Apple informs developers it has fixed iCloud syncing issues

While iCloud services are currently experiencing some issues across various tools, Apple does have some good news to share. Directly to some developers, at least. In this case, it’s related to iCloud sync, and the fact it hasn’t been working so well for some third-party apps. But it looks like a fix is incoming.

Cloud Storage iCloud Limits

As first reported today by 9to5Mac, Apple has apparently informed developers that it has identified the issue causing some 503 errors and sync issues with iCloud and third-party apps. What’s more, the company has patched the problem, and that fix is rolling out now. Which means the ongoing iCloud syncing issues that many developers have been running into for quite some time may finally be fixed.

The issue revolved around CloudKit, a technology designed to make developing cloud apps, and the inherent need for syncing, even easier. It allows developers to encrypt data and much more. However, developers using CloudKit are running into issues that prevent end users from actually being able to sync data to and from their apps. They were running into this error message:

<CKError 0x6000006ec420: “Service Unavailable” (6/2022); “Request failed with http status code 503”; Retry after 30.0 seconds>

The original report says Apple has reached out to developers directly, letting them know that the issue has been fixed. The company did not go out of its way to say, explicitly, what was causing the problem to begin with, but it did confirm that users were being directed to a 503 error.

It appears that a bug was causing the issue, while some have blamed overall throttling with some apps reaching critical user usage. While some developers have only recently run into the issue, some have been experiencing it for months. Even from the initial iOS 15 betas. But, better late than never, one imagines.

As mentioned above, iCloud services are currently experiencing outages for some end users across various tools, including Photos, Game Center, and even iCloud Backups. But that’s not directly related to this particular issue for third-party app developers.