"Documents & Sync" - 80% of my iPhone Cellular usage!?

[markoblanco]

John, I had to sign up to reply but I just wanted to say thanks to you for staying on this all this time. I’ve followed this thread since the beginning. I tried pretty much everything, just as you did. I have to say: “Shame on Apple” for letting this go this far. They have known about this issue for quite a long time. I can only assume it’s not costing them anywhere near as much as it’s costing us.

Anyway, I’m getting ready for the “go nuclear” option put forward by @luxnova but before I do so I thought it might be wise for someone who has done it to give the rest of us a clearer step-by-step method to do so. I’m not sure I’m fully understanding the directions and I don’t want to make a bigger mess of it. Messing with the Keychains can have bad results, as I found out the hard way a few years back. So, a clearer tutorial would really be a huge help. Lacking that I will, eventually, give it a shot, with a tutorial in mind, if I can find the time in the coming weeks.

If someone who has done this successfully can walk me (us) through it one more time before I give it a shot I’d appreciate it.
Thanks,

Marko

 

[JohnOCFII]

If someone who has done this successfully can walk me (us) through it one more time before I give it a shot I’d appreciate it.
Thanks,

Marko

Sorry for the late reply. I'll try to summarize what I did. Sadly, there are some steps that are a little fuzzy, but I'll capture what I can -- I'll try to get to this in the next couple of days.

 

[FTH]

All: reporting back a few months after “going nuclear” and resetting both my phone and my wife’s. I just checked our data usage and with 7 days remaining in the billing period we have used half of our 4G plan each. Now, I know John said he’s now had this same issue on two phones, so I’m not sure if we’ve root causes the problem or just gotten lucky. However, I can tell you that resetting our phones 100% worked for both of us. It feels like there is a bug (spyware? Who knows) out there that was doing something nefarious in the background which we have now wiped clean. Of course, I’m not an Apple engineer so I can’t confirm. I will say though, with iCloud backup I was able to wipe and reset our phones in a couple of hours (and it was just minutes of actual hands on work) which was WAY better than the hours I spent toggling settings and hoping that things would improve. I wasted hours in June nightly reading this forum and others trying to solve the problem. I then reset my phone and haven’t had a single issue since. Up to all of you whether you feel like it’s the right step, but it’s probably worth a try. If it’s spyware, then no settings change will resolve it. Anyway, super happy to be out of data hell and hoping you all can join me!

 

[JohnOCFII]

I just finished my cellular billing month. About six weeks ago I completed two related iCloud Keychain-related troubleshooting steps suggested upthread. For me -- they seem to have worked to solve the problem of high cellular usage from Documents & Sync.

For high-level comparison, I went through my notes for the last 10 months, and Documents & Sync usage was averaging 70-85% of my monthly cellular usage! For this last billing month, my total cellular usage was 1.3 GB, and of that, Documents & Sync was ONLY 21.6 MB! That works out to about 1.66%. I may not be a math genius, but 1.66% is WAY LESS than the 70-80% Ive been experiencing for at least the last TWO YEARS.

So -- for me, this issue feels resolved. I'll try to highlight the steps I took to resolve the issue and post here. I do think one thing this thread has tought us is there are multiple things that could use this unexpected usage in Documents & Sync.

 

[lmacray]

I just finished my cellular billing month. About six weeks ago I completed two related iCloud Keychain-related troubleshooting steps suggested upthread. For me -- they seem to have worked to solve the problem of high cellular usage from Documents & Sync.

For high-level comparison, I went through my notes for the last 10 months, and Documents & Sync usage was averaging 70-85% of my monthly cellular usage! For this last billing month, my total cellular usage was 1.3 GB, and of that, Documents & Sync was ONLY 21.6 MB! That works out to about 1.66%. I may not be a math genius, but 1.66% is WAY LESS than the 70-80% Ive been experiencing for at least the last TWO YEARS.

So -- for me, this issue feels resolved. I'll try to highlight the steps I took to resolve the issue and post here. I do think one thing this thread has tought us is there are multiple things that could use this unexpected usage in Documents & Sync.

