[sra]

I'm having enormous trouble getting iCloud to work on my various devices (MacBook Air, iPhone 3GS and iPad2). I have had a MobileMe account for some time, and in theory that should just have transferred. No such luck.

As soon as they were out, I managed to update the MBA to 10.7.2, iTunes to 10.5, and the iPhone and iPad to iOS 5. The MobileMe to iCloud migration assistant then told me that I would have to change my Apple ID to an email address, and so I changed it to my primary email address (not my @me.com address). It chugged along claiming to migrate my MobileMe account to iCloud. Now my various devices tell me my MobileMe stuff is on iCloud, but this is by no means true. Some of the things I can't get to work:

1) "Find my Mac": On the MBA, in the iCloud system preferences panel, I have checked Mail&Notes, Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, and Documents & Data. When I try to check "Find My Mac" it won't let me, claiming that "Recovery System Update [is] Required." But when I was doing the 10.7.2 update, it also did a 400+ MB update of something involving "recovery system" (can't remember the details, and don't know how to check). Now System Update tells me all of my software is up to date. Clicking the "Update" button on the iCloud panel just does the same thing. What do I have to do to enable this function?

2) Recognizing my @me.com address: On my iPhone, the iCloud preferences for Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Documents & Data and "Find my iPhone" are On. When I try to turn on Mail, though, I get a dialog telling me I have to set up an @me.com address. I have one, from MobileMe. That is linked to my AppleID. If I try to choose the same one, the dialog tells me that that one is already taken (it is - I have it). I can get Mail which is sent to this address (e.g. the "Welcome to iCloud" message that arrived when I migrated from MobileMe) through the Mail app on my iPhone. How do I get the system to recognize this? The iCloud preferences panel on the iPhone has my correct account. I have tried "Deleting" this account (much scarier than "signing out"...), and then re-enabling it, but that doesn't help. The same thing happens on my iPad and also on the iCloud website: trying to enable Mail synching fails with this dialog demanding that I establish an @me.com address.

3) Getting stuff to synch: Although it looks as if Contacts and Calendar synching are on (and yes, I have enabled this account in the preferences for each on the mac), nothing synchs. None of the information that was on my calendar before the transition shows up on the iCloud.com calendar, although it is still on my iPhone. New items added to one calendar don't propagate to any others.

There is more, but these are the things I have wasted a lot of time trying to fix.

Unlike many, I was perfectly happy with MobileMe, where stuff got synched without any problem. On top of that, it also provided hosting for a website&blog my wife made with iWeb, for which we now need to find a commercial host. I didn't mind paying $149/year for the family membership, but even though iCloud is free, so far it isn't worth it (I've had to spend a lot more than $149 worth of my own time trying to get it to work, and so far it does nothing useful).

I will be very grateful if someone has solutions to some or all of the issues above. Apple's help system has been worse than useless so far.

Thanks in advance,

--

Steve Anderson

[Spheric Harlot]

Reboot machine into recovery mode (hold down Cmd-R at boot).

Open disk utility and repair disk.

Repair permissions (it actually makes a difference in this case, apparently).

Reboot normally and re-apply the Recovery System Update (get it from the Apple knowledge base).

That fixed Find my Mac and the failure to sync for me.

[sra]

Sorry, but this hasn't done anything for me. I went through the steps you describe, and reinstalled the Recovery System Update. Nothing has changed: "Find My Mac" is still greyed out and claims to require an update, no sync with Calendar or Contacts, and attempts to turn Mail sync on still get that message that I have to set up an @me.com address.

One other question: is there any way to get rid of the MobileMe update icon in the menubar? It only indicates "No Devices syncing" (which makes sense, since its former functionality has disappeared into the iCloud). And should there be something similar for iCloud, to indicate when syncing is taking place or to initiate a sync?

As far as I can tell, iCloud is absolutely useless and a major step backward.

[racingonline]

Had all kinds of the same types of problems until the early part of this week. Attributed it to server slowdowns.

[kimstmike]

I have had nothing but problems with iCloud. The apple support resources appear to be unprepared to help. Until iCloud is under control I would recommend avoiding it at all costs!!