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papbot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 19, 2015
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I have two iCloud accounts and several times a day one or the other will display the message below about not connecting to the server. This has really gotten bad since iOS 18 was released. In the past there would be occasional instances of this but now it’s several times a day every day. The message below is from my phone. The same issue is much less frequent on my iPad. I have realized that the two devices connect to Apple/iCloud through different servers as an issue on one frequently will not affect the other.

This network message was displayed about 25 minutes ago on one of the iCloud accounts, it has now cleared and both accounts seem to be updating properly. However they are not; several messages that came through and appeared on my iPad on the account that had the server issue on my phone still have not appeared on my phone. If I were only using my phone to check emails I would not know about them. I have seen various posts that Mail messages are not downloading to one device or another and I suspect something similar is going on here.
 

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papbot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 19, 2015
2,300
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The issue has just cleared, for now, but it occurs multiple times a day.
 

papbot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 19, 2015
2,300
1,076
Had this the other day too. A simple off and on of the device fixed it.
That also works but I’d have to do it multiple times a day. Fortunately on most occasions it clears fairly quickly. Today was the exception when it persisted for a couple hours with no mail messages downloading from that account on my phone, even though the error message was gone.
 
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DomC

macrumors 6502
Jul 28, 2010
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I've seen this occasionally as well. Interesting that it doesn't happen on the desktop, just my mobile devices.
 

papbot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 19, 2015
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I've seen this occasionally as well. Interesting that it doesn't happen on the desktop, just my mobile devices.
In the past when this would occur, if it persisted for a while I would see some indication of an issue on Apple’s System Status page eventually. I’ve yet to see that this time and since it was very infrequent in the past but an almost daily occurrence now I believe it is some ios 18 problem. I primarily use my ipad and phone throughout the day so I would see this on one or the other device on one or the other of my 2 iCloud accounts.

I asked my wife if she had encountered this as she exclusively uses her phone and ipad but normally would not look down at the bottom of the message list to see that error message. As soon as I brought it to her attention she showed it to me a short time later and we looked at both of her devices as she also uses 2 iCloud accounts, and some messages from one account on one device weren’t displayed on the other. Other than yesterday morning this clears pretty quickly but if several messages were sent to that account in the meantime you get a sudden download that just pops in with an earlier time stamp on the messages. We had not experienced anything like this prior to 18. It’s possible that whatever servers are being used are being updated or altered in some way due to the release of 18.
 

papbot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 19, 2015
2,300
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I just checked Feedback Assistant and this issue is now shown as having more than 10 reports with a fix being worked on. So, not as random an event as I had thought.
 

MikeDr206

macrumors 6502a
Oct 9, 2021
512
359
I just checked Feedback Assistant and this issue is now shown as having more than 10 reports with a fix being worked on. So, not as random an event as I had thought.

good. I waited until 18.0.1 to avoid issues like this, and … sigh.

The “fix” I’ve found is to kill the mail app and then start it again.
 
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papbot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 19, 2015
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good. I waited until 18.0.1 to avoid issues like this, and … sigh.

The “fix” I’ve found is to kill the mail app and then start it again.
I was doing that but sometimes it didn’t work. Restarting the device usually did. Fortunately, fingers crossed, I’ve not seen the problem for about a week now.
 
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scouser75

macrumors 68030
Oct 7, 2008
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I just checked Feedback Assistant and this issue is now shown as having more than 10 reports with a fix being worked on. So, not as random an event as I had thought.
Where can you see the number of reports?

I've submitted a few reports, mainly on the issue where reminders don't sync between iPhone and Mac - if you set a new reminder, mark one as complete, delay by hits / next day, they don't sync between devices.

It would be great to see how many others have reported this. It's been on ongoing fire years.
 

papbot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 19, 2015
2,300
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Where can you see the number of reports?
If you’ve installed a beta either through AppleSeed or a developer account, Feedback Assistant will be shown on your Home Screen. When tapping on a report that you’ve submitted, the number of similar reports will be shown. But it’s not always up to date and may show none. The mail server issue however did show multiple reports. But it’s been quite a while now since I’ve had the problem.
 

scouser75

macrumors 68030
Oct 7, 2008
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Yup I'm on the public beta and have the feedback app but can't see the updates on it.

I've submitted a other report for this to see if I can see the updates.
 

papbot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 19, 2015
2,300
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Yup I'm on the public beta and have the feedback app but can't see the updates on it.

I've submitted an other report for this to see if I can see the updates.
When I open that app on the first screen I see Inbox, Drafts, and Submitted. When I tap on Submitted I then see a list of reports I’ve filed, similar to the messages list in Mail. Then on that screen I tap on the server report I filed and see this⬇️
IMG_2480.jpeg
 
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scouser75

macrumors 68030
Oct 7, 2008
2,930
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When I open that app on the first screen I see Inbox, Drafts, and Submitted. When I tap on Submitted I then see a list of reports I’ve filed, similar to the messages list in Mail. Then on that screen I tap on the server report I filed and see this⬇️
View attachment 2433620
Oh right. So on yours I can see 10 reports. But you can't open then to see more details, can you?
 

papbot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 19, 2015
2,300
1,076
Oh right. So on yours I can see 10 reports. But you can't open then to see more details, can you?
No it will only show some number, if any, but no details. And that more than 10 could be several thousand, or 11:)
 
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