John, I'd like to second the request made by @markoblanco . I tried using @luxnova's tutorial, but I wasn't getting the same pages s/he described. Specifically, after doing the two-factor authentication for step 5, I was taken to a page to enter my passcode, and there was no option to say "Forgot passcode." Thanks so much for your persistence on this issue. I'm hoping to finally get it resolved myself!

 

[Bruno_C]

John, I'd like to second the request made by @markoblanco . I tried using @luxnova's tutorial, but I wasn't getting the same pages s/he described. Specifically, after doing the two-factor authentication for step 5, I was taken to a page to enter my passcode, and there was no option to say "Forgot passcode." Thanks so much for your persistence on this issue. I'm hoping to finally get it resolved myself!

If I remember right you might have to type in the wrong code a few times in order to get the “Forgot Passcode” prompt.

 

[lmacray]

If I remember right you might have to type in the wrong code a few times in order to get the “Forgot Passcode” prompt.

Thank you for the suggestion, @Bruno_C. I gave that a try this afternoon, but no luck unfortunately. I entered the wrong passcode 5 times, and there was no option for "Forgot passcode."

 

[Bruno_C]

Thank you for the suggestion, @Bruno_C. I gave that a try this afternoon, but no luck unfortunately. I entered the wrong passcode 5 times, and there was no option for "Forgot passcode."
View attachment 1853170

Funny, your phone seems to be asking it’s own passcode instead of the passcode to another device… Is that the only device linked to your iCloud?

 

[lmacray]

Funny, your phone seems to be asking it’s own passcode instead of the passcode to another device… Is that the only device linked to your iCloud?

No, it's not. I have two laptops also linked to my iCloud. Should I be signed out of those? Here are the steps I've followed from @luxnova's instructions, and I've included my annotations:

1. Before you do anything backup your phone, doing this to a computer is faster restore than iCloud but each to their own.
2. From here, sign out of iCloud in the setting; when prompt if you want to keep the keychain data, choose keep on phone.
3. Go Face ID & Passcode, enter the code to get in and change the device pass code to something different.
4. Sign back into iCloud again; this is where things get interesting
   • I use the email address and password for my iCloud account.
5. If you have 2FA authenticate the sign in, this is fine.
   • I have my laptop nearby when doing this so I can follow the steps on MacRumors. After entering my iCloud email address and password on my phone, a window appears on my computer telling me to verify that I am trying to link a phone with my iCloud account at my location. When I confirm this on my computer, it gives me a 6-digit code to enter into my phone. After entering this code, I'm then asked for the 6-digit passcode I created in Step 3.
6. It will now ask you to very the passcode from another device, this is where you would tap on forget passcode and then keep insisting through out all of the other similar prompt that you forgot the passcode on the other devices, even if you know it. Don't enter it in, this is part of the keychain reset process.
   • This is where I'm stuck. Unlike @luxnova's experience, my phone doesn't ask me to verify the passcode from another device, nor does it have the option of "forgot passcode." Instead, I just get the screen that I took a screenshot of in the previous post.

Thanks for your help, @Bruno_C!

 

[JohnOCFII]

Let me see if I can piece together what I did...

From @luxnova
1) Before you do anything backup your phone, doing this to a computer is faster restore than iCloud but each to their own.

2) From here, sign out of iCloud in the setting; when prompt if you want to keep the keychain data, choose keep on phone.

= just need to do this on the particular phone you are working on -- leave other devices logged into iCloud is OK.

3) Goto Face ID & Passcode, enter the code to get in and change the device pass code to something different.

= WRITE IT DOWN (assuming you change it later again)

4) Sign back into iCloud again; this is where things get interesting
- If you have 2FA, authenticate the sign in, this is fine.
- It will now ask you to vary the passcode from another device, this is where you would tap on "forget passcode" and then keep insisting through out all of the other similar prompt that you forgot the passcode on the other devices, even if you know it. Don't enter it in, this is part of the keychain reset process.

