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

Thanks, I agree that it could be something with iCloud. The only things that I use iCloud for are Calendar, Contacts, Notes, Reminders, and Passbook, so I have no idea how 80+ gigs in 3 days could have happened. A sync problem that results in a $1200 phone bill sounds like a software defect to me.

I'm the same, except I don't even use notes, reminders or passbook! No docs at all--in fact, I turned off doc sync in iCloud. I think it is some sort of infinite loop in the sync, even without docs. It has happened on two different phones that we have (same iCloud account), so I don't think it is a problem on the phone. good luck.

I have the same problem with my iPhone 5s 😟

but... one interesting fact.. my iPhone used over 1.5GB of cellular data with Documents & Sync, but my iPad with the same settings (all Apple iCloud services are enabled) used only 47MB in the same time interval... So this can in fact be caused by some 3rd party app that is using iCloud documents... but I have no luck with identifying it 😟

Well im also encountering this issue.. been blaming the service provider for taking my money without my consent.... spending more than what i usually spend in a week on phone only... after reading this yea the documents and sync is the main culprit... anyway im using ios8.1.2 ... at this moment im testing using my cellular data... anyway theres an option if u go to icloud settings to turn off the documents and sync option and now im giving it a go and see if its still hogging my data... cheers

I've got the same problem, started about a week ago. In my case I've examined my iPhone 6's crash logs and strongly suspect it's due to the "CloudKeychainProxy" process. This process keeps trying to access or sync some sort of key, and keeps failing. It generated ~34,000 error messages in the last 10 hours alone. It seems to also be happening on my iPad, but it's not as noticeable there since I don't use cellular data and the battery lasts so long even when being continually hammered. This suggests it's a problem with my iCloud account though, not my specific iOS device.

I should also note that turning off Keychain syncing, or all iCloud services (but not iCloud itself), seems to make no difference.

I am (sadly) in the same boat... my cellular usage, after being constant longer than 2 years at +/-500mb/month, suddenly started skyrocketing since about July last year. At various points, I assumed it was applications in the background, but having now started paying more attention to this, and following recent battery drain occurrences, I started reading up on what might be going down.

After a complete reset and clean install on Monday, things are not looking good at all. Documents and sync remain the biggest culprit, by a long shot, and that's in spite of all the measures taken to force Wifi over Cellular.

I cannot log out on iCloud – I rely too much on the Calendar etc. sync – that's surely the whole point of having a smartphone? But I will try and narrow down the possibly culprit.

Thanks to all those who keep coming back with updates. Please do share if you manage to find the solution!!

I'm going to pop something up at MacRumors, to check and see how common this is.

I didn't find "CloudKeychainProxy" in my iPhone's logs... and I had disabled Keychain sync.

On a hunch, I cleaned out my iCloud Keychain in the Keychain Access.app. I had 300 items in there so deleting each one to see when/if it corrected itself was out of the question. Then, I turned on iCloud Keychain sync under Settings >> iCloud.

Prior to the clean out, I had used 802Meg of my data plan (my plan started on the 7th) and 2 hours later it had stopped at 805Meg. Normally, the 'bleeding' would burn a meg a minute with Cellular on. But, so far, 4 more hours later, it seems to have fixed the 'data bleed'. YMMV.

Oddly enough, it seems, with iCloud Keychain turned off, it still syncs data! I don't know if thats a feature or a bug 😉

I find it laughable that with the Security code you need to enable iCloud Keychain sync that it still syncs data with it turned off!

OK my problem on this has been solved by turning off the documents & sync settings in iCloud... Other than that such as find my iphone is still on.. Now i dont experience anymore data hogging like before.. Im hoping apple to fix this but as of now id rather to turn it off than wasting my cash and data plan.. Not worth to use that much just for documents sake ... Hope this helps cheers!!

Just wanted to add to the thread. I had the same problem with Documents & Sync using up cellular data but more noticeable was the battery drain even on WIFI. As the thread mentions, logging out of iCloud on the iPhone 5S stopped the drain immediately. Of course thats not a good solution. I signed out of iCloud from all my devices including my Mac Pro which is on 24x7. The Mac Pro is what was causing it. After signing back in, and disabling iCloud drive everywhere as well, it has been finally working right. This had all started a few weeks ago so wondering if it's a problem with Apple making some iCloud changes or just accounts getting somehow corrupted or perhaps its the clients themselves getting stuck as if something is being always updated. I just hope it doesn't return. It was a pain to track this down so hopefully this thread finds more people in the same situation, or gains some Apple attention.

I actually never contemplated signing in and out of iCloud on my MBP – that would probably have been something to check! Dang!

