private db access disabled for this account

[jotka]

it's been working fine for months. Recently:

2021-10-14 08:35:22 INFO Generating list of files in iCloud. This may take a long time if you have a large photo collection. Please be patient. Nothing is being downloaded at this time
private db access disabled for this account. Please wait a few minutes then try again. The remote servers might be trying to throttle requests. (ACCESS_DENIED)

The same when 2fa has been refreshed with /usr/local/bin/sync-icloud.sh --Initialise

[bauzer714]

@boredazfcuk can probably help more, but my first thought is it's running too frequent? Do you have multiple containers and/or a short interval time?

Mine is 24 hours, and it finished the updates as expected a few moments ago.

[jotka]

Do you have multiple containers and/or a short interval time?

no just, one.

[boredazfcuk]

Yeah, @bauzer714 is correct. This error can occur if the container is synchronised too frequently. I hit it quite often when I'm testing new releases if I restart my containers a bunch of times in quick succession.

So, it seems to be related to some sort of connection throttling by Apple, but because it's a server side error there's not much I can do to fix it.

It's also possible that this error is generated for a variety of reasons too. Apple may lock the account if you hit it too much, or if their servers are under heavy load, or in response to a Distributed Denial of Service attack etc.

[jotka]

yeah, but the thing is I have the normal update interval, like once per day.
I needed to reboot the NAS device docker-iclodpd is running on, after the first container start I have this :-|

[boredazfcuk]

To be honest, I'd just keep an eye on it for a while. These things usually clear themselves up.

However, I've also notice that they stack, so if you trigger it, it might lock you out for 15mins, but if you hit it again within those 15mins, the second hit adds half and hour, third hit may add an hour. I've had it before where I've needed to switch of the sync on it for a day so that it went 48hrs between syncs.

[jotka]

yeah, it seems that I had some other integration trying to connect (Home Assistant). I was getting emails from iCloud all the time saying "something was trying to connect to your iCloud account). I think it may be the reason. I will wait 48h and try again with icloudpd. Thanks for the awesome container!

[boredazfcuk]

No probs. Hopefully that solves it. I'll still close this issue off though as there's nothing I can really do about this due to it being a server side issue.

[Alban9]

Try to turn off ADP (Advanced Data Protection). I turned if off on my iPhone.

[Recurzion]

I know this is a closed issue, but I found another cause of this message in case this helps someone:
Turning off "Access iCloud Data on the Web" will also show this error message. From an iPhone, this setting is under Settings, Apple ID, iCloud, Access iCloud Data on the Web.

[fredsherbet]

And to add to @Recurzion's comment - you also need to disable Advanced Data Protection (in the same place - Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Advanced Data Protection)