"The last backup could not be completed"

Question

Level 2

233 points

"The last backup could not be completed"

I woke up this morning to a message on my iPhone 5S that it had not completed an iCloud backup in two weeks. Every night my phone is locked, powered up, and connected to WiFi, so those requirements are met, but even if I go into the iCloud settings and manually try to initiate a backup, I get the "backup could not be completed" error.

I've already tried rebooting the phone.

I plugged the phone into my Mac and tried to do an iTunes backup. There, I got a cryptic "Backup could not be completed because an error occurred" message.

I moved the previous backup file from iTunes into the trash, but it didn't help. I'm hesitant to try deleting the most recent iCloud backup, because once that's gone, I'll have no backups at all.

Edit to add: I more than sufficient free iCloud storage space. Also, I'm aware that iCloud services were down this morning, but it hasn't made a backup in two weeks and that wouldn't explain why I can't make an iTunes backup.

Any ideas on what might be causing this or how to resolve it?

iPhone 5s, iOS 8.3, 32 GB

Posted on May 21, 2015 7:30 AM

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Answer 1

pvonk

Level 6

13,851 points

May 24, 2015 1:29 PM in response to David Krug

If you get the error "Backup not successful" and you've tried deleting the last backup and trying to back up manually without luck, try the following test: Go to...

Settings>iCloud>Storage>manage Storage, tap your device name in the Backups section, then look under Backup options. Turn off all apps from backup and then do a manual backup. If that doesn't work, then this post will not help. If the backup works, then go back to the app list and turn some on and try another backup. If successful, keep repeating these steps. If it fails at some point, then try to zero in on the one app that seems to make the backup fail. (I had this problem and found one app failing, probably due to a corrupt data file.)

This process will take time, but if a backup works with no app data being used but clearly fails with the original settings, then somewhere in the mix of apps is a "bad" one.

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Answer 2

David Krug Author

Level 2

233 points

Jun 12, 2015 11:59 AM in response to David Krug

I ended up taking the phone into the Genius Bar and they couldn't figure out a solution either and ended up doing a factory reset. Of course I ended up losing all my data for the period where it wasn't backing up, but now it works correctly.

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Answer 3

bluehz

Level 1

22 points

Jun 29, 2015 11:35 AM in response to David Krug

Like a fool - I purchased more iCloud storage because my iPad said I needed more to complete the backup. Now I have more storage and the iPad still will not backup. This same iPad has backup faithfully for at least 2 years with nary a problem. Appears to have stopped backing up on 6/1/15 - although no significant software/hardware event has occurred on the iPad Air.

I have done the following with no success:

1. Reset network

2. Soft reset iPad

3. Hard reset iPad

4. Deleted all previous iCloud backups

5. Disabled all app data and photos

Still it will not backup.

Does anyone have a working solution for this?

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Answer 4

Jul 2, 2015 12:53 PM in response to bluehz

Sign out of your iCloud account and sign back in. See if that helps.

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Answer 5

Sep 11, 2015 7:40 AM in response to aldo_mosca

This post worked! Signed out. Signed back in and WALLA.

Thank you for your input.🙂

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Answer 6

Oct 8, 2015 11:43 PM in response to aldo_mosca

Thank you, this worked for me once you ignore the dire warnings when you sign out!

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Answer 7

ort2020

Level 1

7 points

Nov 8, 2015 12:26 PM in response to David Krug

TThis is exactly what happened to mine - I tried deleting backups, signing in / out, backing up manually etc, nothing worked. Apple were great. Called up and they acknowledged a known problem being worked on, bit have a workaround; reinstall the software thru iTunes.

- Back up iPhone to iTunes (via lead not wifi)

- turn off iPhone and disconnect lightning from iphone (leave connected to pc)

- whilst holding the home button, plug lightning back into iPhone and keep holding home button until the 'connect to iTunes' picture appears

- when prompted, restore the iPhone which will erase, download and reinstall latest iOS and then restore from the iTunes backup

This solved my problem and now auto backs up as usual, hope this helps!

Owen

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Answer 8

Dec 17, 2015 6:16 PM in response to David Krug

I Took my phone to my Verizon store and they said there was an issue with the backup from the last update. This new update was supposed to fix it but didn't. On my Mac I can backup to my computer but not ICloud.

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