Regardless, signed in and out of iCloud on my device, and the problem stopped – albeit temporarily. It wasn't long before Documents & Sync started chugging along on Cellular again. About 50mb yesterday, and after another 25mb today, I killed iCloud.

Have now started the process of creating a secondary iCloud account. Am signing out of iCloud on the devices, and signing back in, on the new iCloud account.

Once I've finished with my ™ backup on the MBP, will do the same there. Hopefully this will solve everything once and for all. Will pop something up when I've done the above.

Same here. Documents & Sync eats data, started last week. (After update to iOS 8.2?). Tried a lot and till now it boils down to "don't use iCloud" - which is obv. not a real "solution". Will try more things and post if there is notable progress. Just wanted to share that there is one more "victim".

To sum it up:

• Although the culprit is "Documents & Sync" it's more Sync and not Documents
• Disabling iCloud completely "solves" the issue.
• Enabling iCloud and disabling all iCloud Services does not help
• Some users report that they solved the issue by removing things that you expect to be synced
  • Keyboard shortcuts like omw -> on my way etc.
  • iCloud passwords
  • perhaps other stuff?
• Some users see this problem only if at least one other Mac is online at the same time (haven't checked myself so far)
• Using a fresh iCloud account "solves" the issue as well (but causes other ones)
• Given all of the above, it's highly likely that the issue is related to some strange constellation in the individual iCloud account
• If so, it might be worth a try to
  • a) log off of iCloud on all but one machine (preferably a Mac keeps connected, easier afterwards)
  • b) ensure that all iCloud data is deleted on the machines that logged off (not 100% sure how to force this - if in doubt, I'd reset iOS devices completely and do not restore from backup
  • c) use the remaining connected machine and clean up iCloud data (remove not needed keychain entries, keyboard shortcuts, bookmarks, photos, etc.)
  • d) connect the removed devices again, one-by-one, ensuring that they download all data from scratch, wait at least one day before adding the next one

Well - in theory that could work. In reality I think, I'll have the patience to wait some weeks before trying this. iCloud Foto Library is not too far away, and we expect that there is a lot of background work on iCloud (not only) because of this. So things might get resolved "automagically".

FWIW, my issue disappeared after I disabled iCloud on a Mac Mini that I use as a server. That was quite a process in itself because the iCloud Pref Pane refused to let me sign out of my iCloud Keychain (I eventually had to manually delete the keychain file from inside my user Library). I assume I probably could have also fixed my iCloud login on my Mac Mini if I took the time to troubleshoot it, but there was no point because I don't really need any iCloud services on that machine, and it's just one additional point of failure.

As for what caused the problems on the Mini to begin with, I strongly suspect (but cannot prove) that it was related to the rollout of 2 Step Verification to Messages and FaceTime, which caused login error messages on all of my machines. If you have 2 Step Verification enabled, you now need to generate app specific passwords for Messages and FaceTime. Exactly how these passwords work is not straightforward (e.g. despite the name "app specific" it seems like you can reuse them across multiple machines and apps). The system is wonky enough that frankly at this point I would not recommend enabling 2 Step Verification unless you have a really weak password or are incredibly paranoid about protecting your account.

I have the same problem. iOS 8.2. With ~ 5-15 March my iPhone 6 work ~ 10 hour (earlier ~ 30-36 h). Document & Sync eat cellular data ~ 12 Mb/hour.

Apple do something!

SOLVED (for me):

I had the same problem. Upgraded iPhone 5S to iPhone 6, set up as a new phone instead of restoring from backup due to the first iPhone 6 I was given having battery issues. It was replaced and all was well, but noticed I was being throttled by AT&T, and a check showed that in two weeks I'd used 8.7 GB of data, and 8.2 of them were for "system services > documents & sync."

Tried all solutions listed (deleting keyboard shortcuts, disabling iCloud drive, etc), nothing worked, and restored again from a new phone without any apps. Still was burning through 50MB a data per hour, more or less, all in documents & sync. Burned through 400 MB while I was sleeping with the phone locked.

The solution, in the end, was to switch to an older iPhone account. Even when I'd uploaded all the old data (specifically, when I turned off the first iCloud account I kept all the contacts, calendars, keychain items etc on the phone, then when I logged in to the other account I "merged" them so the old data populated my new iCloud account), the problem was gone.

Even more to my delight, I discovered that the solution worked even when I restored the phone to its former state- all the apps, all the settings, just where I left them- with the only difference being I used the new iCloud account.

This has solved my problem (Apple wasn't much help, and AT&T certainly wasn't any, although after some complaining they did un-throttle me- you have to escalate to a manager to get that done), hopefully it helps others because God knows how irritated I've been at this phone for the last 12 hours.

Go to Settings > iCloud > Documents & Sync > turn off Cellular Data.