iOS 9 & iCloud Backup

[InAustralia]

Thanks. tried this, no luck. I get all the way to step 5 and then I see a 5.1GB backup (my old backups were never that big...). I'm only on the free 5gb so I go to uncheck my photos from backing up and I get the cannot turn off at this time, try again. Also, all my apps (including photos) show "no data" despite showing a 5.1gb backup pending. This is pissing me off. At the moment i"m doing hard backups to iTunes on my mac every few days when I remember.

My wife had the same issue as she is only on the free 5GB as well. It's because iOS9 turned iCloud backup for everything (which is why your iCloud backup is larger than what you normally have).

Make sure you wait for the loading wheel to stop spinning. You should be able to delete individual app information (as well as the entire backup) then (but you have to wait for the loading icon to finish).

 

[rayjay86]

My wife had the same issue as she is only on the free 5GB as well. It's because iOS9 turned iCloud backup for everything (which is why your iCloud backup is larger than what you normally have).

Make sure you wait for the loading wheel to stop spinning. You should be able to delete individual app information (as well as the entire backup) then (but you have to wait for the loading icon to finish).

Yeah I actually just got it working and then your message came up in my inbox.

In the end I don't know what happened but it allowed me to turn off photos from backing up to the cloud and when I turned them off it freed up about 3gb so my backup was 2.6gb. It's not backing up but has a long way to go...
Fingers crossed it continues to work.

 

[deany]

thanks for taking the time.

I backed up to itunes and archived

Took screen shots of iphone.

I then setup as new phone.

Sync with icloud and download apps.

iexplorer helped too.

Now everything perfect.

 

[jmf4]

I'm on iOS 9.1 beta. I cannot make a backup and despite showing 4GB of available space on iCloud, can no longer sync photos to iCloud. Were you at all successful with any one of the three options or making further progress with Apple? I have talked to support but because it is a beta, they say they cannot help and point me to the developer portal which is not helpful.

UPDATE

I have a solution to my problem. I downgraded to iOS 9 from iOS 9.1, and did not reinstall any backups (most of my data was on iCloud) and everything seems sorted. Photos is now syncing, which seemed to be the main problem. Backups are getting made.

I used the following process to downgrade: http://www.imore.com/how-downgrade-ios-91-beta-back-ios-9

 

[bigcstyle4]

I was pretty much having the same problem, but managed to solve it (on 6 different devices - 4 iPads and 2 iPhones). My theory is that your iCloud backup is still there, but somehow following iOS9 the back is no longer associated with your iDevice. Hence why your backup shows as 0kb (but storage space in iCloud indicates the backup is still there). In addition, iOS9 has turned iCloud backup for all of your apps. Thus (depending on how much iCloud storage you have or the amount of data in your apps), you could run out of iCloud storage space.

The options really are to wait for Apple to fix the problem (but run the risk of not having any iCloud backups) or delete your old iCloud backup and start again. I opted to delete the old iCloud backup as I will be upgrading to a new iPhone 6s shortly and once my old iPhone 6 is gone, I don't think I will be able to delete backups associated with it (and hence will permanently lose iCloud storage).

The Solution (and yes it can sound like a bit of voodoo magic) I found was.

Backup Deletion Process
1. Go to Settings-->iCloud-->Storage-->Manage Storage-->Select your device that you are having problems backing up.
2. Wait for the spinning wheel to finish (loading icon beside backup options). THIS IS IMPORTANT. If you don't wait for iCloud to finish loading, your will not be able to delete your backup and you will get the "Cannot Delete Backup" error message.
3. Scroll down and click "Show all apps" and then click "Delete Backup". It should start to delete (but may take awhile). You should also see the amount of free iCloud space you have increase (once the backup has been deleted).
4. After Deleting the backup successfully, go back to the main iCloud settings page and turn on iCloud Backup (if not on already).
5. Go to the same Manage Storage page and select which items you want to backup to iCloud.
6. Go to iCloud Backup page and click "Back up Now" to perform a manual backup.

