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iCloud keychain verification always pending

All of my devices, whether they're updated to IOS 8 or not (iPhone 5 and iPad Mini), including my iMac and my MacBook Air, cannot ever verify and connect to the iCloud keychain. They all try, but it never seems to work.


Thinking my acocunt is messed up from the top, I've gone through all the process and updated my iTunes account password and all the rest of my password codes. My 4-digit security code seems to have been taken from the same code I use to lock my phone - I never setup a security code with Apple beyond my itunes/icloud password. I've subsequently reset it trying to fix this issue.


At this time, all my Apple devices prompt me to verify my iCloud keychain status - and since I have no device approved, technically speaking, none of my devices can verify any of the others. It's like a chicken and egg catch-22 problem.. only there's a lot of chickens and no eggs.


When I go through the process on my phone (the most annoying place to have this come up is while navigating in traffic, BTW)(very dangerous) - I have to enter in my itunes password, then my pin, then I get a text back with a six-digit code. Once I enter that code from the text message, it phone looks good for about 1/2 a second, then it displays like it was before I tried this - and says it's "pending verification" Pending verification from what??


This happens across all my devices - IOS and OSX.


This problem is bad enough that I'm questioning the use of iCloud at all - I mean, the keychain concept is good - but if I cannot even log into it or find relevant supporting documentation, then iPay (which depends on this) is doomed to fail. I don't look forward to doing this crap 100 times on my iPhone 6+ when it ships.

Posted on Sep 26, 2014 11:31 AM

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32 replies

Apr 13, 2017 6:12 AM in response to JPiratefish

Hi all,

I had the same problem and I found a workaround, disabling the two-factor authentication; just let me explain my scenario.

I have an iPhone with IOS 10.3.1 (latest) that was getting the pending keychain; one MacBook Pro with OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks (pretty old); and a Mac Mini with OS X 10.12.4 Sierra (latest).


I think that my issue was the two-factor authentication that was involving my MacBook with Maverics, trying to authorize my iPhone. I tried to create and log in with my iPhone in another iCloud profile without issues, but going back to my official iCloud profile, after receiving the authorization prompt in my MacBook (and never in my Mac Mini with Sierra), the iPhone was always pending.

Well, I just deactivated my two-factor authentication, defined the security questions, and then logged in again my iCloud account on my iPhone: no problem at all.

Sonner or later I will upgrade my OS X in the MacBook Pro, and then I will try to set back the two-factor authentication, but for now I am pretty happy with this workaround.

Hope this could help, ciao 🙂

Sep 26, 2014 12:47 PM in response to JPiratefish

I've seen that happen too, it's just a matter of patience ... and how reliable some Apple services are. Sometimes they're prompting you to re-enter your AppleID password ten times ... then you got that spinning animation that lasts and lasts ... finally you're asked to enter your security code for iCloud Keychain, or to reset it ... it's a nightmare. I just gave up and decided not to use it anymore. There's also a risk with that, it can corrupt the local iOS keychain and render a backup almost useless. I experienced that recently.


see here: iOS 8: keychain error after restore from backup

Sep 29, 2014 4:22 PM in response to JPiratefish

Me three.


I have another device authenticated but that is never asked to approve my phone. I just get Pending.


If I deliberately get the code wrong it tells me, if it's right it seems to succeed then just goes back to pending, forever.


Every now and then I get an update telling me it's been pending for days.... Thanks!

Oct 21, 2014 4:25 AM in response to r!ch

Oddly my eventually decided to work - I can't quite work out why.


It was as the same time as I updated one of my computers to Yosemite, the magic notification appeared and I could finally authorise the device from that computer. Sorry this probably can't help anyone else as it's a difficult step to repeat :S tho if you have a spare laptop lying around... !?

Jan 5, 2015 5:50 PM in response to JPiratefish

Okay, for all of you following this or experiencing the problem - here's the trick - give up on iCloud entirely - disconnect everything from it and whatever iCloud thinks it has on you will disappear - keep in mind that this will not blow-out or delete any keychain entries on your local machines - those are sacrosanct and will remain - each machine is/was/remains an island without iCloud - but it's likely (in my case) and maybe in many of yours that iCloud thinks it has important stuff in it - but it just might be wrong.


In my case, I disconnected my iPad, iPhone, MBA and iMac and followed the process to blow out the entire online keychain and any documents out in the cloud - I didn't have much of anything and I lost no files either.


Once all that was done, I started iCloud on my iPhone 6+ without issue, and then proceeded to add the MacBook Air, desktop and so forth - and it's great now.

Jan 6, 2015 1:12 AM in response to JPiratefish

Thank you JPiratefish. I turned off iCloud Drive on my iPhone 6+ then turned it back on and went through the whole routine of starting up iCloud keychain. Then, on my computer, I see a little box that asks for permission for iPhone 6+ to use my computer's keychain. After saying yes to computer, my iPhone 6+ now has a fully working keychain!!!

Jan 13, 2015 10:31 AM in response to JPiratefish

Singlehandedly, this Keychain approval problem is the WORST problem that I have ever had with Apple products. A complete FAIL. Eventually, resetting everything to do with Keychain and iCloud solved the problem, including turning off the Passcode option from the MacBook. But that was after erasing all Keychain data, which might have been a mistake, but I had to get to the bottom of this somehow and none of the instructions I found really solved my problem. It turns out that for some reason the iCloud on my MacBook needed me to enter the password seven times before allowing me access to the Keychain options.


Bad.

Jan 17, 2015 1:24 AM in response to OrganicMattson

Yes, thanks JPiratefish for asking AND ANSWERING the question... solved my problem too...

I was also having to enter my flippen iCloud password a gazillion times a day, then I just signed out of iCloud on my phone Settings, iCloud, at the bottom, sign out) then signed in again and could turn on my Keychain (which was unavailable before or gave error messages) and voila, all working perfectly now!

Mar 7, 2015 4:19 PM in response to JPiratefish

I had the same problem and didnt want to delete all my passwords from iCloud, so after 2:30 hours talking to apple i managed to find a fix. I mean find because it was a matter of many trial and errors, (turning stuff off and on on icloud didnt work):


1- Log out of your icloud account

2- Create a new temporary account or use another icloud account and log in

3- if keychain shows as "on" turn it off, if shows as off turn it on then back off again. apparently this problem is caused by some files that stay on the device after a failed attempt to turn on keychain.

4- log out and back to your official icloud account, and try to approve back the keychain.


this is what solved it for me, hope it helps someone. And thanks to the dilligent apple support who stayed more than 2 hours with me on the phone trying stuff instead of forcing me to do a full restore..

iCloud keychain verification always pending

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