Q: iCloud Backup Broken After iOS 9 Upgrade

Thank you my friend, I 've been trying to delete my old backup without any luck until I read your post. I should have been more patient to let it finish it's "reading" before scrolling down and pressing delete Backup. Great work!

Deleting the exising backup is only one part of the issue. I was able to do that and somehow trick my phone into doing a manual wifi backup. The big issue is that automatic backup doesn't work. About half of the people I know that updated to iOS 9 can't autobackup. For me, I've even restored and set up as a new phone (nuclear option). Even after I redownloaded my apps from the App Store, keeping no old or existing data on the phone, it still wont autobackup.

G D ridiculous.

just a side point, but given all the stuff the iOS warns you about, is "your Auto Backup I tried to do this morning didn't work" one of them ?

I mean how many people just assume it is working ? Seems like an easy thing to do.

Wish it helped, but alas. Come on Apple!!

Not sure if anyone else said this but it seems that the photo library is backed up by default in iOS 9, even you are upgrading from iOS 8 and it was turned off.

If you have more than 5 GB of photos and videos the backup cannot be completed because it exceeds your free storage space.

Purchasing more storage fixes the issue, but maybe you need to backup only the apps and settings, presumably you are using another Photo Library backup solution.

FIX: Go to iCloud / Manage Storage / go to your iOS 9 iPhone or iPad backup then TURN OFF the Photo Library backup.

That's it! Your next backup won't include the Photo library, will be smaller in size and it will be done successfully.

Restoring my iPhone would be my last resort, but as you pointed out, there was no autobackup. So, after my first back up (I am still waiting for it to finish, after four and a half hours) I will expect the feature not to work. Seems an Apple problem and they should urge for an Apple solution.

I have this issue to. I was told by Apple last weekend that the 9.0.1 patch would address the issue, which it didn't. I spent over an hour on the phone with Apple this morning, with the second half hour with 2nd level product support. She said it was not an iOS issue, but a storage issue. Basically saying that my backups were too big for the space I have available.

My understanding of iCloud and iCloud back-ups is that it backs-up information about the content you have purchased, but not the purchased content itself. So it backs up app settings (if you have them turned on in Manage Storage), but not the apps themselves. When you restore from an iCloud backup, your purchased content is automatically downloaded from the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBooks Store, etc. For none purchased content, it will back it up if selected in Settings. As I have photos turned off, and music is not backed-up, most apps on my phone turned off in Manage Storage) then my backups are actually small. My backups on my Mac average about 200MB. The latest one is only 136MB. In Manage iCloud Storage on my iPhone/Settings, the last backup size shows 129MB, with the next backup size at 36MB. (even though it won't actually backup). My  understanding from AppleSupport pages is that my iCloud Storage is enough for backups, especially as I have no other content stored. If it was iCloud storage size issue, then I would receive a warning stating that. I don’t.

I am apparently incorrect. I was told by a 2nd level support person that everytime I do a back up, it backsup ALL the data on the phone (that is not turned off in settings, and is not music.). So I was told that my 54GB on my phone minus the 32GB of music is backed up each and every time. It does not act like Time Machine, which only backs up changes after the initial back up. Am I crazy or is this nonsence?

So I went with a hunch that iOS9 was not able to recognize an iOS8 back-up (this was documented with the iOS9 Beta). So I deleted the backup file from my iPhone. However, it did not delete the file. So I then deleted it using my iMac with System Prefs/iCloud/Manage, and it successfully deleted the backup. I then logged out of iCloud on my iPhone, then just for good measure restarted my phone and then logged back in to iCloud. And voila, the issue is fixed and I have full iPhone backups. So my hunch was correct, and the Apple level 2 product specialist had no idea what they were talking about. Imagine that.

Let us know if you ever get an automatic backup.  I am able to manually backup once a day; but no automatic backups happen on 9.0.1.  8.4.1 still automatically backs up as before on another device.

I think the update resets the backup settings in a way that all apps get backed up and then the available iCloud storage is too small.

Solution (worked in my case):

Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage > This iPhone

Deactivate all the apps which consume too much space (Photo Library in my case).

You may also try to delete the backup, if you can still access it.

I had to delete the iOS 8 BUs for my iPhone and iPad via my iMac to get manual BUs to work.

Since Monday, the iPhone has Auto BU'ed, the since Tuesday the iPad has also Auto BU'ed

Whether these are actually valid BUs, is unknown. I will be Restoring to my iPhone 6s tomorrow from iTunes.

I have not gone to 9.0.1 yet

I had deleted 98% of my Photos before going to iOS 9, and the projected space needed was well below 5G (less than 2G). It wouldn't backup, so in my case, that was not the case

My storage plan is large enough to cover all my devices. Backup still doesn't work. ALL OF "SETTINGS" IS FROZEN. Attempts to change CELLULAR ACCESS for apps fail, toggles switching right back to where they were before the iOS 9 update. Same goes for changing the LANGUAGES to which Keyboard has access. Same goes for RESTRICTED ACCESS settings. NOTHING is changeable. Is this glitchy software, or what?

In the various threads at Apple Support Community complaining about these different kinds of freezes, (the most inconveniencing of which has to be frozen cellular access, with no access to "Maps", "Mail", "Uber" or Safari for people away from their wifi)  many solutions have been suggested, none of which have worked except, for a few, going back to 8.4.1 - if they backed up before downloading IOS 9, which most people apparently didn't.

There has been nothing in the news, and no warning from Apple, in spite of many reporting having called to report the various problems. Every day, newly surprised and dismayed people who have just updated to IOS 9 seem to be joining already established threads or starting their own, complaining about not being able to backup their devices, control restricted access, or use apps that are important to them while on cellular.

Honesty and openness from Apple about these problems would, in the long run, retain trust among customers, and ultimately, customers. In the short run, a whole lot of new model iPhone 6S's will be sold on Friday to unsuspecting customers. Which is more important, 4th quarter earnings or long term customer loyalty?

Or is this malware? Yikes! Communicate with us, Apple.

Wanna hear a bad news? The same problem is happening in the iOS 9.1 beta 1 (open for non-devs). Yesterday i installed the beta hoping that this problem was fixed but its not.

I went to look at my Cellular Settings - I do have 2 entries at top of the list that have no name, just blank names - what are these ? are they always there ?