Messages store/sync with iCloud is another absolute abomination for me. Endless frustration. Messages on my devices do not properly offload, syncing is broken to the point messages are missing, and stuff like search/attachments just break sometimes. I've waited at least two major OS updates and nothing's improved. You think they'd focus on such a core functionality.
Sure, I have 126GB 'in the cloud' apparently, but come on. The only fix I could see was to start fresh: so I set up a fresh Messages app on macOS, left it to sync overnight with the screen on until the "Downloading messages from iCloud banner" went away and made sure the important conversations showed "0 images in iCloud".
I then exported what I could via unofficial tools but I still feel like I've lost data, which is painful for me. Such as, searching my earliest known message via another backup showed it in the search results on macOS, but clicking on it showed nothing but a blank conversation. It wasn't even in Messages' SQLite DB after multiple "Sync Now"s and restarts. How the heck did it get that bad? Are the PMs at Apple just that misaligned?
I finally tried deleting the most problematic conversation, which went "ok" on the Mac at first, but caused the apps on my iPhone and iPad to do nothing but crash on open. When the Mac synced next, the conversation reappeared with our past messages, but with random gaps in the history (e.g. messages from yesterday, then a week ago, maybe a month before that, etc -- so a incomplete/weirdly ordered deletion). What a bloody mess. I ended up doing a "Disable & Delete" on iCloud Messages. Now I have to wait the the 30 day waiting period for Apple's systems to wipe hopefully wipe the data in that bucket if I feel like trying again. All this certainly does not give me confidence in using iMessage (even with Messages in iCloud turned off) in the future.
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I'm just.... very very frustrated. How can they take the most precious of their users' data and give no fucks about it? The same thing with "shared photo albums" where it's not (or wasn't) immediately obvious that they re-compress all images and videos to much lower quality because I guess they didn't feel like deciding whose iCloud storage it would take up. So now my friend and I have photos and videos that are irrevocably, unless we go digging and find the originals we hopefully have elsewhere, compressed.
And now iCloud Drive as in the article? A team needs to be formed at Apple to have a long hard look at how they're handling their users' data and ensure it's done with the utmost of care. This should be a wakeup call to other companies as well. Users are entrusting you with their live's precious moments, or even their worst of times that may need to or want to be recalled upon later and you should be a good steward of that data. In the case of Apple, at least provide a reliable way to backup or export data such as Messages in iCloud, then perhaps I'd have a bit more than my many wasted hours fighting with your software and hoping that I have everything.
"Move fast and break things" really was a terrible mantra.
> When the Mac synced next, the conversation reappeared with random messages in it
Now consider that courts will use this evidence in case of a crime being suspected. And they will presume Apple’s backups to be more reliable source of information that anything you can produce.
In Britain this happened, we sent over 500 people to prison for stealing money, but it turned out the IT system was bug ridden and didn’t sync transactions properly.
Sorry, I tried to edit my post to clarify that better. What I meant was something like it reappeared with some messages between from yesterday, then the week before, but not very cohesive. Like some deletes failed or something. It was like a chosen few messages survived, and waiting longer didn't seem to have any effect on them disappearing.
I'm sad I had to delete the conversation, but this wasn't the first time I was sent an image or something and it.. just wouldn't be there on a device and there was no way to make it download. So it seemed something was corrupt, or misbehaving.
(As an aside while trying to sort everything out over the past day or so, a message from someone else was only on my iPad afterwards (it disappeared from my Mac and iPhone), and toggling sync did not cause it to propagate anywhere..)
Sure, I have 126GB 'in the cloud' apparently, but come on. The only fix I could see was to start fresh: so I set up a fresh Messages app on macOS, left it to sync overnight with the screen on until the "Downloading messages from iCloud banner" went away and made sure the important conversations showed "0 images in iCloud".
I then exported what I could via unofficial tools but I still feel like I've lost data, which is painful for me. Such as, searching my earliest known message via another backup showed it in the search results on macOS, but clicking on it showed nothing but a blank conversation. It wasn't even in Messages' SQLite DB after multiple "Sync Now"s and restarts. How the heck did it get that bad? Are the PMs at Apple just that misaligned?
I finally tried deleting the most problematic conversation, which went "ok" on the Mac at first, but caused the apps on my iPhone and iPad to do nothing but crash on open. When the Mac synced next, the conversation reappeared with our past messages, but with random gaps in the history (e.g. messages from yesterday, then a week ago, maybe a month before that, etc -- so a incomplete/weirdly ordered deletion). What a bloody mess. I ended up doing a "Disable & Delete" on iCloud Messages. Now I have to wait the the 30 day waiting period for Apple's systems to wipe hopefully wipe the data in that bucket if I feel like trying again. All this certainly does not give me confidence in using iMessage (even with Messages in iCloud turned off) in the future.
------
I'm just.... very very frustrated. How can they take the most precious of their users' data and give no fucks about it? The same thing with "shared photo albums" where it's not (or wasn't) immediately obvious that they re-compress all images and videos to much lower quality because I guess they didn't feel like deciding whose iCloud storage it would take up. So now my friend and I have photos and videos that are irrevocably, unless we go digging and find the originals we hopefully have elsewhere, compressed.
And now iCloud Drive as in the article? A team needs to be formed at Apple to have a long hard look at how they're handling their users' data and ensure it's done with the utmost of care. This should be a wakeup call to other companies as well. Users are entrusting you with their live's precious moments, or even their worst of times that may need to or want to be recalled upon later and you should be a good steward of that data. In the case of Apple, at least provide a reliable way to backup or export data such as Messages in iCloud, then perhaps I'd have a bit more than my many wasted hours fighting with your software and hoping that I have everything.
"Move fast and break things" really was a terrible mantra.