:23 PM in response to moog5

I have the same problem. In System Preferences if I select iCloud sometimes that hangs saying "loading iCloud". I have to force quit System Preferences. If i select it again, it again hangs.


I also have a problem that may be related. Sometimes I have to force quit Safari in order to get it to quit - get spinning beachball. This led me to believe that the two are related. So I turned off iCloud syncing of Safari to see if this fixes it.

Nov 6, 2013 12:17 AM in response to nategold

I'm pretty sure you're right and it is related. I have the Safari issue (I've had to switch to Chrome) and also can't load Tweetbot when this problem happens (I have it set to sync via iCloud).


In addition the iCloud / Photostream section of iPhoto won't load either.


These issues are all new since installing Mavericks, and I'm sure are linked back to the one iCloud problem.


Weirdly, the iCloud System Preference pane will occasionaly load, and when it does all these problems straighten themselves out. But then it will hang again after a while, and the issues reappear.

Mar 1, 2014 2:23 AM in response to myhandmd

Unfortunately, none of the suggestions above have worked for me. I have tried rebooting in Safe mode, and the problem still occurs.


I am not able to use:

- Contacts - Hangs

- Calendar - Hangs

- Mail - can open the app and receive messages, but can't send

- Open the iCloud prefs pane in System Preferences - Hangs

- Modify my iCloud email account settings Internet Accounts in System Preferences - Hangs


If I log into my computer using another user ID, which has no iCloud accounts, then everything runs fine.


This all started after upgrading to 10.9.2 earlier this week.


In Activity Monitor, I can see that the process com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice is not responding.


If I could remove the iCloud account from this user ID, then I am guessing that I could add it back, but I cannot find a way to remove the iCloud account.


Any new suggestions?

Mar 4, 2014 8:33 AM in response to jbinzer

Can anybody tell me what the effect would be of deleting the two IDS AuthTokens (for App Store and iCloud/Apple ID) in my iCloud passwords on the malfunctioning computer?


I assume I would need to add that info back on the malfunctioning computer. Would it affect my other Apple devices that are using the same info?


Keychain sync is turned on.

Mar 6, 2014 12:29 AM in response to Mitoids

I have solved the issue. It turns out that I had one or more corrupted AddressBook databases. I made sure Contacts was not running and cleared out the contents (i.e. databases) of the folder below (copied to a temp folder):


~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources


After rebooting my system, I was able open the Contacts app successfully and then reconfigure the iCloud/Internet accounts that I had been trying to remove from my system.


It seems that Contacts, Calendar, Mail, System Preferences (iCloud and Internet Accounts panes), Messages, and Skype were all trying to access my AddressBook database.


Big relief. I was close to recreating my user account and manually transferring everything over to the new account.


This post describes the same issue:


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5950305?answerId=25081705022#25081705022

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Unable to load iCloud and Internet accounts in System Preferences

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.