Major issues with iCloud Drive

[adamlbiscuit]

Hi everyone

I've got a problem with iCloud Drive and it's been driving me up the wall since I got my new Mac mini on Saturday. I'm starting this thread to see if anyone else has the problem described below and/or any suggestions. Even if you're still having the issue and haven't found a viable solution, feel free to post in this thread and we can maybe gather a general consensus as to what's going on here.

The problem is this:

I set up my M1 Mac mini as new on Saturday (no restore, a fresh-from-factory install). As part of the setup process I signed into my Apple ID and all iCloud services were activated. Upon signing into iCloud Drive on the Mac mini, Finder started to download all of my files to be stored locally on the Mac (Optimise Mac Storage was unticked by default it seems). Unfortunately, the download got stuck. I realise it can often take a fair while, especially as I have around 60 GB worth of files, so I left it over the rest of the weekend. The download remained stuck in the exact same position, so on Tuesday I figured it definitely wasn't going anywhere and started troubleshooting.

Unfortunately, despite everything I've tried (see below) the iCloud Drive download is still getting stuck and won't finish. My MacBook Air is now seeing the same issue also (more on that later).

Here's a list of things I've tried already:

1. Turning the Mac on and off again (IT Crowd style for those of you familiar with the show)
2. Turning off iCloud Drive and turning it back on again
3. Turning on 'Optimise Mac Storage'. This drops the total amount of files being downloaded, but the download remains stuck.
4. Turning off 'Optimise Mac Storage'. This appeared to give it a kick up the backside and a few more MB got downloaded before it inevitably stopped again.
5. Using the 'killall bird' command in terminal to reset the download process.
6. Turning off iCloud Drive, killing the bird, restarting the Mac, and going into the library and deleting 'Cloud Docs' and starting afresh.

It's worth noting that Music, Photos, and pretty much everything else syncs. I've downloaded my whole photos library and music library from iCloud just today with little to no issue bar a few hiccups that were easily resolved.

It's literally just iCloud Drive in the Finder. I'm stuck with a pie chart icon in the side bar which never completes, and status bars that never budge. Each time it gets stuck it's at a different place (so it's not like it's getting stuck at the same point each time) I've got plenty of storage space both locally and on the cloud (I have the 2 TB plan) so that shouldn't be the issue either.

Now onto the MacBook Air which was working fine (I upgraded from Catalina to Big Sur - no clean install here).

As a test, I tried turning off iCloud Drive on my MacBook Air (Intel) and turning it back on again. Now that's stuck too - not great, and a bit of a faux pas on my behalf, but the silver lining is it eliminated one theory I had that it was a glitch on Apple Silicon Macs.

I'd be willing to ignore it but because the download process is stuck it means I can't sync any files or folders between my devices. As such I'm about to leave iCloud Drive altogether and switch to DropBox, but just before I do I was wondering:

A) Is anyone else having issues with iCloud Drive sync in Big Sur? I have seen a few threads but none seem to be exactly the same issue as mine from what I've seen. Apologies if I've missed one though.

B) Is there anything else anyone can suggest bar a complete reinstall of macOS (which as my MacBook Air is now acting up doesn't seem like it'd work).

Fortunately I can still get access to everything on my iPad and iPhone, and things sync just fine on there, as well as on iCloud.com. If nothing works I plan to download my most important files from the cloud and put them in DropBox or something more reliable than what iCloud Drive is at the moment (on my machines at least).

 

[brsilb]

I am having the problem getting it to even start to download my files. I have the issue raised up to Apple engineering and am waiting for a response. Aggravating but glad I'm not the only one (sorry!)

 

[adamlbiscuit]

Thanks for your reply! Feel free to keep us updated of any response you get from here

EDIT: I also notice that on both of my Macs, the following process seems to be taking up quite a bit of CPU despite the fact iCloud Drive looks like it's not doing anything:

 

[brsilb]

It started downloading last night but very slow. I think when, if, it finishes, I'm moving my files to a local drive u until this is really fixed.

 

[adamlbiscuit]

It started downloading last night but very slow. I think when, if, it finishes, I'm moving my files to a local drive u until this is really fixed.

Mine started downloading too, albeit very slow like you say. It seems to be downloading in increments of 20 files every few hours.

I think that's wise - I had reliability issues with iCloud Drive back in Yosemite, but since then it's been fine. Still it makes you think about how viable iCloud is as a storage solution, so I'll always be keeping local copies and backups.

 

[chabig]

It could also be your internet provider throttling you.

 

[adamlbiscuit]

So, I seem to have fixed the issue... for the time being at least. Though I had to resort to somewhat extreme measures!

In the end, I took all the contents of my iCloud Drive out of the cloud and onto my MacBooks local storage. Then, I sorted through the files and got rid of the stuff I no longer had a use for (my iCloud Drive had become rather swamped after all these years). Then, I put the remaining files back into iCloud Drive in small 'chunks'. Now everything's syncing nicely again.

 

[gss7881]

How did you “take” the files from iCloud to your local drive (because that what syncing supposed todo.

 

[MTN MADDY]

Hi everyone

I've got a problem with iCloud Drive and it's been driving me up the wall since I got my new Mac mini on Saturday. I'm starting this thread to see if anyone else has the problem described below and/or any suggestions. Even if you're still having the issue and haven't found a viable solution, feel free to post in this thread and we can maybe gather a general consensus as to what's going on here.