Now you have to wait for your backup to complete. Depending on the size of your backup, this could take awhile. If you just want to see if this works, do a small iCloud backup (by turning off iCloud backup on most of your apps). I did this initially and got the backup to complete in about an hour. With all of my things turned back on, it took 8 hours.

You may encounter the "Backup could not complete" error message. If you do, just select "Back up now" again. Whilst the backup did not complete properly, data has still been backed up and your backup should resume from where it left off.

Hope this helps and hopefully Apple will fix the problem shortly.

I didn't even know backups hadn't been working for over a week until I checked today in preparation for my 6s tomorrow. This fixed my problem of not being able to delete the "empty" or corrupted backup. A manual backup worked but it looks like automatic backups are still broken across the board.

 

[C DM]

I didn't even know backups hadn't been working for over a week until I checked today in preparation for my 6s tomorrow. This fixed my problem of not being able to delete the "empty" or corrupted backup. A manual backup worked but it looks like automatic backups are still broken across the board.

Yeah, looks like I'm in the same situation with all of that too.

 

[IndianBird]

I bit the bullet. Restored and set up as new. Put all my apps back manually. Will try and backup this evening when I get home since I don't have wifi at work.

 

[hspace]

My wife had the same issue as she is only on the free 5GB as well. It's because iOS9 turned iCloud backup for everything (which is why your iCloud backup is larger than what you normally have).

Make sure you wait for the loading wheel to stop spinning. You should be able to delete individual app information (as well as the entire backup) then (but you have to wait for the loading icon to finish).

That does explain a lot. How could Apple #^&%#(**#( this up so much? Most people will be on the free 5GB plan. And when iOS 9 turns on backup for EVERYTHING, it will break backups for most people. BRILLIANT!

Are they that desperate for people to sign up for the $1/month plan? I don't easily call Apple excessively greedy... But they are. 16GB entry level and still only 5GB free backup space? #&*%#!

 

[bigcstyle4]

I didn't even know backups hadn't been working for over a week until I checked today in preparation for my 6s tomorrow. This fixed my problem of not being able to delete the "empty" or corrupted backup. A manual backup worked but it looks like automatic backups are still broken across the board.

Scratch that. The manual backup ended up failing at the end too. Looks like it'll be an iTunes backup tomorrow morning.

 

[InAustralia]

Scratch that. The manual backup ended up failing at the end too. Looks like it'll be an iTunes backup tomorrow morning.

My manual backups were failing too, but all is not lost. Data has been backing up. If you keep trying to do the manual backup, you will probably notice that the time to backup has decreased. The backup process picks up from where you left off or where the backup failed.

You will eventually get a full backup. Once you do, the other backups should be a lot quicker as iCloud backups are incremental backups. My subsequent nightly backups have gone back to taking only 5 minutes or so (which is what they were before iOS9).

 

[bigcstyle4]

My manual backups were failing too, but all is not lost. Data has been backing up. If you keep trying to do the manual backup, you will probably notice that the time to backup has decreased. The backup process picks up from where you left off or where the backup failed.

You will eventually get a full backup. Once you do, the other backups should be a lot quicker as iCloud backups are incremental backups. My subsequent nightly backups have gone back to taking only 5 minutes or so (which is what they were before iOS9).

Yea, I still haven't gotten a complete backup after trying literally all day. I went ahead and backed up to iTunes anyway just in case I can't restore to the 6s tomorrow.

 

[IndianBird]

Finally got a cloud backup. Just had to wipe and start over. Sad times.

 

[Gabri]

I was pretty much having the same problem, but managed to solve it (on 6 different devices - 4 iPads and 2 iPhones). My theory is that your iCloud backup is still there, but somehow following iOS9 the back is no longer associated with your iDevice. Hence why your backup shows as 0kb (but storage space in iCloud indicates the backup is still there). In addition, iOS9 has turned iCloud backup for all of your apps. Thus (depending on how much iCloud storage you have or the amount of data in your apps), you could run out of iCloud storage space.

