HomeKit The "iCloud Sync in progress..." dilemma

[choreographics]

This topic might be not new, but after trying everything possible I need your help. Maybe there's a solution I did not consider yet.

I had a chat with Apple, which at the end was not really helpful: I received an e-mail, which main message sounds like "I can't help you." Apple suggested I should go for a new Apple-ID, because HomeKit doesn't work with Apple-IDs which are connected to a developer account. First, that's not true. HomeKit worked fine before and I have some friends who are developer and they have no issues. Second, a new Apple-ID? Seriously? I had mine for years and don't want to sync thousands of photos or any other data on nine different devices. Not to mention all the other places like "Support Profile" which needs to be updated than as well.
That's like "You're iPad is not working? Get a new one. I don't care."

But let's talk about the problem.

After restoring my iPhone from an iCloud backup—had some issues with battery life and Apples support failed in this case as well—I am not able to reinstall any HomeKit devices. As for now, I can control Philips Hue with the official app, but all other devices like Elgatos Eve are useless, and so is Siri. Everytime I tried to configure Siri with Philips Hue or add a device to Elgatos Eve it says: "iCloud sync in progress. Try later." For weeks now. And HomeKit is not visible in Settings like it was before.

Things I have tried so far:
* turn off and on keychain sync
* reset network settings
* reset all HomeKit devices

and finally (in that order)
* I deleted all HomeKit apps
* I turned off keychain sync
* I signed off from the iCloud account on my phone
* I deleted HomeKit configuration on iPhone
* I restarted iPhone
* I signed in to my iCloud account again
* I activated keychain sync
* I installed all the HomeKit apps

I have although restored my iPhone different times from iCloud and another time from iTunes. Data only—and the whole iOS (DFU mode) as well.

Still "iCloud sync in progress."

Any hints, tips or suggestions are welcome.
I think this is something iCloud related, a kind of hickup I can't get rid of.
But I assume there's no way to deleted all the data on an iCloud account to start over, isn't?

Thanks!

 

[FreeState]

I am running it on a developer Apple ID, only one hiccup vaugely similar to yours.

I am moving after a breakup, so it's slow going, I have internet at my new place while I get it ready to move in. I set up an old airport with the same username and password as my current airport in the new location. Not a good idea. Everything you mentioned happened. I don't think yours is caused by the same thing though.

My fix was to reset my Airport to factory and wipe all my network settings on my iPhone/iPad.

 

[choreographics]

Thanks! I gave it a try on weekend, but unfortunately without any results.

 

[chuyn]

I had this issue when I first set up HomeKit and I believe the thing that worked for me was to delete the iCloud keychain, then create a new one from scratch. Otherwise, no matter how many times I just turned it off/on, it still wouldn't work.

 

[choreographics]

I had this issue when I first set up HomeKit and I believe the thing that worked for me was to delete the iCloud keychain, then create a new one from scratch. Otherwise, no matter how many times I just turned it off/on, it still wouldn't work.

I will try everything possible. So, you have deleted the from your phone only or on any device?

 

[chuyn]

At the time, I only had my phone set up, and my wife's was invited as a guest, so we deleted both of our keychains. Wasn't a big deal to us since that was the only reason we used keychain to begin with.

 

[chinanderm]

I'm glad I'm not the only one with this issue.

I have been in the same boat as you for the past month and a half with no solution from Apple or response from devs on a bug report. It's super frustrating to say the least. I spent 4 hours on chat with them the other night with no solution. Though, they did (somehow) narrow it to Keychain.

I have also tried numerous combinations of keychain reset, iCloud log-in and log-out, reset network setting, etc. Nothing works. I will give the "different SSID" tip tonight.

@choreographics: Let me guess... you log out of iCloud and HomeKit stuff works perfectly fine? Same with me. I can set everything running logged out of iCloud but as soon as I sign in, it all breaks.
[doublepost=1463515804][/doublepost]

I will try everything possible. So, you have deleted the from your phone only or on any device?

I was instructed by Apple support to this article to wipe and reset iCloud keychain: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204085

I did it on my iPhone, iPad, iMac, and MacBook and then set up a new keychain on my iPhone (while keeping iCloud keychain off on the other devices to prevent syncing). Didn't work.

EDIT: Different SSID + reset network settings did not work for me either.

 

[choreographics]

Hello, chinanderm. Thanks for sharing. The overnight keychain reset on my phone did not wok, and to be honest I did not expect it to work. It's really frustrating, especially it worked few weeks ago and I know how much "fun" it can be.

I never tried to setup the stuff without being logged out of iCloud, but I will follow your suggestions and the instructions in the article to wipe and reset the iCloud keychain later today. Fingers crossed.

We should keep this thread up-to-date, maybe one day someone—or even us—will find a solution, and probably it won't be the Apple support.

