Can’t Log out of iCloud on iPhone - "The account may be syncing data” error

[corsica]

ICloud is seriously messed up on my iPhone. Notes duplicate endlessly. iTunes can’t recognize, let alone sync, the phone over wifi. And my calendars won’t sync at all. Worst of all, I can’t actually log out of iCloud to stop the Notes duplication. When I go to iCloud settings and select “Delete Account” I get an error message that says "Couldn’t Delete Account - The account may be syncing data. Please try again.” This, despite the fact that I have automatic backups turned off and I don’t see what could possibly be syncing. Going into my iCloud settings on the phone and toggling off the connection to Notes, Calendars etc. doesn’t work either. I get the message that says “Turning off Notes” but it immediately and automatically turns itself back on.

I have tried logging out of iCloud on all my other devices. I have also tried restoring my phone to default settings, and when I do this i am able to log in and out of iCloud normally, my Calendars appear on my phone, Notes stop duplicating, and iTunes can detect the phone wirelessly. So I don’t think this is a hardware problem. However, as soon as I restore my backup to the phone it all stops working again. So I am thinking that there may be some sort of corrupted file somewhere in my backup or something.

Does anyone have any suggestions or idea what is going on? Or how to fix it?

On a related note, the only thing I really need to restore from the backup of my phone is my text message history. Is there any way that I could restore my phone to default settings and transfer all my texts to the phone without actually restoring?

Thanks so much for any suggestions you may have! This is really frustrating!

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Sounds like Notes data may be part (or all) of the problem. Manually deleting the notes from the iPhone may do the trick - HOWEVER, if you delete them while connected to iCloud (and/or Gmail, Yahoo, etc. - depending on what email account(s) you're using for Notes), you'll delete them from the cloud and your other devices as well. Since you aren't able to sign out of iCloud, you'll have to disconnect from iCloud by disconnecting the phone from the internet (Airplane Mode).

Before doing that, check Notes > Accounts, and make sure any notes that appear in On My iPhone also appear in iCloud (and/or Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) - you wouldn't want to delete stuff that you can't restore afterwards.

As long as your notes are showing up on your other devices and iCloud.com (and/or Gmail, Yahoo, etc.), try taking your iPhone offline (Airplane Mode), delete a few notes as a test (be sure they're notes you've backed up or don't need). After deleting, turn off Airplane Mode and see if iCloud restores them (and be sure iCloud doesn't delete them from your other devices). The idea is, if you can delete all your notes while offline, then they'll be restored from iCloud afterwards. If the test works, take the iPhone offline again, delete all the notes, and go back online.

Does Settings > iCloud say "Delete Account" or "Sign Out"? If it's Delete Account, you're on 7.x or earlier. You may want to consider updating iOS.

If this doesn't work, give AppleCare a call. For issues of this sort with iCloud they probably won't charge.

The iTunes wi-fi sync issue may not be related to the iCloud issue. I'd try to fix iCloud first. Once you have that working, see if you still have to fix iTunes sync.

There's no way I know of to restore just your text message history. I think the more effective method is to get iCloud working properly.