The options really are to wait for Apple to fix the problem (but run the risk of not having any iCloud backups) or delete your old iCloud backup and start again. I opted to delete the old iCloud backup as I will be upgrading to a new iPhone 6s shortly and once my old iPhone 6 is gone, I don't think I will be able to delete backups associated with it (and hence will permanently lose iCloud storage).

The Solution (and yes it can sound like a bit of voodoo magic) I found was.

Backup Deletion Process
1. Go to Settings-->iCloud-->Storage-->Manage Storage-->Select your device that you are having problems backing up.
2. Wait for the spinning wheel to finish (loading icon beside backup options). THIS IS IMPORTANT. If you don't wait for iCloud to finish loading, your will not be able to delete your backup and you will get the "Cannot Delete Backup" error message.
3. Scroll down and click "Show all apps" and then click "Delete Backup". It should start to delete (but may take awhile). You should also see the amount of free iCloud space you have increase (once the backup has been deleted).
4. After Deleting the backup successfully, go back to the main iCloud settings page and turn on iCloud Backup (if not on already).
5. Go to the same Manage Storage page and select which items you want to backup to iCloud.
6. Go to iCloud Backup page and click "Back up Now" to perform a manual backup.

Now you have to wait for your backup to complete. Depending on the size of your backup, this could take awhile. If you just want to see if this works, do a small iCloud backup (by turning off iCloud backup on most of your apps). I did this initially and got the backup to complete in about an hour. With all of my things turned back on, it took 8 hours.

You may encounter the "Backup could not complete" error message. If you do, just select "Back up now" again. Whilst the backup did not complete properly, data has still been backed up and your backup should resume from where it left off.

Hope this helps and hopefully Apple will fix the problem shortly.

This worked for me and I managed to delete the backup but I couldn't do a backup because my backup now exceeds the space available even though I turned of backing up photos

 

[InAustralia]

This worked for me and I managed to delete the backup but I couldn't do a backup because my backup now exceeds the space available even though I turned of backing up photos

There must be something else which is consuming your backup space. Try turning off the backup option for some of your other apps which have a lot of data.

My podcast app was on of the apps which used a lot of data as it backed up all the podcasts I had (3gb worth). You could also look at some of your video player apps as they often backup videos. I would just run through your list of apps and turn off some of the expected larger ones and see how you go.

As an update, whilst I can get my backups to work, it seems that the automated overnight backups occasionally fail. Sometimes they are backed up, other times not. If I run a manual backup it seems to work though.

 

[Gabri]

There must be something else which is consuming your backup space. Try turning off the backup option for some of your other apps which have a lot of data.

My podcast app was on of the apps which used a lot of data as it backed up all the podcasts I had (3gb worth). You could also look at some of your video player apps as they often backup videos. I would just run through your list of apps and turn off some of the expected larger ones and see how you go.

As an update, whilst I can get my backups to work, it seems that the automated overnight backups occasionally fail. Sometimes they are backed up, other times not. If I run a manual backup it seems to work though.

I can't see any info about the data of the apps, all of them are showing "no data". My backup size i 4.9GB and my available space is 4.5GB no clue why not 5GB.

 

[InAustralia]

I can't see any info about the data of the apps, all of them are showing "no data". My backup size i 4.9GB and my available space is 4.5GB no clue why not 5GB.

The apps are showing no data because of a bug in iOS9. My apps were also showing no data, but I know that there was data. The actual data being consumed only showed up after I managed to perform a backup.

The apps I elected not to backup still show 'no data'.

You also won't see the full 5GB of space as your iCloud storage is also used by other things (contacts, mail, notes etc). How much space is used will depend on how large the other things are.