Some users experience iCloud backup issues after iOS 16.3 update

Some users experience backup issues with iCloud after iOS 16.3

iOS 16.3 was released a couple of weeks ago, precisely on January 23, to supported iPhones. The software update brought security keys (enabling physical keys to be used to further secure your account) and also expanded Advanced Data Protection for iCloud to users outside of the U.S. It seems, though, that some users have been having trouble ever since with backing up their data to their iCloud. The affected users have taken it to Reddit and Apple Support Forums to share that they’re seeing an error message when trying to back up data. The message says “An Unexpected Error Occurred. Please try again later”.

The users report they see the message when trying to enable previously enabled features (it seems the update disabled them). Among those, there are iCloud Drive and iCloud Backup.

One interesting aspect is that the issue could be related to two-factor authentication. It seems in most cases, this security feature is not enabled for the affected users’ iCloud accounts.

However, some users report having the same issue despite having two-factor auth turned on. For the moment, the root cause of the problem is still unknown.

Apple’s iCloud Data Security Overview article, which was published together with the release of iOS 16.3, details that new Apple IDs require two-factor authentication to be enabled. Two-factor auth is also required for various other features like end-to-end encryption.

Some users have reportedly attempted to contact Apple’s support and it looks like Cupertino may be aware of the issue. There’s no fix yet, though.