iCloud Backup Broken After iOS 9 Upgrade

The problem has been solved for me. I tried nearly everything that's been suggested here, either on my own or while spending most of a day on the phone with Apple support (kudos to Apple and Lenny in Florida for taking the time). Even restored my phone as a new phone, did a successful backup, then restored it from my iTunes backup with all my content. After doing that, no more backups happened! What seems to have solved the problem was going through, via Manage Storage, my list of apps in the iCloud backup, and turning two things off:

1) An item that said "Keyboard Data (Chinese & Japanese)" that showed the icon of a not-fully-installed app. There's no corresponding app on my phone. I don't use Chinese or Japanese keyboards, so I figured it was no loss.

2) An offline GPS app called DIY Map GPS, which I recalled had a 3.5 GB map file loaded. This file is on my Mac and doesn't change, so there's no reason to back it up to iCloud.

My guess is that (2) is what made the difference, i.e., getting rid of that single very large file from the backup set. But the Apple support rep had a suspicion that my network throughput could have been a problem. In fact, during our session, we tested it and found I was only getting about 1.5 Mbps up, but we reset the cable modem and router and got it back to the normal 6 Mbps. But I'm wondering if my provider (Cox Cable) is doing something to throttle upload bandwidth during this long upload that is causing too many packet drops, which causes the backup process to keep trying to retransmit that huge file.

If I may, I would like to thank you for your post, two excellent points.

1. Possible corruption inside of some apps - easy to fix by going to manage storage area and turning all off and then after small successful backup turn back on one by one.

2. Restart router and try other network to eliminate possibility of temporary trotting.

I'm running 9.1 on an 6s. Randomly backs automatically. I can run them manually.

iPad Air on 9.0.1 works great. Ditto for iPad 3 on 8.4.1 and there they will stay not updated.

Tons of iCloud storage.

9.1 - nope nope nope

I have an iPhone 5S, updated to IOS 9.1 It worked fine with 'Back-Ups' until I downloaded IOS 9 Operating System.

Both my phone and iPad Mini WILL NOT back up to iCloud. I have tried everything suggested here, even called Apple Support.

The response is "The last backup could not be completed."

Last Backup: NEVER

Hello.

Mine will do it sporadically and manually. However, I spoke to Apple and they're aware of the issue. Not sure if it will be in the form of an update or if they'll fix things on their end - but it's a real issue and with black Friday heading to the Apple Store near you. Use iTunes in the meantime. Having an iCloud back up is wonderful - I rely on them but if I ever KNOW i'm going to need that back up I use iTunes. My iPad Air on a lesser version of 9 backs up.

What did Apple tell you?

This post has over 101,000 views, so it's still an issue for a TON of people. My phone will randomly, rarely backup on it's own, every great once in a while, but once it stops working, I have to do a hard reset, and a manual backup, which sometimes works sometimes not. Frequently I have to repeat the steps several time for it to work. After I can get a backup to occur, maybe 50% of the time it will back up on it's own once or twice, then will stop again. This is in all wifi under all circumstances. There has not been an update since 9.1 so I don't have much faith that Apple is working on anything. It's frustrating and annoying to have so many issues with something after an update when before the update it worked perfectly, every time, every 24 hours.

fallenx1778 wrote:

There has not been an update since 9.1 so I don't have much faith that Apple is working on anything. It's frustrating and annoying to have so many issues with something after an update when before the update it worked perfectly, every time, every 24 hours.

Apple is well aware of this issue, which many of the posts here confirm, and there is no reason to presume that they would not be working on getting this fixed. Why would they not work on it? The time that they are having to spend helping people to get things straightened out is undoubtedly costly, and as you have observed, was working perfectly prior to whatever event precipitated this problem. Since it is their software that was working perfectly, why wouldn't they be working on returning it to that state?

GB

The update was released on Sept. 16th and the issues with the icloud backup have continued for over 2 months. I would think a company like apple would be able to figure out what they broke as far as the backup when they released ios 9. When I called support around a month ago, the agent wasn't even aware there was a problem, and she gave me the whole "delete your phone and start over" and it MIGHT fix it. It did not fix it and its frustrating and potentially serious losing all your phone data and pictures if it crashes or is stolen or lost. I just don't think they consider it a big deal. With over 100,000 views on this thread alone, imagine how many people out there are blissfully unaware their phones haven't been backed up in months, because they trust apple.

Again, there is no reason to think that this is not being worked on, and the posts in this thread confirm that Apple is fully aware of the issue now. As far as backups go, iCloud is not your only option. Back up your device to iTunes if you are concerned about losing any data. Import your photos to your computer (which you should always do anyway).

Yes, a segment of the Apple population has had issues with iCloud, but the majority of people who upgraded to iOS 9 do not have these issues. If they did, the number of views would be far greater than 100,000. Also, if you look at the dates on the thread, you will see that the activity has dropped off, so the large number of views could have been mostly accumulated at the beginning of this issue.

My device backs up to iCloud every time I plug it in to a power source. When I first upgraded to iOS 9, I had the same "Last Backup = Never" display that a lot of people were concerned about. For the first week after iOS 9 came out, I had the same issues that many people had with my automatic backups not working. However, it is clear that Apple did something because by the second week, the normal backup routine was back in place for me.

Clearly, there still are folks out there that are still experiencing issues, and the solutions that some of them have had to resort to are workarounds. Just because a update to the iOS has not come out yet is no reason to believe that that is any indication of Apple's intents concerning this issue.

Why not call them back to see if there is any additional help that they can provide now? A lot of things can progress and change in a month....

Cheers,

GB

I think it is quite possible that the number of posts have dropped off because folks have SIMPLY GIVEN UP. I have. I no longer have hours to devote to this problem, nor should I have to. I don't have time to "call Apple and check in to see if they have learned more about the problem." Seriously? I'm just done.

Me, too. My issue was escalated to a Senior Manager. We talked on the phone for some time, did all the usual fruitless procedures to try to fix the problem, and then he decided to further 'escalate' it to the Apple engineers. I was promised that I would hear back within a week but now, a month later, I've heard nothing. Calling his personal extension number allows me to leave voicemails that don't result in a return call. And he is ignoring the follow-up emails that I sent to his Apple email address.

A real shame because he seemed to treat the problem very seriously at the time. Like you, GRZDZN, Apple have completely worn me out. I did, however, take Gail's advice and - having just got off the phone - am completely frustrated by the clueless advisor who had me do everything that I've done before and who actually wasn't aware of any ongoing problem. Yes, we all know about local backups via iTunes (see many previous postings). And yes, we all know about and have executed the myriad procedures designed to fix the problem - but don't. What we don't know for sure is what Apple are doing about it. In the absence of doing the decent thing - formal announcements, returning emails and phone calls, etc... we are left to speculate on a forum where (mercifully few) others make dubious assertions as to why Apple is indeed addressing the problem.

My response was to a particular post not a general recommendation....

GB

If i dont have i tunes backup what should i do

What should you do about what?

GB

While I tried to follow saeed.ayman's suggestion, I couldn't delete my backup on my iPhone5S since even "delete backup" button did not show up. However, I could manage to delete my backup of iPhone on iCloud using iPad mini. After deleting iPhone backup from iPad mini, my backup works fine.