iCloud Drive, Notes, Photos, and iCloud Backup Experiencing Issues [Update: Fixed]

[zorinlynx]

Meanwhile, Apple wants to push backups to the cloud which is one of the many reasons Time Machine was stripped of the ability to recover lost emails and contacts, etc within core apps (no, Catalina’s separate volumes is not the cause, I’ve been working with Apple engineers on this issue since day 1 and it seems Apple has wanted to push time machine features to the cloud but backed off as users and developers complained). One of the other reasons Apple left the networking market and Time Capsule’s - it seems Apple wants to push backups into their cloud services as iCloud storage increases and Apple focuses on services.

I don’t understand why Apple couldn’t leave Time Machine alone and simply add the ability for cloud backups in addition to local. One or the other doesn’t make sense.

Frankly all they really have to do is add versioning to iCloud Drive and we'd be set.

iCloud Drive is ALMOST a backup. ALMOST because while it keeps a copy of your data in the cloud, there's no versioning so if you screw up a file you can't go back to a good copy.

This is why I have iCloud Drive (and Photos too) set to download all my data to my Mac, which I back up with Time Machine.

 

[ArPe]

Everything is working for me. I just checked all services.

 

[sdz]

Meanwhile, Apple wants to push backups to the cloud which is one of the many reasons Time Machine was stripped of the ability to recover lost emails and contacts, etc within core apps (no, Catalina’s separate volumes is not the cause, I’ve been working with Apple engineers on this issue since day 1 and it seems Apple has wanted to push time machine features to the cloud but backed off as users and developers complained). One of the other reasons Apple left the networking market and Time Capsule’s - it seems Apple wants to push backups into their cloud services as iCloud storage increases and Apple focuses on services.

I don’t understand why Apple couldn’t leave Time Machine alone and simply add the ability for cloud backups in addition to local. One or the other doesn’t make sense.

My time machine backups also mail content


****@***** INBOX.mbox % pwd /Volumes/.timemachine/1067DA35-13FC-4819-8A6D-8C8D542C9A43/2021-02-03-200310.backup/2021-02-03-200310.backup/Macintosh HD - Daten/Users/****/Library/Mail/V8/0C7C33E5-D30B-49D0-B6EC-50D49EB381A6/INBOX.mbox


I don't understand what the problem is on your end?! I am on BigSur. My backup is from the Mac OS X Leopard era and it runs up to this date on Big Sur.

 

[sdz]

Everything is working for me. I just checked all services.

For me as well

 

[iapplelove]

Why does Apple have these kinds of issues yet Google’s services don’t?

and they want to buy an Apple Car too lmao

 

[tgwaste]

A prime example of why you should not place critical files in the cloud for storage without a local backup.

Too bad Apple doesn't agree with you with their stupid Optimize storage on by default.

Love the products. DESPISE the company and especially its leaders.

 

[sdz]

Frankly all they really have to do is add versioning to iCloud Drive and we'd be set.

iCloud Drive is ALMOST a backup. ALMOST because while it keeps a copy of your data in the cloud, there's no versioning so if you screw up a file you can't go back to a good copy.

This is why I have iCloud Drive (and Photos too) set to download all my data to my Mac, which I back up with Time Machine.

You have absolutely no clue what a true backup is.

 

[sdz]

and they want to buy an Apple Car too lmao

Not everything needs an internet connection. In particular a vehicle.

 

[camsoft]

Not sure this is just Apple as Ring.com and their products have an outage too so given the number of Apple services affected and that Ring.com is also experiencing an outage I feel it could be downstream of Apple maybe an AWS region.

 

[sdz]

Apple has never been able to get shared services right. Everything Apple does is to support the keynote. The fact that something might not work doesn't matter because Apple will spend enough money on making a fashion statement that the masses will never know.

Just think about Time Machine. You never got an error, but one day Time Machine decides that your back up is no good and it needs to start over. How long has it been no good. Never mind that it is a bad time to lose your backup. Never mind that it has not been backing up for weeks, with no notice all you backups are gone.

Remember when Apple used to mean "It just works!", now that means "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil". Which in Apple parlance means, "Detect no errors, show no errors, acknowledge no errors". Unfortunately, Apple's software quality has not kept up with the marketing hoopla.

At least it offers a complete, built in backup & restore solution.
If I look at MS Windows ... to this date they have NO comparable solution.

 

[zorinlynx]

You have absolutely no clue what a true backup is.

As someone who does this sort of thing for a living I seriously doubt it.

Perhaps expand on why you think so? I'm really curious!

Note that I'm referring to iCloud as a backup. I'm aware that iCloud shouldn't be the only backup. You should always have multiple backups, updated and tested regularly, with at least one offsite.

 

[AppleMad98004]

Frankly all they really have to do is add versioning to iCloud Drive and we'd be set.

iCloud Drive is ALMOST a backup. ALMOST because while it keeps a copy of your data in the cloud, there's no versioning so if you screw up a file you can't go back to a good copy.

This is why I have iCloud Drive (and Photos too) set to download all my data to my Mac, which I back up with Time Machine.

"This is why I have iCloud Drive (and Photos too) set to download all my data to my Mac, which I back up with Time Machine."

How do you do that?

 

[sdz]

As someone who does this sort of thing for a living I seriously doubt it.

Perhaps expand on why you think so? I'm really curious!