 

[choreographics]

I'm glad I'm not the only one with this issue.

Did you tried to start over with a new Apple ID? That's the first solution recommended by Apple Support. I just cannot imagine to reset everything and re-sync any single device with all the data—I have 60 GB of photos alone.
What will happen to my support profile and all the devices registered there? I don't really understand which services are hidden behind the Apple ID, so not sure the effort is worth it, because I am afraid of consequences I am currently not thinking of.

 

[chinanderm]

Did you tried to start over with a new Apple ID? That's the first solution recommended by Apple Support. I just cant imagine to reset everything and re-sync any single device with all the data—I have 60 GB of photos alone.
What will happen to my Support Profile and all the devices registered there? I don't really understand which services are hidden behind the Apple ID, so not sure the efford is worth it, because I am afreid of consequences I am currently not thinking of.

I have not done that. 1) Because I know it will solve the problem. 2) I shouldn't have to use a new Apple ID to fix this, because as you said, I will lose everything/have to migrate it all. Plus, I don't want the headache of having a separate Apple ID for iTunes/App Store purchases.

This is a huge problem from Apple and it's so isolated they don't care about it.
[doublepost=1463577778][/doublepost]

We should keep this thread up-to-date, maybe one day someone—or even us—will find a solution, and probably it won't be the Apple support.

Absolutely. I have a bug report out there (and have for over a month) with no response from Apple even though I've given them tons of HomeKit logs so they should ideally be able to see what the issue is.
[doublepost=1463579926][/doublepost]My error logs that I've passed along to Apple:

homed[152] : Rejecting message since server token unavailable and cloud sync not completed and transient devices present
homed[152] : Rejecting message kAddHomeRequestKey since cloud data sync is in progress
homed[152] : cloudDataSyncCompleted: NO, serverTokenAvailable: NO, totalTransientPeerDevices: 1
homed[152] : networkConnectivityAvailable: YES, iCloudAccountActive: YES, decryptionFailed: NO
homed[152] : Message kAddHomeRequestKey was rejected due to reason: Error Domain=HMErrorDomain Code=77 "(null)"

 

[choreographics]

It took little longer than expected, but I needed some time to prepare everything. However, I restored my device and set it up as new. After downloading the Hue app only I was able to setup the lights (with HomeKit) and everything works fine (HomeKit and Siri)—until I logged into my iCloud account. Same problem: "iCloud sync in progress" and now everything is broken again. I am now in touch with the Apple Support on Twitter and in hope for some more helpful support.

 

[xraydoc]

Keep us updated.

 

[chinanderm]

It took little longer than expected, but I needed some time to prepare everything. However, I restored my device and set it up as new. After downloading the Hue app only I was able to setup the lights (with HomeKit) and everything works fine (HomeKit and Siri)—until I logged into my iCloud account. Same problem: "iCloud sync in progress" and now everything is broken again. I am now in touch with the Apple Support on Twitter and in hope for some more helpful support.

Thanks for the update. Somewhat happy (in a strange way) to see that we're experiencing consistent errors.

Apple Support has passed my case on to the engineering team for them to take a look at (which is the same thing as my bug report, I'm guessing). Haven't heard from them yet after a little over a week.

 

[choreographics]

Thanks for the update. Somewhat happy (in a strange way) to see that we're experiencing consistent errors.

Apple Support has passed my case on to the engineering team for them to take a look at (which is the same thing as my bug report, I'm guessing). Haven't heard from them yet after a little over a week.

Glad to hear that, and I hope that the answer I'va got the first time from the engineering team would be not the same you will get: "HomeKit doesnt work with developer acoounts. Get a new ID." What, as I described at the beginning is (or at least was), not true.

Apple Support on Twitter has passed my case to an Apple Care Senior Advisor, so there's a huge chance the engineering team will have two cases of the same problem in their email-box anytime soon.

One additional question: Does a full restore from an iCloud Backup usually takes about two days for you? I have about 250 apps on my iPhone—yes, I should delete some—and last time it took more than 48 hours to restore the full backup. I have a fast internet connection and all Apple services were up, so I am wondering if this is "normal". Thanks.

 

[chinanderm]

One additional question: Does a full restore from an iCloud Backup usually takes about two days for you? I have about 250 apps on my iPhone—yes, I should delete some—and last time it took more than 48 hours to restore the full backup. I have a fast internet connection and all Apple services were up, so I am wondering if this is "normal". Thanks.

I only do iTunes based restores at this point. I had a bad run in with an iCloud restore a couple years ago so I've stayed away from them since.

 

[choreographics]

I only do iTunes based restores at this point. I had a bad run in with an iCloud restore a couple years ago so I've stayed away from them since.

