Downloading Messages from iCloud...

[VL_424]

For people who have updated or have had the beta version of Messages on iCloud, does this normally take a long time the first time it is activated? Been stuck on "Downloading Messages from iCloud..." with zero progress on progress bar, going on about 90 minutes. It's currently making my texts lag and appear out of order.

 

[Dwalls90]

I'm thinking that everyone is slamming the servers, especially with it being a brand new service. The initial sync will probably take a lot longer than daily syncs. Surely with decent WiFi speeds and when left plugged in overnight, I'm sure it will finish by the time you wake up.

 

[tuzzanti]

Having the same issues.

The iPhone looks like it finished its upload which took about 30 minutes and then my iPad is struggling to download.

Tim

I'm thinking that everyone is slamming the servers, especially with it being a brand new service. The initial sync will probably take a lot longer than daily syncs. Surely with decent WiFi speeds and when left plugged in overnight, I'm sure it will finish by the time you wake up.

 

[Peepo]

My iPhone X worked fine. I updated my iPad mini also and is all syncing. But when I got home I did my iPad Pro 9.7” and it only downloaded partial messages to around April. I left in all night plugged in and no updates. I have disableed and reenabled today and hours later nothing while new messages continue to come through.

 

[VineRider]

I had to have my devices plugged in before all my messages would download. I have 800mg and it took about 30 minutes to download. I also saw the progress bar and sometimes it would say it was paused until device was on wifi an plugged in.

 

[tuzzanti]

My iPad just finished. Things are now syncing perfectly.

 

[AbSoluTc]

Mine has been stuck on Downloading Messages from iCloud all day. Progress bar shows nothing. I did have a bar for Uploading. Not sure what the deal is. Just turned on iCloud messages and it's been funky since. Stuck on downloading. I have only turned it on for my X. I also have 15 GB of messages. Not sure if that means anything as far as why it's not going anywhere.

 

[tuzzanti]

Mine showed no progress and then it was just done. Took a couple hours.

Messages total size seems to be 3gb based on the iCloud information.

I also made sure my phone had finished its upload before I started the process on the iPad.

Mine has been stuck on Downloading Messages from iCloud all day. Progress bar shows nothing. I did have a bar for Uploading. Not sure what the deal is. Just turned on iCloud messages and it's been funky since. Stuck on downloading. I have only turned it on for my X. I also have 15 GB of messages. Not sure if that means anything as far as why it's not going anywhere.

 

[VL_424]

Mine has been stuck on Downloading Messages from iCloud all day. Progress bar shows nothing. I did have a bar for Uploading. Not sure what the deal is. Just turned on iCloud messages and it's been funky since. Stuck on downloading. I have only turned it on for my X. I also have 15 GB of messages. Not sure if that means anything as far as why it's not going anywhere.

Still zero progress on the status bar. Some iMessage texts are actually disappearing as I send them now also. Any progress on your backup?

 

[AbSoluTc]

Still zero progress on the status bar. Some iMessage texts are actually disappearing as I send them now also. Any progress on your backup?

Nope. Same thing. Turned it off. Had to swap phones and don’t want to risk loosing my stuff. Will keep it off until I hear more updates from others.

 

[jakeowens]

Yeah, my computer and iPad are all working correctly, but my iphoneX is stuck on downloading messages for days now. tried turning messages in icloud off and it's still stuck. I don't get some messages on my phone now and when I send some messages they instantly dissapear and I don't know if the person got them or not. What a mess

 

[VL_424]

Yeah, my computer and iPad are all working correctly, but my iphoneX is stuck on downloading messages for days now. tried turning messages in icloud off and it's still stuck. I don't get some messages on my phone now and when I send some messages they instantly dissapear and I don't know if the person got them or not. What a mess

Yes, same issue here still. Works great on my MacBook but it’s doing terrible on my iPhone. I have even had my phone have issues with overheating. For example I would plug my phone in overnight and wake up to it extremely warm and not even fully charged.

At times my apps will lag till I force close my message app. Not sure what’s going on but believe my phone is stuck like this till Apple sorts it out. Very annoying

 

[GigabitEthernet]

My Messages aren't syncing at all. I've started from the beginning - don't care about losing all messages - and no conversations are showing up under my iCloud Storage and they aren't syncing to my Mac.

 

[jclardy]

Anyone else have any updates on this? I enabled this on my iPhone and saw "Downloading Messages from iCloud" on the bottom of messages for a while, with nothing happening. Turned it on for my MBP and it "downloaded" fine, then uploaded, but they aren't in sync at all, my Mac is missing a ton of messages from the last day. I'm actually worse off then I was without it turned on.

 

[AbSoluTc]

Anyone else have any updates on this? I enabled this on my iPhone and saw "Downloading Messages from iCloud" on the bottom of messages for a while, with nothing happening. Turned it on for my MBP and it "downloaded" fine, then uploaded, but they aren't in sync at all, my Mac is missing a ton of messages from the last day. I'm actually worse off then I was without it turned on.

Nope. Same issue myself. Each time I restore my phone, I get a different message restore. Worse than before.

I contacted Apple several times and engineering is working on it. They asked me for numerous information a few times as well. My Mac is 100% correct. My phone, is a **** show. I have turned it off on both my devices and don't plan to turn it back on until it gets fixed (if it ever does). It destroyed my 9 year message history.

