Q: iPhone 6 "Restoring from iCloud Backup" forever

Backing up and restoring from iTunes won't do any good when my LAST GOOD BACKUP IS ON ICLOUD. Backup and restore to itunes/laptop with a phone that has an incomplete restore? That won't help the situation.

Isn't it pretty LOUSY of Apple that they STILL have zero utilities that can help with backups and restores? If we at least knew what was missing from our restore maybe we could use a tool to retrieve that from previous iTunes backups?

I think apple needs to start realizing that people are carrying around large parts of their lives in these phones and and trusting PAID FOR SERVICES like iCloud backup to protect that data to just simply shrug at our problems that include restoring some parts of those lives is just sad.

Start giving us TOOLS so we can get an overview of what could be missing from the restores. What is included in our backups. How far along a restore is. ETC!! Simple stuff... Maybe time to cancel the iCloud backup account and get carbonite for my iPhone...

I'm having the same problem. Backed up my old iPhone on the iCloud. Restored on my new iPhone6. Still not finished a few days later and can't update!

'This iPhone is currently being restored and will automatically back up when it is done.'

Help!

I'm having the same problem with my phone since I got it a week ago! How has it been a week and the phone is still saying "restoring from iCloud Backup."

I gave my iPhone 5S to my Mom, upgrading her from her iphone 4, so there is no way for me to use that old phone for anything. All I'm left with is the last iCloud back up that was done from the 5S before resetting the device.

What are we supposed to do? When I open Photos, I don't see photo stream anywhere, and when I scroll all the way down I've been seeing "Downloading..." with a status symbol spinning, but nothing has changed

What is going on? I joined Apple with the purchase if an iPhone 4 and have been loyal ever since with no major problems but this is really getting annoying...

I found the recently added folder but it has less than 100 pictures when I remember photo stream on the iPhone 5s have around 1000, also it still says downloading underneath...?

Also because of all of this I cannot update to the newest iOS 8.0.2 because it says "you can install this update when your iPhone is finished restoring from the iCloud back up"

I'm in the same boat. Hoping Apple comes up with a solution because for some reason my Mac refuses to make backups via iTunes. I get an error message.

I also had to same issue.  I purchased my iPhone 6 yesterday in the Apple store, backed up from my 4s iCloud backup and it kept saying "Restoring from iCloud backup".  It displayed this reading for over 9 hours.  I took the advice of Yefchak and I backed up via cable to iTunes.  That was successful!  I am still missing many photos, but will manually upload them from my computer.  I would have been totally out of luck if I didn't have my 4s still, because I wouldn't have been able to back that up to iTunes.

I Had the same problem. I went to iCloud, moved down to Backup stopped Restore & then went back to Software Update & tapped Install & it happened smoothly. Have lost nothing.

I am having the same problem. It's been 3 days. Going from a wifi iCloud iphone 5 back up to my iPhone 6 restore via wifi. I finally had to stop the backup because it was sucking my battery. This isn't the only thread on here complaining about this. There seems to be a problem and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of pepole are having this problem but don't even notice it. I'm going to try and dowload my pics manually to my MacBook pro and then do a manual backup into iTunes of my iPhone 5 and then do a restore from that via USB to my 6. Not the way I was hoping to spend my Saturday.

I made it through my restore, finally. Here's how:

While your iphone 6 is "restoring from iCloud" endlessly...

1. Backup your old iphone onto itunes while cable connected (this will be your most current backup)

    This will take minutes.

2. Restore this backup to your iphone 6 while cable connected to itunes

    This took 2 minutes to complete.

    The icloud backup will terminate during this process.

3. After restore, update your iphone 6 to the latest update.

I think the problem has to do with the find my iphone function being active during the icloud restore. You will be asked to turn off this function during step 1 above.

My iphone 6 is restored although I did have to setup my email & calendar accounts but that's not an issue when you keep all that on the server where it belongs.

Turning off find my iPhone resolved this issue for me completely without having to do a restore via iTunes. Thank you for the tip!

I Have exactly the same problem and it's driving me mad!  I received my phone on launch day.  I have never used iTunes to backup I've always used iCloud. All my data is with iCloud and it has been restoring since the 19th!  I decided to plug into iTunes and restore to factory settings and start over I would loose a few days of data but better than not being able to use the apps on my phone as they say waiting and downloading.

When I restarted my phone it had updated to ios8.2 so I thought yippee!  But a day later I am still restoring from iCloud backup and still can't use my apps!  This has been extremely frustrating and time consuming and I'm still not there  .  I no longer have my iPhone 5s as I cleared it and sold it thus I am stuck  .

Same problem here.  The lock screen on my iPhone 6 plus shows "Restoring from iCloud Backup".  In addition, I can start a backup to iTunes, but after a few minutes it gets stuck saying "Preparing to copy items".  I then have to click the little rotating wheel next to "iPhone" under Devices in the left side bar.  This actually started after I followed an Apple tech's instructions on restoring my iPhone after he had me backup to iCloud, reload IOS 8.0 from scratch, and restore from iCloud (the reason for that procedure was to fix a problem with my touch screen not working poorly along the edges).  Everything seems restored.  I don't see any missing apps and all the ones I've used seem to work.  But I can't complete a backup to iTunes or update to IOS 8.0.2 until I get past this restore from iCloud issue and the iTunes "Preparing to copy items" issue.  I emailed the Apple tech I had been working with, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet (it's now 2 days later).  As per one suggestion in this thread, I shut off Settings > iCloud > Find My iPhone, but it made no difference.  Frustrating.

I was having the same problem, and I couldn't use iTunes to circumvent the problem, because I've never backed up my phone to iTunes. Also, I had already reset and sold the old phone.

This morning I opened the Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps, and none of them had downloaded files. Even if you've never used those apps, they have recently been added to the iCloud in beta. There will be at least one sample document, spreadsheet, or presentation in there. Once I opened the apps, my phone downloaded those samples, and shortly after that, the iCloud restore finished and I was able to install the iOS update.

I was on wifi when I did that, but I'm not sure whether that's important.

I hope this helps someone else!