= Agree that this part is fuzzy. Basically, every time it asks for a password, type in an incorrect one, until it FINALLY gives you an option to set a new passcode.

5) Once you are done with this process, iCloud should ask you to either update Apple ID setting. Or if it does not then check if keychain it turned off, if it is toggle it on.


6) It will ask you for an old passcode, choose "later" and then it will ask passcode from another device, choose forget again and insist you forgot on every similar prompt even-though you know it.

7) Now it will ask you if you want to enable keychain, choose forget all passcode. Then it will ask you to reset any keychain, tap yes and you should be good to go.

OK -- Steps 6 and 7 get really fuzzy -- but what I recall is that after you finally get it to accept that you've forgotten your passcode, and lets you put in a new one -- it will ask you for new iCloud passwords from each device -- and it'll ask you to go to ANOTHER DIFFERENT Device to verify.

Once through all that -- it worked!

I hope that is helpful enough.

John

 

[JohnOCFII]

Another month, another month with very reasonable Documents & Sync usage!

I used more data this month, but the percentages are still very good: For this last billing month, my total cellular usage was 1.9 GB, and of that, Documents & Sync was ONLY 37.2 MB! That works out to about 1.96%.

 

[luxnova]

Another month, another month with very reasonable Documents & Sync usage!

I used more data this month, but the percentages are still very good: For this last billing month, my total cellular usage was 1.9 GB, and of that, Documents & Sync was ONLY 37.2 MB! That works out to about 1.96%.

Thank you for the credit and what I shared worked really well! I'm glad that you it worked for you and many others as well. This was really the deep end of apple cloud sync issues and finding an advisor at apple that would listed and not be condescending about was probably as difficult as the reset procedure itself and I have apple care plus. Either way, I am happy this method works! It has worked for me as well.

 

[ChadMSU07]

I registered just to put in my 2 cents! I was having this issue and I tracked the culprit down to an app I was using called Alfred Security Camera. I deactivated my "camera phone" for a week and Documents and Sync did not grow very much when on cellular data. I then set up the "camera phone" again and Documents and Sync went up by a large amount when I was on cellular data connection (>1.5GB) . I have since left the "camera phone" offline and my documents and sync has stayed very low (trivial amounts).

I had had cellular data turned off for Alfred on my "viewing phone," and my "camera phone" didn't even have a SIM. Still this app was using up cellular data for Documents and Sync. I suspect this would have occurred even if I had not installed the app on my "viewing phone" (maybe I should test this).

From reading through this thread, I know that many things can cause the outlandish documents and sync cellular data usage. It seems that certain apps can cause it to happen even if you don't give them explicit permission to use cellular data.... or even if you have one device solely on WiFi using that particular app.

This was helpful and sparked a potential cause for my usage. I use Line App for chatting with a gaming crew and it is set to backup the chat history daily when plugged in and using Wifi. The size of the backup this morning was 663.4MB, and pretty much the same as what my documents and sync data usage increased by today. I noticed the time of the backup is when I was driving to work with my iPhone plugged into my car for Apple Car Play. I've gotten backup failed messages a few times when my phone was plugged into the Car Play and didn't think much of it. I've changed the backup frequency and will see if this fixes my issue.

 

[raulc88]

Me too... same issue.

I can't believe that it's 2023 and we're still facing the exact same issue as SO many people experienced already in the last 3-4 years. Apple not doing anything about it.

It drained me more than 7gb within a few hours. Incredible!

I contacted them and (as expected) the guy tried to tell me videos can drain data considering the icloud backup, bla bla...
Now I showed him this forum. I made him share it further with specialists.
I'm asked to wait up to a week, while some specialist will look into it and contact me back.... incredible...

Now I'm a bit worried to get off the wifi... Low Power mode is my only option now.

I did see here a method that worked for others but can't be sure that it still works even after 2 years on the new iOS.

 

[gcoghill]

I’m having the same issue of not being prompted for “forgot passcode”. Documenting this process as I progress in case it helps someone else.

After the first 5 deliberately incorrect passcode attempts, I get the “try again in 1 minute” message. Then, it becomes “try again in 5 minutes”, with the message updating (counting down the minutes) as the time passes.

