MacOS – iCloud Drive Won’t Sync on Mac

icloudmacos

iCloud Drive on my Mac (10.13.3) won't sync.

  • My other devices perform perfectly, as does icloud.com. Any change
    made on one immediately propagates to the others.
  • Changes made to iCloud Drive on my Mac go nowhere. The cloud icon
    displays indefinitely. Changes aren't propagated to my other devices
    or iCloud.com, nor do changes made in other locations propagate to my
    Mac, which is lost in some orphan universe of its own.
  • All other services (i.e., Contacts, Calendar, etc.) perform
    perfectly.

So far I've tried…

  • Disabling/enabling iCloud Drive on all my devices.
  • Various combinations of disabling/enabling "Desktop & Documents
    Folders"
  • Signing out/in of iCloud on all my devices.
  • Restarting the Mac until the startup chime had me reciting Edgar
    Allan Poe's "The Bells."
  • Removing all files and experimenting with one small file.
  • Waiting eight hours for a 25kb startled cat photo to sync.

…all to no avail.

I've attached log entries matching…

message type:error
message type:fault
process:icloud

…below, but if there are obvious screaming errors in it, they're over my head.

I'm at wit's end. Suggestions would be most appreciated.

iCloudPreferences   error   15:45:50.464165 -0800   com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice  [AOSAccounts] : ****###****-[MMMobileDocumentsService confirmUserWantsToDisableiCloudDriveAndDesktopWithDialogCompletion:] kMMPropertyMobileDocumentsiCloudDriveDisableDataclassActions  returned  (null)  uploadPending 1 downloadPending 1
iCloudPreferences   error   15:45:52.377211 -0800   com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice  [AOSAccounts] :  -[MMMobileDocumentsService observeValueForKeyPath:ofObject:change:context:]: progressText got from iCloud Drive :()
iCloudPreferences   error   15:45:52.377322 -0800   com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice  [AOSAccounts] :   ****###****     -[MMMobileDocumentsService observeValueForKeyPath:ofObject:change:context:]:                                                 0.0% [indeterminate]            (fractionCompleted)
iCloudPreferences   error   15:45:58.012621 -0800   com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice  [AOSAccounts] : [-[MMMobileDocumentsService setEnabled:creating:withWindow:]_block_invoke_2] : showUploadDisableiCloudDriveSheetWithCompletionHandler completed with status 1
iCloudPreferences   error   15:45:58.015098 -0800   com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice  [AOSAccounts] : [-[MMMobileDocumentsService uploadAndOptOutOfiCloudDriveWithCompletionHandler:]_block_invoke] : BRUploadAllFilesForLogOutOperation completed with error Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=3072 "The operation was cancelled."
iCloudPreferences   error   15:45:58.015652 -0800   com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice  [AOSAccounts] : [-[MMMobileDocumentsService handleOperationCompletion:]] : BRUploadAllFilesForLogOutOperation  or BRDownloadAllFilesForLogOutOperation completed with error Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=3072 "The operation was cancelled."
iCloudPreferences   error   15:45:58.016112 -0800   com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice  [AOSAccounts] : [-[MMMobileDocumentsService handleOperationCompletion:]] : BRUploadAllFilesForLogOutOperation  or BRDownloadAllFilesForLogOutOperation failed with error Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=3072 "The operation was cancelled."
iCloudPreferences   error   15:45:58.029026 -0800   com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice  [AOSAccounts] : SetEnabledOnACAccount_block_invoke Dataclass Action sent to save account robertbryanharrison@mac.com  service com.apple.Dataclass.Ubiquity enableState 0 : {
    "com.apple.Dataclass.Ubiquity" = ACDataclassActionMergeLocalDataIntoSyncData;
}
iCloudPreferences   error   15:47:05.448533 -0800   com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice  [AOSAccounts] :  [GetProperty]  kMMPropertyMobileDocumentsMigrationStatusKey status: <CFBasicHash 0x61000066b300 [0x7fff99f38980]>{type = mutable dict, count = 3,
entries =>
0 : status = SUCCEEDED
3 : id = <CFString 0x61000046d540 [0x7fff99f38980]>{contents = "edac53f1-93db-48ac-b9f3-2512550632a7"}
11 : name = <CFString 0x610000233440 [0x7fff99f38980]>{contents = "NOT_NEEDED"}
}

Best Answer

I had the same problem. I tried restarting, new user profiles, signing in and out of iCloud, check and unchecking documents in the cloud etc.

Each time I waited several hours, but my iCloud documents did not appear.

What finally worked was Dwight McKay's suggestion:

In the Mac Terminal program (in the Utilities folder), type:

killall bird
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
mv CloudDocs CloudDocsOld

NOTE: the original instructions required deleting CloudDocs (rm -rf CloudDocs instead of mv). An edit was suggested to move rather than delete the folder, but this has not been tested. If you can confirm that this still works, please leave a comment and I'll remove this note.

If everything goes well, then you can delete the CloudDocsOld folder afterwards in Terminal:

cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
rm -rf CloudDocsOld

If something goes wrong you can recover the CloudDocsOld folder:

cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
rm -rf CloudDocs
mv CloudDocsOld CloudDocs

cd = change directory to...
rm = remove
-rf = recursive & force deletion of read-only files
mv = move and rename A to B

I had to wait about an hour for file names to show up, and of course the actual files are still in the cloud.

It is too technical for me but you can paste the following line into the Terminal to follow sync progress

brctl log -w

It took about 4 hours to go through 300 gb. brctl stopped output when it was done. If everything worked, you can then delete the CloudDocsOld folder from ~/Library/Application\ Support.

You can find more information at Dwight's page:

  • bird is the daemon that syncs iCloud documents

  • ~/Library/Application Support/CloudDocs contains the iCloud meta-data store

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