The problem is this:

I set up my M1 Mac mini as new on Saturday (no restore, a fresh-from-factory install). As part of the setup process I signed into my Apple ID and all iCloud services were activated. Upon signing into iCloud Drive on the Mac mini, Finder started to download all of my files to be stored locally on the Mac (Optimise Mac Storage was unticked by default it seems). Unfortunately, the download got stuck. I realise it can often take a fair while, especially as I have around 60 GB worth of files, so I left it over the rest of the weekend. The download remained stuck in the exact same position, so on Tuesday I figured it definitely wasn't going anywhere and started troubleshooting.

Unfortunately, despite everything I've tried (see below) the iCloud Drive download is still getting stuck and won't finish. My MacBook Air is now seeing the same issue also (more on that later).

Here's a list of things I've tried already:

1. Turning the Mac on and off again (IT Crowd style for those of you familiar with the show)
2. Turning off iCloud Drive and turning it back on again
3. Turning on 'Optimise Mac Storage'. This drops the total amount of files being downloaded, but the download remains stuck.
4. Turning off 'Optimise Mac Storage'. This appeared to give it a kick up the backside and a few more MB got downloaded before it inevitably stopped again.
5. Using the 'killall bird' command in terminal to reset the download process.
6. Turning off iCloud Drive, killing the bird, restarting the Mac, and going into the library and deleting 'Cloud Docs' and starting afresh.

It's worth noting that Music, Photos, and pretty much everything else syncs. I've downloaded my whole photos library and music library from iCloud just today with little to no issue bar a few hiccups that were easily resolved.

It's literally just iCloud Drive in the Finder. I'm stuck with a pie chart icon in the side bar which never completes, and status bars that never budge. Each time it gets stuck it's at a different place (so it's not like it's getting stuck at the same point each time) I've got plenty of storage space both locally and on the cloud (I have the 2 TB plan) so that shouldn't be the issue either.

Now onto the MacBook Air which was working fine (I upgraded from Catalina to Big Sur - no clean install here).

As a test, I tried turning off iCloud Drive on my MacBook Air (Intel) and turning it back on again. Now that's stuck too - not great, and a bit of a faux pas on my behalf, but the silver lining is it eliminated one theory I had that it was a glitch on Apple Silicon Macs.

I'd be willing to ignore it but because the download process is stuck it means I can't sync any files or folders between my devices. As such I'm about to leave iCloud Drive altogether and switch to DropBox, but just before I do I was wondering:

A) Is anyone else having issues with iCloud Drive sync in Big Sur? I have seen a few threads but none seem to be exactly the same issue as mine from what I've seen. Apologies if I've missed one though.

B) Is there anything else anyone can suggest bar a complete reinstall of macOS (which as my MacBook Air is now acting up doesn't seem like it'd work).

Fortunately I can still get access to everything on my iPad and iPhone, and things sync just fine on there, as well as on iCloud.com. If nothing works I plan to download my most important files from the cloud and put them in DropBox or something more reliable than what iCloud Drive is at the moment (on my machines at least).

So frustrating. Photos (I cloud) will not sync to Mac Photos! Apple tech support has been helping me for 2 days now and about a week ago they spent hours trying to have it work. The most I get is 1 photo syncs after hours of updating and sync that they do and this evening is simply disappeared again and refuses to sync other photos. They did so much tech work and are very knowledgeable but thus far it has been to no avail. I just contacted the tech again to give him the bad news. They sync to my IPAD but not BIG SUR MAC!!!

 

[gss7881]

After the issues I have had syncing my files from iCloud (not photos just files) and after five "senior advisors" with no help I just updated to the latest version of MACOS and it seems the syncing has been fixed. Very disappointed with the support level.

 

[MTN MADDY]

All is well. It was very frustrating but I did get good Apple Tech support. On DAY 3 of this mess I worked with a specialty photo tech from APPLE and after reviewing my case he made the determination that I was in the wrong apple photo app and once we uploaded the one I should have been using he was able to resolve the ICLOUD issue. The two ICONS looked the same but I needed the one that I did not have uploaded. Very happy with the result and I think all the tech worked very hard trying to resolve the problem with me. I was beginning to give up but happy that I did not. Persistence paid off. It had nothing to do with BIG SUR after all like I had thought it might.

 

[Lemon Olive]

iCloud Drive is a such a disaster in this way. It routinely fails the simple task of syncing data. From everything you've said and tried, you should spend some time with Apple support. They need to see this.

 

[MTN MADDY]

iCloud Drive is a such a disaster in this way. It routinely fails the simple task of syncing data. From everything you've said and tried, you should spend some time with Apple support. They need to see this.

 

[MTN MADDY]

Thank you for your reply. I was working with APPle Tech support from the start. They spent hours trying to resolve this issue. I had an "ID problem #" that I would give them so they could see what had already been covered. On day 3 they connected me to one of the very top specialists that deals exclusively with PHOTO issues. He is the one who determined that I Cloud could not download photos to the existing MAC PHOTO APP and we installed a different one. HE downloaded all my photos to the new app. I can finally take photos on my IPHONE and they go immediately to that the MAC PHOTO library which connects I Cloud. They were always able to download to my IPAD but that had the correct Apple PHoto app installed. I had not idea there were 2 but now we know. If you do not have the correct one that I Cloud "approves" you will never get your pics into it. Trust me. Have been thru hell with this problem. I spent about 3 days trying to fix it myself and another 3 days with APPLE. Happy that is over and done with.