If you use the iCloud Drive to store any of your files, such as your Astro Gold charts, there may be times when you experience what I call IDP (iCloud Drive Panic). Look over the numerous posts on the apple website and you will see the symptoms of IDP. It appears to affect all types of files. For example, one user posted:
“I am in panic finding some files missing yesterday! I
have two Macs, the old one was running Sierra, and the other was running High Sierra 10.13.4. Days ago I upgraded the old on to High Sierra 10.13.5 and turned off both. I woke up next day finding some very important files in iCloud Drive vanished, including ALL Pages documents, some Word documents, PDFs which I had no local copy, but some other files are still there.”
Scary stuff! I can’t imagine the horror of waking up one day and discovering months, or years, of client files suddenly gone! And unfortunately, it is a flaw in the iCloud system, not the app. So the app, like Astro Gold, is not at fault. But Apple does have solutions they recommend to get back your missing files…and this includes getting the chart files back. Most important, of course, is to make sure you have an internet connection turned on, as the files are stored in the cloud.
First, Apple recommends checking your storage quota. If you are only storing chart files on the iCloud Drive you can skip this one, as it is unlikely that you will fill up your quote with chart files alone. But if you store other files on the iCloud Drive (such as music, or video, or photos), check your available storage. The iCloud Drive gives you 5GB free storage, but
anything over that you have to pay for. And if you max out your free space, it not only stops you from adding new files, but sometimes can seem to make the files already there invisible. Apple recommends either purchasing more storage space, or deleting some files.
Second, if you have iCloud Drive active on more than one device, temporarily turn off iCloud Drive on all of the other devices so it is only on one device. Now turn iCloud drive off on the current device, restart the device, turn iCloud drive back on, and make sure you are signed in with the correct Apple ID. If that doesn’t work,
Third, turn off saving charts on the iCloud drive on Astro Gold, then turn it on. If that doesn’t work, restart the phone, and if that doesn’t work….
Fourth, Apple suggests you try to jumpstart the iCloud drive by saving another type of file, such as a Word document or photo, onto the iCloud. If you see that file showing, you should then see the files that had disappeared start to repopulate.
Fifth, Apple suggests that you check to make sure you did not accidentally delete your files, and the easiest way to do this is to log into iCloud.com with your Apple ID, and do one of the following:
- Click Account Settings, then in the bottom left-hand corner under Advanced, then click Restore Files. Wait for the files to populate, then look them over. You can either choose Select all, or tick the ones you want to restore. Click Restore, then click Done.
- Go to iCloud Drive, and then look in the bottom-right corner. Click Recently Deleted Items, and see if the chart files are there. If so you can restore them.
Sixth, if none of the above works, Apple suggests you contact their support department. Here is a general webpage for their support https://support.apple.com/contact but you may wish to find the Apple website for your specific country and then look for the support option from there.