After finally entering another deliberately incorrect passcode, it bumps up to “try again in 15 minutes”. At this point, I am now at 7 failed passcode attempts.

Be warned that your iphone will be completely unusable during this process, although an “Emergency” button does appear on the screen if you wake from display sleep.

Paranoid that another attempt might erase my phone, I entered the correct passcode. I was asked if I wanted to merge calendar data on the iPhone with iCloud, and clicked “Merge”. I was then granted access to the phone and was logged in to Apple ID. Never got any prompts on other devices to “vary the passcode”. (EDIT: just realized the original intent was the say “verify” the passcode on another device, not “vary”).

I am not sure if perhaps one of the early steps is being misremembered and those of us with issues are doing something wrong, or if things have changed on the iOS or iCloud end and the passcode reset process has changed. I am running iOS15 (and iOS 16 is available). But it seems these issues with this process predate iOS 16 and perhaps even 15.

Documents & Sync ate up 3+ GB yesterday after thinking I had tamed this beast and topped off another 5GB on my data plan, after initially using up the base 6GB in a week. I am desperate to fix this as I have to use my phone for out of town business events for the next two weekends. I have no choice but to be on cellular.

 

[gcoghill]

OK got this to work, documenting what I did.

- When asked to enter the (recently changed) iPhone passcode, enter it correctly.

- Note that when asked to verify the passcode of another device, you will do this on the iPhone for which you are trying to reset iCloud. In other words, you’d be asked on the iPhone to enter the passcode of your iPad. This is the step where you’d enter the incorrect passcodes.

The Apple ID sign-in process will continue, but you will be warned about “limited features”. Once signed in, you will go to the iCloud settings, and likely “Keychain” will be toggled off. Toggling it on will again trigger the prompt to enter/verify the passcode of another device (again this is performed on the iPhone for which you are trying to reset the Keychain). This time, I entered the iPad’s passcode correctly. Which I am just assuming is the right thing to do.

I also took screenshots of the various steps in case that helps.

Here is the “verify other device passcode step” screen you will see on your iPhone, where you enter the deliberately incorrect passcode:

Here is the screen you receive after entering the other device’s passcode incorrectly (3 times I think):

And here is what you see when you are in Apple ID Settings > iCloud and toggle “Keychain” back on:

When you tap “Continue”, that’s when you again receive the prompt (on your iPhone) to enter the iPad’s passcode; at this point, I entered it correctly this time. (EDIT: don’t do this, see followup post below)

I am not sure what I may have done differently this time, but I suspected I may have not changed the iPhone passcode *after* logging out of Apple ID. At least that suspicion was what led me to try the process again.

The one thing for sure you do *not* want to do is enter the iPhone passcode incorrectly. The incorrect password entry process is performed on the iPhone, but will be the passcode for *another device* that also uses iCloud.

 

[gcoghill]

OK I didn’t follow the steps properly, after re-reading them. When you go to enable the Keychain in iCloud settings, and are prompted for the second time to enter the passcode from another device, you should *again* enter it incorrectly 3 times.

This will then trigger the following notification/prompt About resetting encrypted data:

I was never prompted for an old passcode, nor to reset any passcodes. But my gut says that the point of this process is to get to the “Reset Encrypted Data” prompt.

Perhaps @luxnova just didn’t recall the exact steps, or something changed on Apple’s end in the interim. But I am guessing this was the desired end to all of this, regardless of how we get there.

It does appear that you’ll need some time for iCloud data that was reset to sync to the iPhone again. Notes, Contacts, Reminders, etc.

 

[gcoghill]

Just following up a week later to confirm that my Documents & Sync data usage is down to sane levels after this process. Seeing usually 10MB here and there, maybe 100 MB after a few longer days on cellular.

In fact, it seems like my usage is even lower than before I started having these extreme data usage issues. Perhaps there was a problem that just got worse coincidentally when I changed cell phone plans. But very relived to have resolved this issue. Thanks to everyone who shared here, this was obscure but effective!