 

[VL_424]

Nope. Same issue myself. Each time I restore my phone, I get a different message restore. Worse than before.

I contacted Apple several times and engineering is working on it. They asked me for numerous information a few times as well. My Mac is 100% correct. My phone, is a **** show. I have turned it off on both my devices and don't plan to turn it back on until it gets fixed (if it ever does). It destroyed my 9 year message history.

What is the best way to get a hold of an Apple Engineer? I firmly believe that this update messed up my iPhone X. 75% of the time I wake up the next morning with the phone overheating and not charging fully.

 

[CrashTestWalrus]

What is the best way to get a hold of an Apple Engineer? I firmly believe that this update messed up my iPhone X. 75% of the time I wake up the next morning with the phone overheating and not charging fully.

Know one. Second best way is through Apple support. It’s slow, but they can get stuff back to engineering.

 

[gt2416]

This is still broken on 10.3.5. Sigh.... Installed FRESH Mojave beta and it behaves the same. Stuck on downloading from icloud
On my ipad it worked instantly. Some mac bug I guess. On my ipad as soon as i turned on the switch and went back to the messages app ALL my messages were there. No idea why its so broken on Mac

 

[cedricm]

Very strange that story... Same issue here and can't find what's wrong. Even tried to setup Messages in iCloud with a clean database : no message, I erased every text messages on my devices (iPhone, iPad and MBAir) so I thought the sync would be quick but no, something is stuck somewhere.
And curious : as soon as I check ' enable Messages in iCloud ', Messages is using 30MB of my iCloud storage : it's big for a database with 0 text message. I turned off the sync, let's wait for 30 days and will try again, maybe this ' corrupted ' file will be permanently deleted...

 

[gt2416]

Lets wait 30 days ? lol email apple and tell them to delete it for you. They will probably help you.

 

[CrashTestWalrus]

Lets wait 30 days ? lol email apple and tell them to delete it for you. They will probably help you.

As of about a week ago when I tried just that, they do not have any method to do so. They said they were looking at putting a delete now button for the future like how the iCloud Photo Library trash works but it doesn’t exist now and likely won’t until some later version of iOS 12.

 

[gt2416]

Oh wow ok. Yay Apple, so good.

 

[hendrilei]

Hello,

I tried to delete my text message from my iphone, and it deleted as well on my mac (only takes few seconds)

But when I tried to delete text message from my mac, it’s not deleted on my iphone. Anyone experienced the same ?

Also, I tried to send text message to my phone (from my friend’s number), but i didn’t showed on my mac. Anyone has the same issue ?

(I tried mainly text messages since i don’t use imessage)

Thanks

 

[cynics]

Very strange that story... Same issue here and can't find what's wrong. Even tried to setup Messages in iCloud with a clean database : no message, I erased every text messages on my devices (iPhone, iPad and MBAir) so I thought the sync would be quick but no, something is stuck somewhere.
And curious : as soon as I check ' enable Messages in iCloud ', Messages is using 30MB of my iCloud storage : it's big for a database with 0 text message. I turned off the sync, let's wait for 30 days and will try again, maybe this ' corrupted ' file will be permanently deleted...

There is other stuff that was concealed in the iCloud Backup prior to Messages being moved into iCloud separately. For example the group name auto fill when you are typing in a new message, security stuff, cached data from individual devices, handoff data and other random info specific to your devices.

If you delete all your messages on all your devices you intended on using with Messages in iCloud then goto Settings > General > iPhone/iPad Storage make sure conversations, photos, videos, GIFs and Stickers and Other are all "Zero KB". However you'll likely notice there is cached data in the app its self next to Documents & Data, some of that info is going to transfer to your iCloud.

Once you disable and delete the messages should download to your device (if there is any), and messages will go back to being saved in iCloud Backups. At this point Messages in iCloud settings should read Zero. If you turn it back on (not undo disable and delete just use the toggle) data is coming from the iOS device to iCloud.

Mine is 15.6 MB with no messages on any of my devices. It was only 6.6 before I turned on my other devices.

 

[Eric5273]

I’m having fits with this as well. About a week ago I updated both my iPhone and iPad to iOS 11.4 and enabled Messages in iCloud on both devices. Everything appeared to work fine and both devices synced perfect.

Then yesterday I had a Genius Bar appointment about some issues I was having with my iPad screen responsiveness. The tech suggested erasing the iPad and restoring it from an iCloud backup. So I did this once I got home.

Everything restored properly, except for Messages. For some odd reason, I have everything from the beginning of time until May 12th of this year, and then I have all messages that came in from the day last week when I enabled Messages in iCloud until today. But from May 13th until last week, all those messages are missing from my iPad and after leaving the iPad plugged in and connected to WiFi for a full day, none of the missing messages have downloaded.

I do have one question.... I see above some people referring to progress bars showing the downloading of messages. Where exactly on my iPad would I see such a progress bar? When I open messages I don’t see any progress bar anywhere.

For now I’ve just turned off Messages in iCloud on both my iPhone and iPad. My iPhone currently contains my complete set of messages, so hopefully at some point I can re-enable Messages in iCloud and fix this mess. I did call Apple tech support and they were of no help. Their suggestion was to try restoring my iPad from an earlier backup. But if Messages in iCloud is storing the messages in iCloud, then they wouldn’t also be stored in the device backup, would they? The tech seemed unsure.