Thanks. Maybe I should think about that too.

Now, it official Apple Support can't help me or us. The latest e-mail I received today is more than disappointing, and feels like they did not even try to understand or to help. I have got more useful information using Google.

Thank you very much for the update on our case. I have looked further in my resources and I was able to find the following articles only :
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204903 and https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204893
For any further support, I would kindly request you to contact the developers website on https://developer.apple.com/homekit/ and onhttps://developer.apple.com/contact/ as they would be able to assist you further from this point and onwards.
​

 

[chinanderm]

After a restore to iOS 10 and clearing out my iCloud Keychain, I have HomeKit working again. It's only been about 2 days, but things seem to be working OK. I can't access my devices off WiFi even though I have a 4th gen AppleTV - not sure if that needs to be on tvOS 10 or not to work properly.

The frustrating part is that this isn't syncing over to the Home app (Apple's Home app) on my iPad. I'm able to set up a new home on the iPad, but I'm afraid that'll wipe what I have on my iPhone.

 

[FreeState]

After a restore to iOS 10 and clearing out my iCloud Keychain, I have HomeKit working again. It's only been about 2 days, but things seem to be working OK. I can't access my devices off WiFi even though I have a 4th gen AppleTV - not sure if that needs to be on tvOS 10 or not to work properly.

The frustrating part is that this isn't syncing over to the Home app (Apple's Home app) on my iPad. I'm able to set up a new home on the iPad, but I'm afraid that'll wipe what I have on my iPhone.

I believe all your devices (including appletv) must be on 10 to work via Siri.

 

[choreographics]

After a restore to iOS 10 and clearing out my iCloud Keychain, I have HomeKit working again. It's only been about 2 days, but things seem to be working OK. I can't access my devices off WiFi even though I have a 4th gen AppleTV - not sure if that needs to be on tvOS 10 or not to work properly.

Glad to hear that. At least, there's a chance it will work in a not-so-far-future. I am struggling to install iOS10 as for now, would like to wait few more beta versions. (But actually can't wait to try watchOS 3 and the HomeKit app.)

However, nothing new here. I set up a new phone, as new without restoring, manage to reset my iCloud keychain (iOS asked to delete all data in the cloud and sync with the phone) and kept my fingers crossed. Same sync error as always.

The frustrating part is that this isn't syncing over to the Home app (Apple's Home app) on my iPad. I'm able to set up a new home on the iPad, but I'm afraid that'll wipe what I have on my iPhone.

Its the first beta, and as @FreeState mentioned, maybe you need to update every device to iOS10 first. But at least, it works!

 

[chinanderm]

False alarm. Came home yesterday to it all being broken. Ugh.

 

[choreographics]

Sorry to hear that. :/

 

[choreographics]

False alarm. Came home yesterday to it all being broken. Ugh.

Did the "House"-App works/worked for you? I installed the Beta 1 on my iPad, but it only shows "House loading" since a while. Am sure nothing will happen here anytime soon.

 

[choreographics]

Succeded. Kind of. I changed my password and removed all special characters from—still complicated as hell but in another way. Additionally I deactivated the two-factor authentication. Just to give it a try.

Then I have re-done all the steps in my first post.
* I turned off keychain sync
* I signed off from the iCloud account on my phone
* I deleted HomeKit configuration on iPhone
* I restarted iPhone
* I signed in to a different iCloud account
* I signed off
* I signed in to my primary iCloud account
* I activated keychain sync

It seems to work. Adding Philips Hue bridge was done in under 10 second and Siri is responding well. For now.
I will keep an eye on it and reactivate the two-factor authentication. Fingers crossed.

If you still struggling, I would definitely give it a try.
Talk to you tomorrow if everything is still working.

"Siri, turn the lights on in my living room. Let's have a party."

 

[chinanderm]

Well, I ended up doing what I said I wouldn't... I created a new Apple ID to use just for iCloud. Guess what? Works perfectly fine and my home data syncs to my other devices without a hitch. So, the problem definitely lies with my Apple ID.

 

[ttgolf]

choreographic,

I have the same issues as you guys described after I upgraded to iOS 10 Beta (1 and 2). Now I get the "Cloud Data Sync in Progress" or "Loading Home" forever page on the new Home app in iOS 10. I have tried your method and it will work until the next reboot. Basically I sign out of my account, sign in a new account, sign off and then sign on my iCloud. It will only work until the next reboot. Remote access won't work either.

I know it's my iCloud account because after doing a complete iPhone restore and setup as a new phone. I enter my iCloud account ID. "Cloud Data Sync in Progress" error comes back up.

Like you I have multiple macs, iPad/iphone, and watch. I also have my family share with my account. I can't use another iCloud account.

Please keep this thread open. Apple is not helping.