Does iCloud Drive backup my brew installations? My /etc/php.ini?
Can I restore a new Mac completely with iCloud Drive and begin working where I left it last time?
Does iCloud Drive backup my Applications?
Are Configurations in the Backup artifact?

iCloud Drive is a synchronization solution for which I need an internet connection.
I cannot imagine restoring 750 GB via Internet

 

[zorinlynx]

"This is why I have iCloud Drive (and Photos too) set to download all my data to my Mac, which I back up with Time Machine."

How do you do that?

Just make sure "Optimize Mac Storage" is not checked for your iCloud Drive settings, and that "Download Originals to this Mac" is checked for your iCloud Photos.

Time Machine will then back up this data for you since it's on your data partition.

 

[nt5672]

At least it offers a complete, built in backup & restore solution.
If I look at MS Windows ... to this date they have NO comparable solution.

Yep, that is exactly what I mean about Apple users. It sounds good in the marketing so it must be good.

How can you rely on it, when it does not detect and notify you about backup errors? Yeah, your file might be there? Then again, it might not be. I know because I have had them not be there. Thankfully, I have other backups and don't rely on Time Machine for anything other than the last few days.

Oh, how about when I reboot and it takes 4 hours scanning the backup drive. Are my backups good, or not? Have no way to know. Why does it do it every reboot? No way to know. And yep, I am using new formatted APFS drives.

 

[zorinlynx]

Does iCloud Drive backup my brew installations? My /etc/php.ini?
Can I restore a new Mac completely with iCloud Drive and begin working where I left it last time?
Does iCloud Drive backup my Applications?
Are Configurations in the Backup artifact?

iCloud Drive is a synchronization solution.

I never claimed that iCloud Drive stores ALL the data on the machine. Just that it's not currently a full backup solution... for the data in iCloud Drive, due to lack of versioning.

Apple would have to extend iCloud backups to the entire machine. The problem is that a well-used Mac still has a lot of churn and would consume an absurd amount of bandwidth doing hourly backups to the cloud the same way Time Machine does.

 

[ArPe]

and they want to buy an Apple Car too lmao

Apple Car will be connected to a dedicated satellite connection. All these companies Apple, Amazon, Space X, Google etc will have thousands of satellites in 10 years. Their network will be faster and more stable than standard line based internet. Cars will only use sat net by then.

 

[macsound1]

What's radio?

 

[Attirex]

 

[sdz]

Yep, that is exactly what I mean about Apple users. It sounds good in the marketing so it must be good.

How can you rely on it, when it does not detect and notify you about backup errors? Yeah, your file might be there? Then again, it might not be. I know because I have had them not be there. Thankfully, I have other backups and don't rely on Time Machine for anything other than the last few days.

Oh, how about when I reboot and it takes 4 hours scanning the backup drive. Are my backups good, or not? Have no way to know. Why does it do it every reboot? No way to know. And yep, I am using new formatted APFS drives.

I restored every new Mac from my TM Backup since Leopard. Never had a problem. Started there, where I left it last time. A complete transparent solution.

I remember 2 times, where it said something along the lines "something does not fit, and it needs to create a new backup". TimeMachine is a Delta backup. So if something happens that destroys integrity I fully understand, they need to create a complete fresh one.

But TimeMachine is a free software, that is built into MacOS. On Windows you have to rely on 3rd parties. I doubt, that the user experience is a LOT better there.

 

[iapplelove]

Not everything needs an internet connection. In particular a vehicle.

How do you know? One day cars may be connected to 5G etc. you just don’t know

 

[sapbasis]

Not sure this is just Apple as Ring.com and their products have an outage too so given the number of Apple services affected and that Ring.com is also experiencing an outage I feel it could be downstream of Apple maybe an AWS region.

I thought the same thing in regards to AWS, but AWS is not reporting any interruptions/outages.

 

[sdz]

How do you know? One day cars may be connected to 5G etc. you just don’t know

Only debt slaves "buy"/lease new cars. Buy an old one. Does have no 5G, heck you don't even need an infotainment system. Just use an iPhone magsafe holder or something like that and let your iPhone navigate you (it does the job better as well)

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

Why does Apple have these kinds of issues yet Google’s services don’t?

What planet do you live on?

I manage both Azure and AWS environments. They ALL have outages. For me, out of Apple, AWS, Azure, and Google, I would say outages occur the most in this order....

Azure>>AWS>>Google>>Apple.

Now I will say this, at different point in the history of each cloud service, there have been issues. When the .Mac world changed to .me it was a complete mess....but it has been stable for a long time now. Microsoft had really bad issues when the commercial and business clouds merged into one. AWS outages can impact many things not Amazon related as so many people use AWS. Google has had long outages, and when their DNS goes wonky it can take down anyone using them.

 

[sdz]

What planet do you live on?

I manage both Azure and AWS environments. They ALL have outages. For me, out of Apple, AWS, Azure, and Google, I would say outages occur the most in this order....

Azure>>AWS>>Google>>Apple.

Now I will say this, at different point in the history of each cloud service, there have been issues. When the .Mac world changed to .me it was a complete mess....but it has been stable for a long time now. Microsoft had really bad issues when the commercial and business clouds merged into one. AWS outages can impact many things not Amazon related as so many people use AWS. Google has had long outages, and when their DNS goes wonky it can take down anyone using them.

Cloud Services are for the dumbest sheeps in the IT Biz. Their pricing is so intransparent that you need services that optimize costs and utilizations. Only the dumbest Managers accept storing / computing anything on the "Cloud".

There is no cloud. There is just somebody else's computer.