I'm terrified of losing my iPad or having anything else happen to it, but somehow I can't get back to iCloud backup. What could be wrong?
Making a backup is indeed very important. If you don't have a backup, and your iPad is stolen or lost, you'll lose everything: your contacts, your messages, your photos, you name it. Backing up via iCloud shouldn't be a labor-intensive process, but occasionally there are some complications.
Backing up should be easy in iOS, but sometimes things go wrong.
iTunes!
Before we start figuring out what's wrong, it's important that you back up your iPad as soon as possible. After all, chances are you've had this one for a while, and every day without a backup is a day you'll lose more data, so that's your priority right now. But wasn't that the problem? Right, that didn't work. But that was through iCloud. It should just work through iTunes. Of course you need a PC or Mac for this.
We dare to say that almost everyone has a computer at home, but if not, you can always go to friends or family. You can make a backup via iTunes (after you have downloaded, installed and started iTunes) by connecting the iPad to the computer with the cable. Click on the top right of the iPad and then Make a backup. Once this process is complete, we can mess around with the iPad as we please, your data is safe. But what's going on with your iCloud backups?
Before you try anything else, make a backup in iTunes.
Lack of space?
The most common cause of iCloud backup failures is lack of space. Now we hear you think: we could have kicked in that open door ourselves, but the problem is sometimes a bit more complex than you think. If your backup is too large, you can do two things: increase the storage capacity in iCloud, or reduce the backup. The latter sometimes causes problems. Because what if you Settings / iCloud / Storage & Backup / Manage Storage disabled all major components, but your backup still turns out to be 7 GB (while Apple only gives you 5 GB)? Then you suffer from an annoying phenomenon that occasionally rears its head.
Sometimes the Messages app creates a gigantic archive, and you can't turn it off in the management of your backup. You will probably find the culprit if you press Settings / General /Usage. The solution? Unfortunately, that is deleting conversations that are jam-packed with photos, videos, and so on. Are you very attached to your conversations? Then you can also download the media, and then manually remove them from the conversation, so you can keep the messages yourself. To remove the media, long press it, and choose More.
The iMessage app can secretly hide a huge amount of data.
Even more lack of space?
Sometimes there is also a lack of space because more than one device is associated with the same Apple ID for iCloud. In such a case you can use up your 5 GB fairly quickly, and making a backup copy will not work. The solution? The least hassle is buying additional storage capacity. But it is probably wiser to limit the size of the backup by using more different cloud solutions.
So save your photos and videos in, for example, Dropbox, then they no longer need to be included in the backup. Do you have a Gmail address? Then use the Gmail app instead of Apple's Mail app, so that mail is not downloaded locally. There are even more solutions to be found. It may seem cumbersome, but it's cheaper than adding storage capacity, and less hassle than working with two iCloud accounts.
If you have more than one iOS device, your storage capacity can go fast. Limit the size of your backup.
Link
In order to upload a backup to iCloud, a connection is of course required. If you have an iPad with 3G, don't expect that to be enough to upload your backup. That uploading only happens via WiFi, because otherwise you would have used up your data bundle within a day. Do you mainly connect to public networks, but your iPad doesn't want to upload the backup anyway? Then check if there is a login page.
If you're actively using the Internet, you'll have that page for yourself in Safari. But if you only use the Wi-Fi connection because you want to make the backup, you may not realize that you have to accept the conditions of the public network first. An unstable connection (one that often breaks) also causes the upload to fail.
Make sure you are connected to a stable internet connection (Wi-Fi with one bar is not so useful).
