Cellular data drain (iOS 8.1.1) with "Documents & Sync"

My phone is now useless and susceptible to theft due to this issue (can't leave cell data on so no "find my iPhone"). Apple has no clue as to what the problem is and now they have asked for access to my iCloud account. I have used over 20% of my monthly cap in just two days! Normally that would last me two weeks. 80% of the data usage is "Documents & Sync". I have turned off iCloud drive on all iOS devices and computers and still no luck. You can literally just watch the data usage increase by the minute. This is very disappointing and is not what I expect from Apple!

Further update - at weekend, I continued to see data drain through Documents & Sync, - on my brand new replacement iPhone 5s from Apple - so went back to Vodafone as it seemed it may be a problem at their end again. Result was a tariff change form my 8GB limit ( I have always un till this issue only used less than 1GB ) to a 10GB limit that is Unlimited for 90 days - so that will solve the issue for me until Apple or Vodafone sorts out - if indeed they are addressing it at all. No-one at either organisation claimed any knowledge of the problem.

One thing did occur to me after my hours of calls, online chats and store visits: I am a 52yr old male living in central London who's able to "fight my corner" in a case like this - but what happens if you're less equipped to deal with such problems - maybe not tech-savvy, older, infirm... really think this is a huge issue that Apple / data providers should address urgently.

I called AppleCare today with the same issue.

Started to happen somewhen with iOS 8.1 ... and since then I tried all kind of deactivation tests with fix - except when disconnecting from iCloud completely. My 500MByte Package on the iPhone 5S was depleated in 8 days. ...on my iPhone 6 (unlimited data) I ended up with 3.4Gbyte (no Hotspot) of Document & Sync within 20 days...

It was a unpleasant call with AppleCare. First I seem to be worldwide the very first customer reporting this issue. There is no evidence of tickets.

Pointing out that even on their discussions there are several other users - he said: "I don't take such Messages in account, there is a lot of nonsense discussions"...and so on. Let's make it short:

a) ... they state that all iCloud Services can be deactivated by the corresponding Switches under "Mobile Services". No "hidden" Services from Apple will be responsible for transmissions. So it is not an iCloud issue.

b) ...it may be, that "Documents & Sync" is there because a 3rd Party App is storing their data in the (new) document space on iOS. I shall check with each app if they are using "the" Cloud...but it has nothing to do with an iCloud issue.

--> I asked then: is there a possibility to check, (on iOS side) which App is using shared document store on the iPhone?

c) Answer: No. I shall check (my 250+ Apps) or even better deinstall Piece by Piece...and see if something changes...but again...it is not an iCloud issue.

So besides that I wonder if Apple has overcome their Peak of customer friendly- and helpfulness - I come to the only endpoint

1) I leave iCloud deactivated (--> iOS is naturally loosing much of value and security (find my iphones & iPad)

2) Just cancelled my additional iCloud Storage Subscription

When I will see in Blogs that it has been solved (or in a future iOS Upgrade mentioning this) I will retry to activate.

(or if somebody is reporting which App seems to be the Problem - or that users can really see/switch which App is useing Document Storage))

Meanwhile - switching to use my Note4 as main device....

Interesting finding.... will try it too...

(but never ever dare to say this finding to an AppleCare guy!!!! see my later post)

I have had the same problem on my iPhone 6 and my wife's 5S with 'Documents and Sync' racking up huge amounts of data on cellular usage. I tried clean installs, deleting all the apps that use documents in the cloud etc etc but the only thing that stopped it was logging out of iCloud completely on each phone. Of course this was not an ideal solution as it meant no calendar and contact syncing, no find my iPhone etc.

It occurred to me that maybe the problem was with the iCloud account itself as the same one was used on both phones. So I set up a new one and used that to sync the contacts/calendars that were left on the phone when I logged out of the original account. I also use this new account for find my iphone, icloud drive etc but left the original account logged in on the phone for the itunes store as it had all our purchases. And amazingly the data drain has now stopped on both iPhones! I can now leave cellular data turned on when I leave the security of my home wifi network!

Hope this helps others having the same problem though it is a bit of a hassle to set up and I am annoyed Apple seems to have dropped the ball on sorting out this bug that is affecting so many people.

Hello,

for me is this problem solved.

- delete Pages for iOS using iCloud. All back to normal in second. 🙂

Yes, sorry, just deleted Pages app from my iPhone. I think there was loop with synchronization documents from this applicatoin and icloud drive.

Good solution if you have Pages on your iPhone.

I did on my original iPhone where I first noticed the data leak, but on my new replacement iPhone from Apple I don't, but I still see a large Docs & Sync data usage even while mainly on WiFi. iCloud Drive turned off on all Macs and iPhone too.

Hi All,

Just to clarify, I did not just turn off iCloud drive but logged out of iCloud on all devices all together. Then I logged into iCloud on iPhone with I drive on first and slowly added my other machines. SSince December 17 only 213kb of documents and sync!

I had my phone replaced under warranty today at an Apple store set it up as a new device came home disabled all of the usual Data using settings and the issue was still there. I contacted Apple Support again and after 2 hours with them they are finally escalating up to Engineering so I have a call back scheduled. I will update after that.

OK, I am an Apple fanatic since I had five iPhones. I love apple but I think this is maybe the last straw with its crash since the death of Steve jobs.

I bought the new iPhone 6 and in the beginning everything went ok. All my previous iPhones had none cellular drain of any kind.

Before a few weeks I notice that my data went strangely too low and started to see what app drain my data. In my surprise it was not assign app but the system itself, and specifically in the Data settings / system and more specifically the ITUNES ACCOUNTS. Just check it yourself and see that the drainage comes not from the other documents data which they only consume kb off data instead of Itunes Accounts data monitor that consumers hundred of MB's!!!!

The odd thing is that is happens not in a daily basis for me. It's just happens once at a time. Me it happens three times since the first time.

The last one it consumed about 400 MB of cellular data without any reason and ALL due to iTunes Account as it showed at the Data settings menu below.

What is then itunes accounts and how can be blocked?

I read many articles here and I am convinced that neither icloud is to blame. At least not 100%. Also it's not a hardware reason at all.

Somehow only itunes accounts syncing making this happens.

So, as I see not iOS 8.1.2 can solve the bug. I am now in 8.1.1. As I see and read neither the fault is in jailbreak devices as it happens on non JB devices too.

Also I don't have icloud drive never ON nor I had icloud BackUp active at all.

Lately I put Find my phone on but ever putting it off its the same. Data drainage continued.

I now have disabled all my email accounts to manually.

Even the icloud account is not syncing theoretically as it is put to manual.

All appstore updates are disabled, all icloud services are off and handshake is also off from the start.

Finally I don't have any iMac or any laptop at my Apple id.

There is only a Ipad mini on iOS 8.1.1 with no icloud services running.

So, what is happening apple? Why do mysteriously not telling nothing about it?

We are losing money and or loyalty is under test?